Aaron's blog

Hey racers, hope everyone’s summer’s going as well as mine. I wrapped up my studies earlier this week. I took this really interesting theater and dance class with a couple buddies from my team. It’s a far cry from the pool, getting on stage and performing scenes in front of a bunch of other students and a professor. I’ll admit I was hesitant at first, but I got into it after a while. I even played a cowboy for this scene I acted out from Sam Shepherd’s "Fool for Love." Yeehaw!

I’m a government major here at Texas, but I took a theater class for fun, as an elective. The major itself is streamlined toward what would be a political science degree, however, they don’t have that major at UT, so government is the next best thing. I really enjoy learning about the history of politics and government, and my professors are actually the ones who got me fascinated with it.

Hayley Peirsol won the 1,500-meter freestyle, and Chip Peterson won the 800 free on opening night of the Santa Clara Grand Prix swimming meet Thursday.

Peirsol, the 21-year-old younger sister of Olympic backstroke champion Aaron Peirsol, swam the non-Olympic event in 16 minutes, 12.08 seconds. She finished well ahead of Club Wolverine teammate Emily Brunemann, who was timed in 16:31.55.

Whitney Sprague of North Carolina was third.

Peterson, the 19-year-old Pan Pacific open water champion from North Carolina, won the 800 in 8:02.59.

Kane Radford of New Zealand was second in 8:11.25 and Joey Pedraza was third.

These days I’m like a fish out of water. Maybe that’s because I’ve been out of the pool the past couple weeks and wandering about the Sonora desert around Tucson, Arizona in between shoots for Nike’s fall catalogue.

The desert may seem like a far cry from the oceans I partnered with Oceana to help protect, but did you know the Mexican part of the Sonora Desert technically includes some coastline on the Sea of Cortez? Yeah, me neither until I got out here!

As it turns out, this area is in danger because of pollution and because of how the Colorado River is dammed up river in Nevada and Arizona. The Sea of Cortez as well as the towns of Puerto Penasco and Guaymas are popular tourist destinations because whales and dolphins use the warm waters and protected bays in the winter to give birth to their young.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m definitely ready for summer. I’ve been taking a a full load of classes over at the University of Texas, but I’ll be more than a little relieved once I finish my last final.

There’s this one class though in particular that’s been pretty cool, this Web development class. For one of our assignments we had to analyze the accessibility of a Web site for people with disabilities.

Naturally, I decided to investigate my own Race for the Oceans page just to make sure everything was up to snuff. I’m happy to report our site got a relatively high score across the board as far as accessibility for many disabilities.

Hey there racers! First off – let me apologize for keeping you hanging so long in between blogs posts. It’s been pretty busy on my end. As you know the U.S. swim team was making waves in the pool over in Australia, but now I’m enjoying some much-needed rest and relaxation.

Recently I had a chance to head over to Hawaii and meet up with former Olympic swimmer Janet Evans for an Oroweat appearance. The coasts are so beautiful on Oahu, and since getting more involved with Oceana, I’ve felt a lot more attuned to our beaches.

And being more in touch with the ocean, I really noticed how tourism has distorted the environment. Take Waikiki beach for example. I noticed some coral bleaching, and I saw from my room that a lot of coral reefs are cleared so boats can pass. Corals grow so slowly that it’ll take decades to repair that kind of damage.

I write you from a small hotel in a South Australian city called Geelong, a quaint little beach town, suburb to Melbourne and surrounding a harbor. The U.S. Swim team and I have been here for about two days and have been getting to know the area a little bit in the midst of adjusting to the time change.

Today, a small group of us will be driving down the Great Ocean Road taking in Australia's version of our Pacific Coast Highway in California. I'm hoping to see some waves at Bell's Beach, but unfortunately I might not be able to get in...national team honor code and all. Our meet, World Championships, starts the 25th of this month and I might as well hold off that itch for another couple of weeks; I'll bring my boardshorts just in case I crack.

You’re probably wondering what this whole “Race for the oceans” thing is about. It’s actually a pretty cool idea (and I’m not just saying that because I came up with it...).

I spend almost as much time in the oceans as I do in the pool. Even though I’m a young guy, I’ve noticed a lot of scary things out there – fewer fish and more pollution. Instead of just accepting this new oceans reality, I decided to get involved and try to make things better.

After a bit of research, I discovered Oceana – a group that was already working to protect the things I care about. I told them I’d like to get involved in ocean protection, and Race for the Oceans was born.