Category: swimming

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Swim Meet Announcing

If you’re wondering about how the announcing went… it started out a little rough and got better as the afternoon progressed. I was kind of nervous at first, just speaking into the mic and hearing my voice echo across the pool. The stands were pretty full and there were swimmers and officials all over the deck. I was sitting at a desk up in the stands. I welcomed everyone out and then I said, please stand for the playing of our national anthem.

And then it happened. Probably the most embarrassing thing possible. In my nervousness I didn’t even realize anything was wrong. I could hear my friend Vicki laughing from the pool deck and I had the sinking feeling she was laughing at me. The song played on. Then about 30 to 45 seconds into the song, Vicki walks out where I can see her and yells up to me, “Jeff that’s the American National anthem!” Could my face be any more red?

Apparently when queuing the music I rewound the tape on the wrong side. Now the decision had to be made, do I just play the rest of the song out and have the Canadian National Anthem play after, or do I stop it now and fast forward to the next song? I elected to stop the tape and just announce my mistake, “Oops, that was the American Anthem”. The people of laughed politely at my blunder but I was more worried that the meet would get started late because of my fumbling around with the tape player.

There I was trying to find the Canadian National Anthem on the tape meanwhile everyone else was just standing there, waiting for the music to play. Finally I realized I needed to flip the tape over and rewind it, and once that was on its way I used the moment to announce some of the money winners from the races yesterday.

I have to say, it was really embarrassing but things did pick up after that. I slaughtered quite a few names but by the end of the meet while I was still butchering their names, however, I just did it confidently and quickly so that most people probably didn’t notice hopefully didn’t care.

I’m glad I went; I had a good time. I’ll be doing the announcing for the finals again today.

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U of L Intramurals Water Polo

My team won the University of Lethbridge’s intramurals water polo championships for this semester tonight!

Shaun Eden, one of the guys on the team, is trying to organize a club team next semester that will play against the University of Calgary’s and University of Alberta’s teams. Too bad I most likely won’t be around.

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Busy with Work, Swimming, and Eating

I’ve been keeping myself busy today. So busy in fact that I never even had a chance to discuss my student loan situation with the people at student finance. I’m guessing I’ll actually have to call some 1-800 number but I didn’t even have time (or more accurately the good sense) to grab it before I left the University.

I did spend some time in the pool this afternoon and tonight the swim team is having a big pot-luck which I have already begun to salivate for. Tomorrow is the Horns Classic Swim meet which I’ll be out for to cheer on the team as well I need to get some web design work done, so it looks like my weekend is going to be full.

And now your moment of zen: 250,000 super balls.

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Canada West Photos

Jeff Milner swimming butterfly at the U of L

A couple of weeks ago the University of Letbridge was lucky enough to be able to host the Canada West Swim Meet for the 2004 / 2005 season. Personally I swam a best time in the 50 Breast but didn’t reach my goal of getting a National qualifying time in 50 free (I was about 1 second too slow). Anyway the University’s photographer got some great images which can be seen here.

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Personal Best Times in Every Event

Here are my new times from the weekend in Winnipeg:

  • 4×50 Free Relay 1:36.75 (With my lead time of 24.521)
  • 50 Free 24.63
  • 100 Free 56.09
  • 200 Free 2:10.93
  • 50 Breast 28.95
  • 50 Fly 33.26
  1. The relay continued after my 50 free swim but because I was the lead swimmer the time counts as a new personal best.[↩]
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Winnipeg – Prairie Winter Invitational 2004

Jeff Milner swimming butterfly at the U of L

Yesterday at 6:00am a chartered bus left the University of Lethbridge and took the Swim Team to the airport in Calgary. By 2:30 we had arrived in Winnipeg and were in the pool warming up. I got two best times yesterday, one in the 50 Fly and another in the 50 Breast. I placed 14th in Fly and 7th in Breast.

Today I swam the 200 Free and got another best time. I placed 14th. I also swam the 50 Free and got 8th going into the semi-finals. After the finals I moved up one rank to 7th for the finals tomorrow. In the semi-finals I went my second fastest 50 Free time (24.80).

I’m having a great time here. My team has been having such great swims — there are a lot of us swimming personal bests.

Anyway for now I’m just chilling out in the hotel using their free high speed internet connection while watching The Princess Bride on TV. I think in the future all hotels should have free wireless.

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So Busy – Swimming

Swimming is great, I feel tired a lot but my body is getting into great shape. I am really aiming for CI’s this year and Andy thinks I have a pretty good shot. It will be excellent to compete against Canada’s best. Probably about a third of our Olympic team will be there.

Tonight I’m off to Medicine Hat for my friends’ wedding reception. Tomorrow I’m going to swim with AMAC (Medicine Hat’s Winter Club). They are having a little time trial meet which I’m hoping will boast my confidence towards achieving a CI qualifying time. After that, I’m going to spend the rest of the long weekend with my family. For those of you not from Canada reading this, this weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving. Being as busy as I am, I must say I’m so thankful for long weekends.