Results from World Champs

http://www.durbanworldcup.co.za/
The Durban World Cup site has great articles about each night of finals from the world cup...and a picture of me attempting to swim breaststroke! I have taken so many photos that I would love to share with everyone but the computer that I am using right now looks like the first computer my family ever owned! I think it is running Windows 95...and there is absolutely nothing resembling a USB port to upload photos...the only imput is a 3 1/2 floppy disk! So I guess I will keep on snapping photos of the area...and just upload upon my return to G-ville in December. Erica was awesome and took pictures on my camera while I was swimming in the 5K yesterday...she's got a GREAT one of my finish...thanks to Erica...I get to pay her back while she swims the 10 and 25!
http://www.fina.org/FinaWorldOpenWaterChampionships3rd_resultsW5k.html
Here are just the simple time results of the women's 5K finish. It doesn't tell you much so I'm going to give a race report. There were 22 women in the race and we started 10 minutes after the men. During the race there were a ton of boats on the course so we were constantly breathing diesel fumes...always fun. The start wasn't very eventful...there was to much room an too few swimmers for it to be rough. We got to the first turn buoys in a large pack, there was quite a bit of hitting and kicking around those buoys. The rest of the first lap was calm with a lot of jockeying for position (drafting position). When we came back by the start/finish area (one lap completed, one to go) the two Russian swimmers broke away from the pack. Unfortunatly I did not see them until they had built quite a lead over the rest of the pack. (I have a ton of excuses but I just didn't see them!:) Going around the first turn buoys on the second lap, I noticed that there were some swimmers that we were not catching (they must not be guys from the men's race...we had been catching a few stragglers). I realized that no one in the main pack was going to go after them so I did it my self...I spent the entire 2nd lap pulling the rest of the group to try and catch the breakaways...but no one in my group was going to help! I was SOOO mad...and the one girl on my feet, making me do all the work...was Britta (GER). But I gave it my best shot...unfortunatly, we let the Russians get to far ahead and as we we nearing the finish I knew that I had run out of room to catch them. I stopped swimming and checked who was still on my feet...only Britta. So I mad her go ahead of me and started drafting off her to get some rest (all of on minute to catch my breath). And then it was finish time...and I sure wasn't going to give the one medal left to someone who had made me do all the work...so I turned on some rocket legs (thats for you mom) and went right by her in the last 200m. It was a great race...the Russian girls swam very smart and very fast...and I got a really cool bronze medal! The rest of the USA team did good...the men finished 17th and 22nd and Beth finished 17th in the womens race.
About 30 minutes after the race they did a beautiful awards ceremonly at the race site. I do want to mention that the Aussie who won the men's race, Grant, swam a great race! We met at the New Jersey 10k and he also swam at the Tiburon mile in San Fran where he got 2nd to Chad Carvin. This was the end of his swimming career becasue he is going home to get married in 3 weeks...but her sure went out on top as a World Champion!
Speaking of World Champions...we still only have one of them in the McLarty household...that's Dustin (Aquathlon, 2001).
After returning to the hotel and taking a well deserved shower...the river is not a clean as it looks...team USA headed down for dinner and then we all took taxies to the GOLD MARKET! That place was insane...I didn't even know that jewlery existed in the world...we only covered about 1/8th of the place and my eyes couldn't take looking at any more sparkley stuff...and I'm pretty sure all of it was real...becasue they were selling it at insane prices! Definitely did NOT get any shopping done...until Chris spotted one rug/scarf store in the middle of all the gold and diamonds...and we were all over that one!
Got about 12 hours of sleep last night...I think it was well deserved...and enjoyed the feeling of everyone else going off to swim practice at 8 this morning and me: just doing nothing! But (MOM) I promise that I will get something accomplished while I am here...it's not the best place to go outside the hotel and go for a jog...buth they've got a workout room upstairs with a treadmill!
I think this post is reaching it's limit...I wish that I had some photos on here for you all!