Hey everyone!  This is Tristin Baxter and Jaclyn Chavez.  We’re both juniors on the Sun Devil swim team and we’re excited to give you an inside look at what our team does and what we’re all about.  We wanted kick things off with our first blog being about our first ever training trip to Flagstaff, Ariz. Enjoy!

DAY 1:
We arrived in Flagstaff this morning and swam our first meet of the season against NAU.  It was great to finally get to race after months of training hard, but it showed us that we’ve still got a lot to work on if we want to be ready to go by the time our season really gets started!  After the meet, we held a swim clinic for the younger kids on the local swim team, giving us the opportunity to work with them and help develop their skills.  It was a fun experience for all of us and seeing how excited the kids were to be there with us made it even better!  When we finished up at the pool, we headed to the houses where we would be staying for the weekend and they were amazing!! Our place was more of a mansion than a house!  After some lunch and a little rest, we hiked Mt. Elden- the ladies team did the Fat Man’s Loop trail while the men hiked all the way up to the peak at 9000 ft.  It was a great bonding experience for both teams and we were told it was quite the challenge for the guys to make it all the way up to the top!  Since being back at the house, we’ve put on a couple of movies and are now just relaxing.  The trip is off to a great start and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for us tomorrow! :)

DAY 2:
Today was our second day here in Flagstaff and it was jam-packed with activities. We started off our day with a great morning practice at the pool; we split into our stroke groups and got some good aerobic work in.  Getting used to the elevation here is quite an adjustment!  After we finished, everyone got ready for the ropes course. This was such a great team building experience; we were all taken out of our comfort zones and tried things we’d never done before. The men and women split up and each had their own team challenges.  For our team, we were given a certain amount of tiny circle mats that we had to use to get our entire team across a long path of “hot lava” without stepping off the pads. Sounds easy right?! It probably took us almost an hour, but the exercise really allowed us to build our communication skills and come together as a team in order to accomplish the challenge. Later in the day we moved onto the heights course where we got to do an obstacle course that was about 10 meters off the ground and a trust jump off of extremely tall, skinny posts. This entire day has really brought us so much closer as a team and as a family. Day two of the trip was a success! We’ve got a big day of training tomorrow followed by a long team hike. We’re looking forward to it.

DAY 3
Today was our last full day here in Flagstaff and we definitely made the most of it.  We started out with a practice at 6 a.m. followed by an hour break and then another practice from 9:30 to 11:30.  It was a tough double but we got some really good training in.  Afterwards, we went on a team hike down into a canyon and were able to enjoy the beautiful day. 

We also got to explore some pretty sweet caves that we found! The hike took us about four hours all together and was so much fun!  We’ve only got one more practice tomorrow morning and then its back to Tempe.  This trip was such an amazing experience; it gave us so much time to bond and come together as a team.  We’re bummed that the weekend has to come to an end, but its definitely an experience we will never forget!