Austin Grand Prix

I'm trying to volunteer to time in the Friday AM session of the Austin Grand Prix.  This meet is part of a series put on by USA Swimming to:

The USA Swimming Grand Prix Series serves as an opportunity for athletes to race against top-notch competition as they continue their preparation for the 2009 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships in Indianapolis and the 2009 FINA World Championships in Rome. The last two stops of the Grand Prix series are in Charlotte, N.C., and Santa Clara, Calif.

The prelims are SCY, with finals LCM.  Even though it would be nice to see 'who wins' each event in the finals, the prelims would be a lot more interesting for me to watch, given that I have so little LCM experience.  Short course yards (SCY) is the format (25 yard lengths) that is used in high school and college; long course meters (LCM, 50 meter lengths) is used for international competition and part of the year for USS club competition.  Watching people this fast swim long course is really cool, and it's crazy how fast they are going...but it's nice to be able to directly compare how crazy fast they are when they are doing SCY.  

A bunch of big names (no Phelps, though) will be there.  Several are mentioned in the press release: Torres, Piersol to Compete at Austin Grand Prix

Knowing I wasn't going to be able to make evening practice today, I went to the noon session instead.  We were in the diving well, and swimmers in town for the Grand Prix were getting some warm up in over in half of the main pool.  Towards the end of workout, I spotted Bob Bowman giving direction to Katie Hoff...