The other day, I went and picked up my letterman award for finishing up my senior year at Stanford.  As freshmen we get a jacket, sophomores – clock, juniors – blanket, and seniors – a ring.  The ring is gold and the design is pretty simple.  All it has is an “S” (for Stanford), but I’ve gotta admit, this ring symbolizes many things.  While I’m excited to get my NCAA Championship ring (they’ll be sending it to us in a couple of weeks!) I think this letterman ring is just as special.  Looking at it makes me think of all the fun times as well as the tough workouts that I had to go through in college.  It was an awesome experience to be able to train day in and day out with a group of guys that I now consider to be my “brothers.”  This ring will also always remind me that the process, or the road that you take to get to a goal is more important than anything else.  As my old coach, Vitaly, used to preach, “you have to learn to enjoy the process.”

Stanford Ring (sorry the pic is a bit blurry)

As for training, everything is going pretty well.  It’s my heavy training week so I’m knocking out a lot of numbers and trying to get through more routines.  The good thing is that I will start tapering down next week in order to get ready for the meet in Japan in two weeks.  The downside is that it’s scorching hot right now in California.  I guess I shouldn’t be complaining though because it’s not as humid as it is in other parts of the US, however, it sure would be nice to have an A/C system in the gym.  I guess most gyms in California don’t have an A/C system though because the hot season doesn’t last for all that long.  Anyway, a few more tough trainings to get through this week but I’m definitely “enjoying the process!”