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Alright, look at the artwork here. What do you think? Feel free to comment here or shoot me an email. As for the meaning, the compass is there because of my love of navigation. Plus, it means to signify my mission to be self aware or to get my "bearings". The phoenix, of course, means a rebirth. My rebirth has been continuous since my arrival at Notre Dame. Then the Kanji in the middle is japanese for "strong legs"...I'm very proud of my legs and their strenght in biking and their newly-found strenght in running. Anyway, that's it. Just let me know if its cool or needs the boot...

This week has been relatively quiet, especially since it is the week after the big Texas Dare. Plus, Rick has reduced the number of practices back to the previous 2 times a week, Tues and Thurs. I was able to swim twice this week. I was having trouble on Wed for some reason, probably still tired from the race, so I reduced the usual distance. Felt a lot stronger yesterday, but then I was having trouble with my flip turns when I have fins on. Obviously it slows my turn a bit...don't have that trouble with fins off. I did clock a 36sec 50meter, which is 3secs better than my last pr. I just need to work on my endurance more...once I can do 3 lengths continuously then I think I'm close to where I want to be.

Both practices were mostly on the bike. We did sprint intervals on the fruit loop and I can feel how much my legs have degraded in strength...I just haven't been on the bike enough lately. Hopefully I can ride with Weihan tomorrow. We ended Tuesday's practice with strength exercises and Rick told Tom and I can be adventure racers someday. I can't wait. Doing those fruit loop rides can be extremely boring, but it definitely helps your endurance...that's how I got where I am today. No one wants to do it, so that's where I get the leg up, so to speak. I make it a race, so I'm always entertained no matter if the scenery never changes...there's always some other guy out there to race against.

Oh did I say that Nick made me a "dope" mix CD right before the race?! I can say that contributed a little to our good performance. NWA, PE, Eric B and Rakim, LL, HOP....what a combo...he says they're all connected somehow, the songs that is. We had our HART Xmas party Wednesday night at Los Cucos--it was a lot of fun and somehow it ended up at my place. Nick volunteered Caroline's place first, but some people weren't willing to drive that far so it turned into my place, which was closer. BTW, our second place performance put us as high as 2nd in the nation on the USARA rankings...we're now 3rd. Pretty funny.

That's pretty much it...I'm supposed to do my long run today, but the weather is nasty. I will try to go a little later--hopefully it stops raining by then.