The good swim

Had a great swim today, it felt really good both in strength and technique. I'll be noting my 50m, 100m and 200m times now to see how I'm doing in the shorter sprints as well as the full 200m. I'll have my first swim with the Salmon Bay Club (SBC) on Friday but will try to get in some lessons with Ed, the SBC coach sometime soon.

Jump coach, jump!

Today I went down to watch my riding coach, Laura, compete in the show jumping portion of a three-day eventing competition. I still want to get as many visuals of riding as possible as I start to get into higher fences myself and technique gets more important. Laura did great and with a very low dressage score from the day before, she is in a good position going into the cross-country tomorrow.

Jet lag and Bay watching...Salmon Bay that is

I was feeling very jet lagged today so didn't get a run or swim in. I did make it to the master's swim club that I will be swimming with though, Salmon Bay Aquatics, just to check it out. There are several national level swimmers so should be able to improve my swim times just in our club competitions. I think I'll fit in pretty well. I need to get some lessons on some of the other strokes, backstroke, butterfly, etc., but I don't think I'll have any problems keeping up. I will be swimming with them twice a week...Fridays and Sundays.

First track run and Pet jumping

I planned on a swim this afternoon, but the fall schedule went into effect while I was in Australia so the time that I normally swim was now a family swim. So I decided to start my track runs, which I will do once a week, to see how I'm doing for both my mile time and my 3k time. There is a cinder track at a community center/park very near my house so it will be a perfect place to train for the 3k cross country that I will run in pentathlon. Both my mile time and my 3k time were longer than I expected, but this may be due to the fact that its been a while since my last run and I am still VERY jet lagged. Lots of room for improvement here but since I was taking about 30 seconds off each run before I left, it shouldn't be long before I'm getting times that I like.

At riding tonight, I was back on Pet...and back to jumping. I was really excited to start jumping again. For the jumping, we worked quite a bit on moving my hands up Pets neck and shooting my rear out of the saddle at the jumps. All went pretty well, I haven't lost too much since my last training session. I just need to remember to get into two point at the right time before the jump and to keep my knees bent. We got to about 2' tonight on the highest jump. I have another 2 to go for pentathlon height.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 11

I went down to the beach cafe to get my favorite chocolate muffin and fresh squeezed juice called the "triathlete" (orange, pineapple and melon) then it was off to the city to get my pictures developed and watch the athlete parade at noon. I ended up catching up with Heather, the pentathlon ticket queen. We went up the big tower in Sydney, had a bite for lunch then it was off to the parade. Afterward, we both went back to Coogie to hang out on the beach. Got my last shake from the Copenhagen ice cream shop then it was off to bed as I was leaving at 5:30am for my trip back to the states.

I've had a great time in Australia. Australia is kind of like a cross between souther California and Europe. Very hip, very laid back yet sporty. I look to coming back someday and checking out more of the country.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 10

With the pentathlon events - and the whole Olympics - over, I was looking forward to a little down time. I went for a final run in the morning along the beach all the way up to Bondi this time. I went into town for some gift shopping, then came back to just relax on Coogie Beach. Eli and Justen left at around 6:00pm so all was quiet for the night. Went to bed early for once.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 9 - Women's Pentathlon

My alarm was set for the wrong date, so I ended up missing the shooting portion of the women's event. But I arrived to find out one our US athletes, Emily, was in the lead after the shooting.

I did get to watch Emily and Mary Beth fence each other, once again the fencing starts by fencing your own teammate. Mary Beth one, she was pretty psyched. The men yelled a lot when they one, the women did to, but about two octaves higher. Yikes. And the women were just as intense as the men, maybe moreso.

Emily came was in first after the first two events, Mary Beth in 3rd. So now it was off to the pool. Both did pretty well, so remained in their places.

Both did well in the jumping as well so the run started with Emily in front and Mary Beth in 4th. But...Stephanie Cook of Great Britain was well known to be the best runner and was only staring off 27 seconds behind Emily, in 7th place. It turned out to be an incredible run with Stephanie slowly picking off the other runners. She finally caught Emily at about 400m from the finish line so Emily came in 2nd with another Brit coming in 3rd.

It was an incredible finish with Emily coming in 2nd. This was the first time the women's pentathlon has been in the Olympics and for a non-European to place was a pretty big deal. Also, Emily had introduced Stephanie, the winner, to the sport while attending Oxford...what a great story.

In the evening I hung out in Darling Harbour on my own to watch the closing ceremony fireworks. I bought a little dinner at a cafe just at the end of the pedestrian bridge at Darling Harbour and watched the closing ceremonies from there on a 13" TV. The fireworks after the ceremonies were synchronized in three locations thorghout the city and lasted for a half an hour. There were also fireworks going from building downtown buildings all over the place. Impressive and a great way to finish things off.