Today was beach day. We spent our morning running around the empty beach, "swimming," building giant turtles out of sand, and buying ridiculous sunglasses. It was a welcome break from the nearly 13,000 yards that we put in yesterday. Was it restful? Not really. But it was fun.
Tonight, after putting in a solid 4000 yard IM set, we set off for dinner at the Chinese Buffet.
Before I explain the buffet in more detail, let me first outline how much we like to eat. Since we got here, I have been packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat in the shower immediately after getting out of the pool. We have purchased gallons of Gatorade, pounds of Nutella, and at least 200 bananas. There are giant cartons of flavor-blasted Goldfish in every room. There are baby carrots in every refridgerator and there are probably enough slices of bread to stretch from our hotel to the CMS pool, a couple miles away. We like to eat.
In general, I am not a huge fan of buffets. I tend to think of them as "feeding" not actually "eating." However, given the circumstances, feeding is exactly what we need after practice. Upon walking in the door, we were quickly ushered past the rows of hot food to the back room, which, fortunately, we had completely to ourselves. We sat and waited, somewhat patiently, for Jenn to give us the nod.
Plates were piled high wich chicken, both fried and skewered, onion rings (yes, onion rings), spring rolls, fried rice, regular rice, three or four different kinds of sushi, and in the other hand--cookies. Round one. Round two and we decided to be "responsible" and eat something that wasn't previously frozen and then tossed into oil, and we made for the salad and fruit. Round three and we were back to the fried goods. We swam 7000 yards, whatever. There was a frozen yogurt machine with multi-colored sprinkles. Need I say more?
By the time we were finished I'm sure the average number of calories consumed per person was well over 1500. Probably closer to 2000. Again, we swam 7000 yards, so whatever.
Tomorrow morning we'll be at it again. Then tomorrow afternoon too. In the next three days we'll have six practices and I would guess that we'll swim somewhere around 35,000 yards. That sounds like a lot, and it is. But, when you're here with 38 of your closest friends, it feels more like eating a nutella and banana sandwich--which, according to Claire Collins is pretty one of the best things in the world--and less like five hours of swimming and dryland every day. It's a blast, trust me. It's probably the most memorable week of my year, both because of the new discoveries I make about my own limits in the pool, and because of the things I learn from the Discovery channel in between practices. For example, if you've ever wondered what it looks like when a warehouse full of acetylene tanks catches fire, talk to me about it.
There are some double-stuff Oreos in my room, and they're not going to eat themselves.
Happy Swimming!
