Dec. 29, 2008
MIAMI, Fla. - The eighth-ranked Texas A&M women's swimming team will continue laying the groundwork for the championship portion of its season with its annual winter training trip which began today and will extend through Jan. 7.
After starting the day with a 6:30 a.m. workout in College Station, the Aggies (5-0) spent the reminder of the day traveling to Florida and getting situated before their on location two-a-day workouts commence. A&M will begin training in Florida at 6 a.m. EDT, Tuesday at the Norman Whitten Student Union Pool on the University of Miami campus.
"This is the time of year when we put in some of our hardest training because there is no school involved," A&M head coach Steve Bultman said. "It's a chance to go somewhere, put in a lot of good hard work, and try to have a little fun in between. This trip is great for team building and a good time for them to bond together while we get very important work in at the same time. This training will set the stage for how we do later on in the year. We are every fortunate to have the resources and support from our athletic department to be able to do this and we are very pleased in how the work we have done in the past has paid off for us in recent years."
The two-time defending Big 12 champions trained in College Station until Dec. 18 then were allowed to travel home for the holidays for just over a week. The group returned to Aggieland, holding workouts at its home pool for three days before traveling to the Sunshine State on Monday. The training trip to Miami is the Aggies' second in three years; A&M trained in Miami in January of 2007 en route to its first-ever Big 12 Championship.
The Aggies' workout schedule will be interrupted briefly on Saturday, Jan. 3, when they take on the host Hurricanes in a dual meet at 8 a.m.
Texas A&M senior Sally Ranzau (Alpharetta, Ga.) will chronicle the Aggies' winter training trip online at http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/w-swim/spec-rel/training-blog.html.