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Wingate University Women’s Swimming 
Training Trip Diary

Wingate University Women's Swimming Team

Day 1
Friday, December 26, 2003

We arrived at school for a 6 p.m. practice. Unfortunately, Caitlin Wehrle was unable to return because of massive knee problems. We’re going to miss her and her sense of humor that she brings to the team. The workout was fairly easy in order to get us ready for the long trip ahead. After practice, we returned to our rooms to pack and catch up with swimmers who we haven’t seen since final exams. It’s going to be an early morning and a long day of driving tomorrow.

Day 2
Saturday, December 27, 2003

We hauled our over-packed bags down to a frosty van at 6 a.m. We’re hoping for warmer weather in Florida. After packing two 12-passenger vans to the roof, we were ready to go. Destination: Altamonte Springs, Florida. Coach Sanocki drove the green van with Christy Cousins, Deanne DeMattos, Mo Driscoll, Jessie Herman, Beth Voetsch and plenty of extra space. Kristyn Hoffman (driving the other van) peeled out with hopes of keeping up with Coach Sanocki for the long haul. With Sarah Utz riding shotgun, the freshmen Ashley Gunzelman, Laura Gold, Kat Apple, Kristin Newman, Bridget Melvin, Julie Gundersen and Tiffany Sochurek piled in the back with no space to spare.

The freshmen caught up on their sleep the entire ride to Florida with the exception of the stops for breakfast and lunch. Stop-and-go traffic slowed us down, but we eventually arrived in sunny Florida ten-and-a-half hours later at 4:30 p.m. After a quick pit stop at the hotel to unload our stuff and meet Stephanie Reinshuttle, Kayla Walrond and Autumn Yanchunis, we headed over to the pool for our first workout (long course). After a workout that we considered easy compared to what we’re expecting, we went back to the hotel to divide into our rooms at the Marriott Residence Inn in Altamonte Springs.

As it turns out, the upperclassmen are in one room, the sophomores are in one room, and the freshmen are in one room (with the exception of Ashley). We took the two vans to the Publix grocery store to stock up on food for the week to come. A group of swimmers went to Fazoli’s for dinner while others decided to cook in their rooms. We headed off to bed to get ready for the torturous training we were expecting in the future.

Stephanie Reinshuttle

Day 3
Sunday, December 28, 2003

We woke up disappointed to a partly cloudy day. We ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and drove to the pool for our first real day of training. Our day brightened with the arrival of Todd, Coach Sanocki’s buddy from college. We swam from 8:45 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. While practice was difficult, we were expecting a much harder long course practice…the real fun must be starting this afternoon.

After returning to the hotel for a quick lunch break we headed to Bally’s at 1:30 p.m. to lift weights. Following our Bally’s workout, we went to the pool for a short course workout from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. We split into two groups with the distance freestylers coached by Todd and IM/strokers coached by Coach Sanocki. We thought it was an incredibly hard practice, but Coach Sanocki said it was the easiest day of the trip. We hope he is kidding or else…we are scared for the intense training to come. We returned to the hotel, ate dinner and crashed early to get a good night of sleep.

Day 4
Monday, December 29, 2003

After our long course practice this morning from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., people are hurting already. Our muscles are so sore. We had a longer break between practices today, since afternoon practice was 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. It was a long practice; we thought it would never end. For this short course practice, we divided into two groups again.

Todd helped with the distance freestylers with learning the proper pace for the 500. After dinner, we had a craving for ice cream, so we loaded into a van searching for ice cream. Stephanie drove us to the Little Dairy Manor, which we thought looked good; however, when we tried to order we found out they were out of hard ice cream, brownies, bananas and the main candy components of the “Twister.” Slightly frustrated, we drove around Altamonte Springs looking for a better place to satisfy our cravings. After settling on T.G.I. Friday’s^®, half of us decided to go across the street to McDonalds. We sprinted (on sore legs) to get a McFlurry. It was definitely worth it.

Day 5
Tuesday, December 30, 2003

This morning after breakfast we swam from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. Practice didn’t get so well today…we had to start a set over because some of us weren’t making the interval. After we got in trouble, we sped it up and practice improved. After swimming, we went over to Bally’s to lift and do some dryland work with Todd. The dryland (which he deemed worse than boot camp) consisted of quarter jumps, half jumps, full jumps and abs. If our legs were not killing us before, they definitely are now.

After lunch, we headed back to the pool for our afternoon workout. Apparently during lunch, Todd and Coach Sanocki devised a game for us. It was a relatively simple game (in theory). They gave each of us a target time for swimming the 100. Every four minutes, we had to sprint a hundred and get our time. The number of seconds we were under the given time, we subtracted that number from 100. The goal was to accumulate 100 points.

For example, if your given time was 1:10 and you swam 1:05, you were under by 5 seconds, which equals 5 points. Most people averaged around 20 100’s. Kat got out after only 12, whereas Bridget and Deanne did 25, Kayla 26 and Kristyn swam a big 28 100’s. The rest of the swimmers cheered on these girls and they eventually finished at 6:00 p.m.

Unfortunately, that didn’t give us much time to get ready for our team dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. At the restaurant, we took advantage of the salad and dessert bar. After we were stuffed, we went back to the hotel to recuperate from an exhausting day of swimming.

Tiffany Sochurek

Day 6
Wednesday, December 31, 2003

This morning, we woke up incredibly excited because we only have one practice today. We swam long course from 8:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. thinking we still had to go to the gym afterwards to lift. But Coach Sanocki gave us a break and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. The afternoon was spent sunning by the hotel pool and making plans for the New Year’s. Stephanie and Autumn returned home to celebrate the New Year with friends and family. Kristyn, Sarah, and Kat decided to go bowling, but ending up Putt-Putting after discovering that the bowling alley was closed. They ended the night with a trip to Steak ‘n Shake for dessert.  Deanne, Christy, Beth, Jessie, Kayla, Mo, Ashley, Kristin, Julie, Brigit, Laura and Tiffany went to Church Street Station in Orlando.

Day 7 
Thursday, January 1, 2004

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Since we had New Year’s Day off, we decided to go to Daytona Beach. We piled into the vans and left at 10:30 a.m. and drove right onto the beach at 11:30 a.m. The sun was shining bright, but it was windy so we spread our towels out between two cars to block the wind. Tiffany took advantage of the waves and rented a soft surfboard while other people played in the waves.

Some random guy wanted to take a picture of us. We all were a little scared and joked that it would be on the Internet later. Hopefully we’re wrong. We returned from the beach tired, sandy, and sunburned. We went to Publix for a quick shopping trip. Most of the freshmen decided to eat out at Bennigan’s, while most of us stayed at the hotel to cook dinner. After a well-deserved day off, we’re back to doubles tomorrow.

Day 8  
Friday, January 2, 2004

We woke up for our long course morning practice from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. After practice, we went to Bally’s for weights. This afternoon, we had practice from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Today was much pace to get us ready for our meet in Tampa tomorrow. We returned to the hotel to relax and get ready for tomorrow. Today was a pretty uneventful day.

Day 9
Saturday, January 3, 2004

Today, we had two relay swim meets. Since we had to leave at 8:00 a.m. for the University of Tampa, we had to go to breakfast at 7:45 even though it started at 8:00 a.m. We felt bad for the lady setting up the breakfast because as fast as she could put out the food we took it.

On the way to Tampa we took a detour to the Orlando Airport to drop off Todd. We were sad to see him go, but hopefully we’ll see him in February at the Blue Grass Mountain Conference meet. When we arrived at the pool, we did a quick warm-up. In the morning relay event, we placed fourth behind the University of Tampa, Tulane and Georgia Southern. We defeated Washington University of St. Louis.

 After the meet finished at 1:30 p.m., we went to Wendy’s for a quick lunch. The next session started at 3:00 p.m., so we had a very quick 10-minute warm-up to get us ready to race again. This time we placed third behind Tampa and Tulane again. We defeated West Virginia Wesleyan and SUNY Geneseo. We feel we swam our best considering the hard training we have been doing.

We were glad that we had some fans at these meets. Mandy Booth (a former Wingate swimmer) and her parents came for the morning session to cheer for us. Autumn’s parents came for both sessions. They brought their new puppy, which was held by almost every person at the meets. Stephanie’s family came to the afternoon session to support us all. After swimming all day we were starving, so we stopped at Golden Corral for dinner.

Kristyn Hoffman

Day 10
Sunday, January 4, 2004

This morning (our last full day of training trip), we practice from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. We did much distance per stroke drilling. During our break, some people lounged at the pool to soak up the last day of sun. At 2:00 p.m., we went to Bally’s to lift, do cardio and do abs. This afternoon, we did many 50’s where we had to pay attention to the number of strokes we were taking per lap. Tonight we rewarded our hard work with a team dinner at the Olive Garden.

Day 11-LAST DAY!!
Monday, January 5, 2004

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY CHRISTY!!

We ate a quick breakfast before swimming from 7:45 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. Once we thought we were home free, Coach Sanocki threw in a random hard last set. After the set we took a team picture in the water and hurried back to the hotel to pack up our stuff.

We were checked-out and on the road back to North Carolina by 10:30 a.m. The ride home was much quicker than the ride to Florida. Luckily there was virtually no traffic. We made it home in eight hours even after stopping for gas twice and lunch.

Over the course of eleven days, we had 14 practices and two meets. We swam about 55,000 meters and 30,000 yards, which totals approximately 55 miles.

The Bulldogs practice and compete in the six-lane, 25-yard Cannon Athletic Complex Natatorium. The swimming facility is utilized for athletic events, lesson, classes and recreation. The natatorium also houses the office of aquatics director and head women's swimming coach Kirk Sanocki.

Please send all comments or suggestions regarding the website to dsherwod@wingate.edu