Beast of the East

Now I'm really regretting driving back to school when I did.  If I had stayed a couple more days I could have seen Buffalo Grove High School beat Wheeling High School and win the MSL East title, both of which we hadn't done in ten years.  We are once again the "Beast of the East."  I would have loved to have seen them face Wheeling, but their win on Senior Night the previous Friday against Hersey High School was possibly the most exciting dual I've seen.  The energy of both teams, the coaches, and the fans was unbelievable, and you could feel the intensity in the gym.  We started off strong with huge bonus points while holding them back on bonus points.  Towards the upperweights we slipped a little and lost our lead, but just when it looked grim for us, our heavyweight came from behind to pin his opponent in the third period and the whole place erupted with cheers.  That put us ahead going into the final match, in which our 106 pounder, a freshman who we recently moved up to varsity, sealed the deal with a dominant technical fall.

The job wasn't done that night, but they had clinched at least a share of the division title (if they had lost last night to Wheeling they would've had a three way tie for first), so the coaches held out on their deal to make Monday's practice fun.  After a warmup jog of one mile, we drilled for about an hour, had one live match, played some dodgeball, then finished up by letting everyone swim in the pool.  It was a nice change of pace, not to mention still a good workout.

Swimming is one of the most difficult cardiovascular workouts.  Just a few hundred yards makes running seem like a piece of cake.  I use it frequently in my training during the off-season, but during the season I usually only have time for it if I'm relegated to working out in the pool because of an injury.  My swimming workouts usually consist of 500 yards, or 20 lengths of the pool.  I usually break it up into sprints of one to four lengths of the pool, with a minute or so of rest in between each.  It's a phenomenal workout in half an hour or less.  If you're injured or have a day off, make your way to the pool instead of just sitting around.

Make a splash,
Jeff

P.S.  DO NOT try swimming in the deep end unless you have been instructed on proper swimming form, and do not swim somewhere where there isn't a lifeguard.