Greetings, fellow Terrapin Masters folks, from the great state of Kahleeforneeuh. Today is the 3rd day of FINA Masters World Championships competition, with the 400 IM, 200 free and 50 fly, and seeing as how the 400 IM is scheduled to last from 8am to noon, and the first, oh 90 heats of men's 200 free will run up until about 3pm, I figured now would be a great time to a) take a nap, and b) check in with everyone and let you know how the Terrapin Masters swimmers are doing.

So first off, I would like to say this is truly an amazing experience. There are some of the best swimmers from around the globe - 73 countries - here at Stanford, and let me tell you, it seems like every age group is making runs at some sort of US, Meet or World Record. Although Mollie did seem to rub Paul Smith the wrong way, and Mark Gill's "warmup a-hole" charade didn't please some foreign woman this morning, everyone is has been really friendly and seems really happy to be here.

The first day of competition was Friday, which opened with the 800 Free. No Terrapins in that one. Saturday's first event was the 200 back, in which Emad Elshafei did some serious EBing of his neighbors and managed a fantastic 8th place finish in the 40-44 age group with a 2:23.00. Mollie also competed in the 200 back, and despite falling behind in the field early, came back to do some EBing herself, landing a 3rd place finish with a 2:34.42.

On to the 100 free... I will say the last 50 or so heats of the men (there were 128 heats total) were incredible to watch. Practically everyone under the age of 50 was flying down the pool under a 1:10. Ellis' body double Rich Abrahams, a 61 year old spring chicken, made it down and back in 59.5. Amazing!

But first the women - 5 women, 2 in 25-29, 1 in 30-34 and 2 in 35-39 all made it to the wall in under 1:00! Amazing!!! Mollie's heat of the 100 featured the two sub-minute pups, and the whole field battled it out from start to finish! It was a wall to wall dogfight as practically everyone was trying to defeat the swimmer to their left or right. Mollie ended up coming in 11th with a 1:02.36, narrowly defeating fellow PVer Jennifer O'Reilly from Reston Masters.

Back to the Men's 100 Free, where I swam. The competition was outright FAST. My double O seed time was good enough to put me in 70th seed going in. Although there were 1200+ male athletes in the event alone, the meet didn't really hit me until I started walking up to the blocks, leading the 9 other swimmers in heat 121/128. The time from getting to the blocks to diving in was a quick blur, and once in the pool, those walls couldn't come soon enough. When it was all said and done, I barely missed the 59.99 mark I was shooting for, with a 1:00.04. OOOO so close! But good enough for 64th place!!!

So thats all from the first part of the weekend... more to come later. And now for that nap!