Graduate School

Well I am less than 5 days away from starting my Master of Arts in Exercise Physiology from the University of Northern Iowa. I am quite excited to say the least, it is going to be a big change from 2,500 students and 6 months of swimming at Luther, to 14,000 students with no swimming and trying to manage 2 jobs. Picked up my books the other day, and only have two so far, totaling less than $150, not bad for grad school!!! My schedule is pretty nice with class on Monday from 1-2, 5-7:30 and Wed/Fri 1-2, Tuesday and Thursday will be 9:30 to 2. I will be taking a Sport Psychology class, Advanced Exercise Physiology, a seminar in Strength and Conditioning and a Statistical Analysis class. Hopefully they will be pretty interesting and I can bring previous experience with Brian Solberg and Eric Baack from Luther to the class and pass with a good grade! Will keep everyone informed as to the class load and how the first days go!

Still working at Peppers Sports Bar and Grill, and it has starting to get busier now that students are returning. A fun job to say the least, get to sit there and watch sporting events on tv while meeting new people and serving great food! I have been pretty good and haven't eaten to much food, usually sticking to the soup and salad combo! I am also now working at Europa Cycle and Ski in Cedar Falls. This place is awesome! I really enjoyed working at Halls in Cedar Rapids, and Europa is just as good. A bit larger store, and they deal with cross-country skiing as well. It is nice to have Will Greenwood working also, as he is up for school.

As stated, I have been hired as an endurance coach for Zoom Performance coaching out of Des Moines. This is a path that I may want to pursue as a potential career field and I am ready to get moving. Rather than just a "coaching" service, Zoom offers sports performance testing such as VO2, Body Comp, Nutritional Analysis to go along with swimming, cycling, running coaching. I will be receiving my USA Swimming and USA Cycling coaching certifications in the upcoming weeks to increase my knowledge. Triathlons intrigue me, and many say I could be very good at them, coming from a strong swimming/cycling background, but the whole running part scares me :)

Cycling has been pretty chill as of late, I am not going to be able to race any more on the road this year with my school/work schedule and making rent payments more important. I am getting a cross bike together, so hopefully will race a bit of that. Never have done it before, so show up early and watch me in the Cat 4 races :)

As I have stated, it is going to be the weirdest feeling in the world to not be swimming this fall. For the past decade plus, I have been up at 5:30am for practice, and then practice til 5pm after a day of school. This sport kept me in great shape and met a lot of people. I am very interested to see what my life can be without it, but I know I will miss it when I go and watch the Norse swim! I really look forward to riding the gravels around Cedar Falls and cross country skiing if we get the snow. Will keep these endevours posted as the school year progresses!

Good luck to those racing in Des Moines.

Carson