September 21, 2006

Hi everyone,

SWG is back and we are off to a running start for the 06-07 school year and competitive season! Our first challenge as a team was to pass the fitness test on our first day of practice (which was Friday Sept. 15th). The results of this challenge were a testament to the hard work that each and every girl on the team put in over the summer. The hours of conditioning, running, aerobic workouts, doing therapy and pushing our bodies over the summer months paid off as we conquered our first test as the SWG 2007 team.

Speaking of the 2007 team, we have five new additions to our already amazing group of young women. The new freshmen are: Allyse, Blair, Carly, Stephanie and Tenaya. As a team (both gymnasts, coaches and staff) I don't think we could have asked for a better freshman class in terms of talent, heart and personality. Granted, we are still getting to know these frosh, but after our weekend retreat at Yosemite I think we all have a pretty good idea of what an awesome group of freshmen our team has been blessed with. We also have a new athletic trainer joining us all the way from Florida. Her name is Tarah and we are so excited to have her joining the team.

As I mentioned earlier, we went on a weekend retreat to Yosemite National Park. All of the gymnasts and coaches, as well as Scott (Kristen's husband) and Maya (their five year old daughter), Shelly (Chris' wife) and Tarah (our new trainer) packed into five cars on Saturday morning and headed up to the park. That day we did a small hike, explored a few of the falls, took a bunch of pictures and retired to bed for an early night since the coaches had arranged for us to hike half-dome as a group the following day. (Half-dome is an 18 mile round-trip hike that takes an average of 12 hours). However, early the following morning…6:45 am to be exact…an alarm went off outside each of the three cabins that we gymnasts were staying in. What we found outside our tent was five t-shirts (one for each gymnast in the cabin) and an envelope including a map of Yosemite and our second big challenge as a team - The Amazing Race, SWG style. We spent the next 3 ½ hours running around Yosemite navigating our way to several different checkpoints and completing challenges as a team. The challenges included: answering trivia questions about the park, fitting each team members through a hole that we had to make in one sheet of 8x11 inch paper, completing a Sudoku puzzle, deciphering morse code, and completing a crossword puzzle with Stanford gymnastics trivia. In addition, every time we got a wrong answer, or had to ask for a hint, we had to do conditioning exercises (yup, even a game of The Amazing Race isn't complete unless the coaches find a way to fit in push ups, crunches and sprints!!!) The final challenge in our race was to hike up to Vernal Falls…a fairly tough and extremely steep hike up to a beautiful waterfall. The first team to the top of the falls were the winners and earned the prize of not cooking dinner that night.

Stacy Sprando