Update: R's 2003 record in the 400 medley relay just got broken during SEC finals tonight... and she's pissed. She and the other three girls in that relay have their names up on the big record board in the O-Dome, next to their time (3:35:87) - but tonight it got broken; the new time is 3:35:22. Ah, well, at least it was the Gators who broke it and not some other team... but then, if it had been another team, the 2003 Gators' names would stay up.

Still, that exemplifies everything I hate about this sport - the whole 'fighting-over-tenths-of-a-second' concept I keep mentioning. I swim on a team because I like it, but also because it's a means to an end - if I want to swim marathons, and eventually the Channel, I need regular training and workouts, and the easiest way to get that is to join a team. But being on a team means you also have to be able to sprint and race and compete against the clock, and I have just never liked that whole concept. A few inches too deep at the start, a fraction of a second too slow on a flip turn, and you're out of it. Is 0.65 of a second (the time by which they broke the record) really enough to prove one group irreversibly better than another? To take their names off the record board, never to be seen by future Gators, and let their hours of blood, sweat, and tears be replaced in the click of a watch? I understand the reasoning, but I still think it's unfair, and I wonder how many records came before theirs - times I never saw, records about which people said the same things I'm saying now, swimmers who are now essentially forgotten, however amazing they were at the time.

Okay, waxing eloquent - time to get ready for bed.