April Showers

They say that April showers bring May flowers but to me it seems like April just brings allergies.  I can't remember the last time I suffered so badly from them, but there must be something in the air this year because it's hit me hard.  I'm feeling better now but for awhile I was down for the count.  I don't think all the traveling for work has done anything good for it either as my body is just so tired, but only one more month until season is over.

Speaking of, this last weekend was spent in Lemoore, CA and let me tell you...it was an adventure.  Allan, Ericka, and I drove from the Bay Area together and after over three hours we arrived in a very desolate looking place.  The theme of the weekend was "Keepin' It Classy" and we started off strong walking up to our hotel...the Travelodge.  It was pretty terrible, including a blood stain on the chair in Allan's room.  Both rooms had a certain smell to them so we spent a little time just hanging out with the door open to try and get some airflow.

After a quick nap (trying not to touch any of the sheets on the bed) we got up for dinner, which was actually quite good.  We went to check out the competition site before heading to bed, as we had an early morning session to get to.  8am the next day and we were back, ready to kick-off level 7 State with Monica and Lily.  Both of them, as well as Izzy in the following session, really had the meet of their lives and there isn't anything more we could have asked for them.  Their performances alone beat the final team score we had last year and left us in second place behind Airborne by only 0.05!  If you aren't that familiar with NorCal gymnastics, that's a true feat.  We coaches left on a high and went to celebrate.

It was like Groundhog Day because the next morning we were in the exact same position.  8am came around and back at the meet site, this time with our top all-arounder this year.  We were looking for her to come up big, but unfortunately she was nervous and had a fall on bars.  We didn't end up counting her for our team score which hurt us a bit.  Our last session of the day got us back on track and left us in a pretty good mood about the overall performance.  There were teams out there that were definitely better than us but in all of NorCal we ranked pretty close to the top which is something to be proud of.  All of our girls qualified to Regionals and we even placed one on the State Team; off to Vegas it is!

This week is already flying by and I can't believe I'm headed to Phoenix on Friday.  I'm super pumped to see Annie there with her girls and can't wait for our level 8 team to wrap up their season.  In a turn of events I'm the only coach going to the meet but I'm still looking forward to it.  After that it's down to LA to watch SWG at NCAA's (they qualified last weekend) and then finally to Vegas before some well-deserved rest time.  Final push...here's to a fun and successful finish!