And no, it wasn’t Phelps either!

So our favorite late night talk show host is even cooler than we imagined. During his monologue, he acknowledged that the Beijing Games were 1 year away. Not only that, but he also gave a shout-out to a couple of swimmers. He shared how excited he was to see Ryan Lochte and Lenny Krayzelburg battle for the 200 Backstroke title.

We are impressed Conan (or his writers) even knew enough about the sport - and that particular event - to name 2 swimmers that aren’t Michael Phelps. So he gets keepin’ it real points for that. We also love the name drop-age the Lochtenator received, even if Conan did pronounce his last name “locked”. It’s all good; we forgive you, Conan!

A year ago today, the very first Swim Aids post was written. Doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but it is true that time flies when you’re having fun!

Over the past year we’ve tried to share our adventures in the swimming realm with a side order of keepin’ it real. There are plenty of straight forward and no-nonsense swimming websites out there. We operate one ourselves, so we know! For this site, we tried a different route; to have a little fun and it’s been successful thus far!

In the years following our entrance into the swimming world, we’ve been fortunate enough to strike up friendships with a lot of the swimmers we write about here. From teasing our favorites (who almost all happen to swim for Club Wolverine), to sharing the lighter side of the Lochtenator (that’s Ryan Lochte, for those of you not ‘in the know’), we’ve had some classic moments, and we look to build on that in the future. Our girl, Katie Hoff, will probably continue to have immunity, and we will never stop praising Kaitlin Sandeno’s fashion sense and Amanda Beard’s uber-hotness. (The Swim Chicks have got it going on!) Y’all should make it a point to stay close because the posse is hooking up for Nationals in a few weeks and we promise that will be entertaining; well, at least for us!

So whether you were around for that first post or have just recently stumbled upon our little corner of the web, we thank you for visiting. We also thank those of you who have taken the time to send in feedback as well as those who have joined in on our fun by registering and commenting. We’re glad that making asses out of ourselves on a regular basis is entertaining to you. Besides, it’s all for the sport of swimming, right?

Most of you know about Ryan’s recent (or not so recent) grill revealing. If not, wow, you suck at life. Here’s the link, so you can try to not suck so much (although if you didn’t know by now, I really don’t think we can help you).

We’ve also created a Facebook group that the Lochtenator himself was in, until of course he deleted, reactivated, and deleted his account (not that we’re keeping track…). And in case you haven’t seen our FB group, there’s the link to that too. (But just so you know, you OFFICIALLY suck at life now.)

Now Ryan isn’t the ONLY ghetto swimmer out there. Our (or at least my) recent favorite is the one and only, Megan Romano. She’s only 16, but already coming up almost daily in Swim Aids conversations. I can’t wait to meet her soon, so we can talk about how ‘gangsta’ we are. Y’all don’t know.

We caught up with The Lochtenator briefly in Ann Arbor, and it made our heads hurt. No, really. But that’s not the point of this post.

We got him updated on his final tally from our Heineken Challenge during Worlds. Homeboy did a shitload of damage ‘Down Under’!

We were discussing how we were to deliver the requested cases to him since we only see him every couple of months or so. We even argued over if it is illegal to ship beer or not. It is. (I win, Lochte) Loophole would be to pack it in good with styrofoam and not tell the Post Office/UPS/FedEx that it is beer that we want delivered. Y’all know they like to lock black people up for stupid shit, right? So with my luck, they’d realize what I was trying to pull, and nail me. I really don’t want to be another statistic. I also don’t want to be anyone’s “girlfriend”.

I mentioned to Ryan that there are some “Beer of the Month” clubs and other random sites who claim that they can/do ship beer, and said we might have to try those. Then we told him that it probably wouldn’t be his precious Heineken if we went in that direction. To that Ryan said:

Beer is beer…well, unless it’s Nati…

So, no Nati Light for The Lochtenator. And I have to agree. I honestly don’t know how they can even call that crap beer in the first place…

We’ll keep y’all posted!

AP Photo by Mark Baker

Around here, we make it no secret that the men’s 800 Free Relay is our favorite out of all of the relays. It isn’t exactly rocket science as to why, now is it? We are quite fond of the members of the relay and constantly excited by their dominance in the event ever since that amazing race in Athens! Big Daddy Keller did the damn thing, and touched out Thorpey. So the relay team remained the same and the boys were salivating at the thought of bringing the WR home, where it belongs!

At the 2007 World Champs, the boys were below WR pace the entire time! Mike got it going with a blazing 1:45.36 leg. Next in the water was the Lochtenator (and no, he wasn’t sporting a grill). He, too, continued the pace set by MP with his 1:45.86 200. Next was Big Daddy Keller. I have to say that I was sooo glad to see his name on the entry list. There had been much speculation as ot whether or not he’d be replaced for this race. Kletus, himself, even suggested that he should not swim. As rough a meet as he may have had, there was no one else on the Team USA roster who can represent with the 800 FR like Klete. I knew he’d step up for this race, and he did. The team stayed well below the Aussie World Record during his leg. Last, but certinaly not least, PVK tried out the anchor slot for the first time ever. But even as the “Thorpe WR Line” attempted to chase him down, he kept his pace. Thorpey may have caught the team at Pan Pacs, but not this time! PVK wasn’t trying to hear none of that! He swam a lifetime best split of 1:45.71 and sealed the World Record for Team USA. Then, after realizing that they finally took down the WR they’d be after for years, the boys celebrated! (See above picture) I’ve never seen anyone get out of the pool, after a race, faster than Pete did! It’s always nice to see displays of emotion out of the male swimmers!

It was about been 6AM here, because I was watching live, but still I couldn’t muffle the frequent “OH SHIT!” exclamations and related expletives that kept trickling out of my mouth!

What a race!

P.S. LOL @ Klete being the only one wearing the old Fastskin and not the FS-PRO suit during this race.

So the Lochtenator definitely tore shit up down in Melbourne! Exceeded our expectations, but we couldn’t be more proud! Here is the final amounts of Heineken that he has earned from Worlds.

You know the drill, Ryan. You can redeem as much (or little) as you want at the next meet we’re all at!

Cheers!

Call the jewelry store, tell ‘em make me a grill…

AP Photo by Mark Baker

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard (or seen) the Lochtenator’s latest trend setting experiment. If not, where have you been?! Ryan rocked a grill at his awards ceremony for the 200 IM and we couldn’t be prouder!

Not to mention that he upped his Heineken tally as well. We decided that the grill earned him a bonus case. He’s seriously going to have us taking out loans to pay up!

The new tally stands as follows: