So this is the second time I'm sitting down to finish this entry. Last week I somehow got distracted so I'm determined to finish this tonight!
So where to begin?
In June I went to a gala for the Challenged Athletes Foundation as they're one of my sponsors. It was held at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC. The event was to raise money for sports grants or equipment for challenged athletes and to thank our supporters. I had an idea of what to expect, but that night was better than anything I could have imagined! There were some amazing stories from athletes about their challenges and successes. CAF does a great job of showing athletes, supporters, and others that anything is possible and there's no reason to give up. I loved seeing my other athlete/friends dressed up instead of dressed for a swim meet or triathlon. The event ended with a performance by Macy Gray which was amazing, she has such a great voice! Us athletes went on stage for her last performance and danced to her last song. :) I left that night feeling inspired and grateful to have CAF support countless athletes across the world and all together we raised $1.4 million! Above is a picture of myself and my friend, Paratriathlete World Champion, Melissa Stockwell at the gala.
This past week I had a national meet up in Quebec. It was only to get looked at by the paralympic classifiers due to my previous nerve injury. As the paralympics are divided into different classes based on function, I knew I should be looked at again so I can compete against people with similar mobility as me. I really had no clue what to expect as the process consists of a long muscle test followed by some swimming, but I went in with an open mind. The meet started on Friday and I was classified on Thursday. Late afternoon that day (Thursday) the classifiers decided to drop me to a lower mobility class...I was relieved that the stressful process was over. That was bittersweet; bitter in the sense of knowing you're slightly weaker, but sweet that you're competing against others with similar mobility. So the next morning I had the 100 free prelims and dropped roughly 15 seconds since last month! I was beyond happy and then the classifiers came over to my coach and I and asked if I could get muscle tested again for my right arm. Again I started to become stressed. They wanted to figure out why on land I can't lift my arm, but for my backstroke I can lift it straight out of the water. Even I don't know how it's possible, but since they came up with the same results again the classifiers officially left me in my new class. At least I know the classifiers are very thorough and really make sure that each athlete competes fairly.
Saturday I swam the 50 free and breastroke. I'm not a breastroker so I wasn't looking forward to that event, but I dropped 9 seconds since the last time I swam it at a big meet! I was certainly shocked and to top it off I dropped another 10 seconds on my 50 free since last month! That's just unheard of! Sunday I swam 50 back and dropped 14 seconds since last month...again! That was crazy! I brought home 3 golds out of 4 events too. And best of all during that whole meet, I had absolutely NO nerve pain!
So overall I dropped over 30 seconds since June and am 30 seconds under world ranking cuts! I'm now only 10 seconds away from my old times before my injury and have to drop an additional 5 to make the London cuts! I can do this, I can really do this, especially with my new training schedule and great team I have. I feel really hopeful about making the London cuts with the way I've been dropping time, but I'm taking each day at a time. I've realized that swimming is not my whole life, a passion and keeping my muscles in shape, but not the end all. Regardless with what happens at trials next year, I'm going to keep on swimming.:)
Other than swimming and training, I'll be working at Hospital for Special Care's Ivan Lendl Adaptive Sports Camp in a few weeks. My job is to be a counselor, but to also improve on how the camp can be more accommodating to children with Muscular Dystrophy and neurological disorders. Most people don't know that someone with MD can fatigue very quickly out in the heat or that taking multiple rests is very beneficial while being active. I'm excited to work with the kids and ultimately see what I can do to bring more kids with MD out of the house and on the court, deck, or track.
I saw Rihanna a couple days ago and she was amazing! Sounds exactly like she does on the radio without lip singing. I love her hair and want her hair cut, but without the red lol ;)
Summa summa summa time!
