DAY SEVEN
Unfortunately for most, today is the last day we get to have sand instead of snow! Luckily this team is really good at making the most of every single day we are given. If I'm going to be honest I think most of us are ready to go home. Not to get away from the beautiful weather but to get away from these coaches that have been destroying our muscles for 8 days. Don't worry, outside of the pool deck they are LOADS of fun!

We spent our last night bioluminescent kayaking. What an experience! We learned how to kayak, paired up, got in our boats and off we went all in a matter of 5 minutes. Paddling with the current made the first half of the trip so enjoyable, until the competitive blood starts pumping and someone challenges you to a race. Let me tell you, it's all man for himself out there, the only friend you have is the person in your boat. So here's the thing, the tour guide told us to stay single file because the canal leading to the lagoon was narrow. - How are you supposed to race in single file? You don't.

Once we made it to the lagoon, if you were to look up at the sky it was the most crystal clear night, stars sparkling & the moon shining so bright! But apparently that was a bad thing...the cloudier the better. This was because the darker it is, the easier it was to see the bioluminescent organisms in the water. So of course we improvised and put tarps over our heads! We soon learned you can only see them when their is movement in the water, whether that be with your hand or with your paddle. Splashing in the water playing with these little sparkly creatures was the dictionary definition of 'a simple mind is a happy mind'. But hey, I'm not complaining!

What a great way to end our training trip! Nothing like Jason sneaking in another practice... kayaking definitely uses a different muscle group than what we are used to! Maybe he'll go easy on us tomorrow morning for our last practice? But unfortunately I know him well enough to say there's no chance. We will talk to y'all tomorrow one last time on our little half day in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

Bye for now!
-Morgan Holt

DAY SIX
WHAT. A. DAY. I can honestly say I had no idea what to expect going into such a busy day. From a combined practice with CalTech, to yet another beach day, to the USD Women's Basketball game, to a beach practice, to the talent show.

Well shoot (haha my basketball joke of the day)!! Women's basketball sure has some ballers on their team! What a fun time to have the opportunity to cheer on other Coyotes outside of the Sanford Coyote Sports Center - we sure played the rolls of the band, the cheerleaders & some excited fans!!! Nothing like seeing the looks on the girls' face when we showed up in the stands. AND they got the WIN!

So I'm sure y'all are curious about this beach practice. A beach practice - nothing more than a unique, uncomfortable way to get sand... EVERYWHERE. Oh it also turns out more people are quite afraid of the ocean than you might think. But anyway, Jason (Coach Mahowald) put a little twist on practice because what would a beach practice be without a little competition? That means sand castle contest! But here's the catch (of course there's a catch) whenever Jason said a crazy exercise your entire team must complete the exercise before continuing on building. The teams consisted of - freshman girls, freshman boys, sophomores, juniors, & seniors. Guess who pulled out the W?!? THE SENIORS. Some say it's not fair, some say it's rigged - we say you're probably right. As we wrap up the beach practice and head back to the hotel with nothing more than a few bruises from clobbering each other in the ocean swim, a very salty mouth ready for dinner & enough sand to make a beach of our own in the bath tub.

Our final event of the night...the talent show. As I mentioned yesterday, every year on training trip we have a talent show, everyone who hasn't been on training trip before must participate - this not only includes swimmers but staff also. Even though I have only been to one other training trip I'll give it to these kids...their creativity was incredible. From Griffin Wolner serenading the entire team with his ukulele and precious singing, to Tate Leverenz all dressed up mind reading & palm reading.

As another training trip comes closer and closer to the end we have made some indescribable memories that will last a lifetime. We are at such a special place in our lives surrounded by some people who will be your forever friends. I just want y'all to know we are treasuring all this time. Thanks for the constant support from all the moms, dads, family, and all Coyote fans! Y'all rock!!! 

One. More. (full) Day.
See ya then!
Morgan Holt

DAY FIVE
Practice... beach... more practice. Talk about déjà vu. You could say the life of an athlete gets pretty repetitive. But I can't lie, being outdoors all the time in 85 degrees, with the sun shining, and not a cloud in the sky is not a bad life. The funny part is we are in the pool for 2 hours in the morning, we race back to inhale pancakes & bagels and then what do we do? Head straight to the ocean because we didn't have enough water time earlier... And we literally play in the ocean all afternoon until it's time to head back to practice.

I am going to be honest. Today was a pretty uneventful, much needed, relaxing day. Even Jason was yawning on the bus and I know darn good and well he hasn't swam a single practice with us! Tomorrow on the other hand is going to be full of activities. We get to watch our Women's Basketball team in their tournament, nothing like getting to support the Yotes all the way in Puerto Rico! We are having our afternoon practice at the beach. AND we have our annual training trip talent show - your first year on training trip you must participate in the talent show. Let's just say tomorrow is going to be one heck of a day. But for now we are going to say adios and get some rest so we can really enjoy these last few days in paradise!

GO YOTES
Morgan Holt.

DAY FOUR
Today started out with a wonderful recovery practice - we even got in the pool a bit late to watch the sunrise! It's all fun and games when practice is easy, morale is high, people are smiling and singing to the music that is playing. This lead to a very sunny (very hot) day at the beach. Lots of sand dollars were found, and a full day of trying to act athletic while playing beach volleyball.

Let's just talk about fruit for a second. Fruit - one thing that I think we take advantage of the most in the summer time. Think about it, how great is some juicy watermelon or crunchy grapes (I know you know the crunch I'm talking about). Well y'all Midwesterners know that once October hits (and sometimes sooner) fruit just goes down the drain. Well here... in Puerto Rico it is FRUIT TIME ALL THE TIME. Get this, we bought tons of fruit at the store the other day, the fruit at breakfast is unreal and then today a bunch of us had fruit bowls. Literally a place that sells bowls of fruit in smoothie bowl form and let me tell you, IT IS AMAZING.

You may be noticing a trend that in most of my posts I talk a lot about food. I just want y'all to know I am not sorry one bit. Food can really make or break a trip especially after the practice we had tonight. Remember up there when I mentioned an easy morning practice, well that sure didn't last long... tonight we got WRECKED. Top 2 hardest practices of the trip, some puked, some cried, some complained but you know what? When you finish a set like the one we did today, you really pushed yourself past the limit. You feel accomplished. You feel stronger mentally and physically and that's what is going to get you that best time at conference. - With 6 practices to go (not that we are counting or anything) as a team, we can't wait to continue to better ourselves in and out of the pool.

TTYL
-Morgan Holt

DAY THREE
We have officially come to the conclusion that having one practice a day in Puerto Rico is really more our style. We had the opportunity to go out to Old San Juan for the entire afternoon. As we are on our way in our Spanish party busses, our elementary school field trip flashbacks were in full effect. But once we arrived Jason said 'alright we'll see ya at 7 p.m. right here', that's definitely not how elementary school field trips would go.

Regardless, we hopped off the busses and off we went... not that we had any clue of where to go or what to do. So street by street we came across more touristy shops and policemen in the street shaking our hands welcoming us to Puerto Rico. Some had incredible enchiladas & chimichangas for dinner, while others weren't so satisfied with a weird piece of meat slapped on a plate. And the rest...yeah, they had cotton candy or ice cream for dinner because who was there to stop them? Yep, sorry mom. 

From beautifully painted buildings to iguanas slithering through the streets you could say it was a pretty eventful day. It really ended up being the luck of the draw of what you could run into next when going to places you have never been. That was my nice way of saying today was basically the blind leading the blind. But in any event we are looking forward to see what this upcoming week has in store for us. Maybe even something besides hard practices?

Catch ya later
-Morgan Holt

DAY TWO
The USD swim and dive team are officially two days into training trip. This is about the time sunburn, soreness & constant starvation officially sets in. This is the time where we realize 'oh my, practice is HARD'. This is the time where we are hungry...all the time. I'm not going to lie today was pretty similar to yesterday - hard practice, beautiful beach/pool day and another hard practice. 
But the entertaining part of today was Jason allowed us to jump off the 10 meter diving platforms. Let me tell you, everyone was HYPED up. We were thinking this was going to be a piece of cake & just plain exhilarating. - When the time came to jump, 84% of the team (whether they the had already decided to jump or not) chickened out. - Although had my best girls, Abby Hollub & Quinn Fawcett, not convinced me to join them (peer pressure is alive & well) I probably would have joined everyone else on the side of the pool...AKA the smart people.  

Okay so now it's go time - we are 10 meters...aka 297372 meters in the sky. Wind howling. Adrenaline pumping. You all of a sudden notice you are not hungry anymore. You start making your way further and further to the back of the line until you run into the railing and your goggles go tumbling to the ground. Then all of a sudden our head coach, Jason, pulls the trigger and goes off the platform!  Then all of us up there say to each other, 'oh we have to do it now'. It had really turned into a pride thing at that point. Fortunately one by one we somehow obtained enough courage to plummet off the platform. If it weren't for the divers continuously jumping in with us I think we'd all still be up there contemplating the jump. 

Luckily we all made it off of the platform alive... maybe a few bruised bums but nonetheless I think the swimmers have come to two conclusions - 1. We never have to jump off the 10 meter again (great first and last experience) 2. HUGE props to the divers for not only doing that everyday but for enjoying it! - Stay tuned for tomorrow as we head out to Old San Juan! 

Hasta la luego!
Morgan Holt


DAY ONE
Hola from Puerto Rico!
We are all settled into island time at the end of a beautiful day one. Yesterday, we had a long travel day, up at 4am and finally arrived to San Juan around 530 pm. Upon arrival we were full of all different kinds of emotions - frightened freshmen, stoked sophomores, jittery juniors, and some spunky seniors.

As day one began we headed to the pool at 630am in our Spanish party buses. Just picture this - 70 college kids rolling out of bed 5 minutes prior to bus departure, 2 buses with flashing strobe lights (on the inside & outside) and music blaring in a different language. I'd say that is one way to get you pumped up.


As breakfast came around, we made quite the entrance with soaking wet hair & bathing suits. It may be pretty hard to believe but we devoured plates and plates of food as if we haven't eaten in days. Day one continued as sunny, sandy, wavy and warm. We were nothing but a bunch of sun kissed bodies until we realized no one was there to hound us about sunscreen, resulting in SUNBURN!

Finishing our day with a practice that kicked our butts, a chips and salsa happy hour & lots of aloe. The quote of the day had to have been 'it doesn't even feel like Christmas time because it's so warm here'. Silly cold weather folk, we choose sand not snow! Can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store.

Adiós,
Morgan Holt