June 2008

I swam the 2nd fastest 100 backstroke race of my life. I'm proud of that. Its true that I felt like I had a faster swim in me, but I have no regrets. I swam a good race. I took it out in a 27.28, the second fastest 50 split of my life behind my best of 27.26. I brought it home in 30.45, I know I could have done better here. I prepared to the best of my ability.

The experience was just as nerve racking and exciting as I thought it would be. It was a journey I will always remember.

The opening ceremonies just ended, the atmosphere is amazing here, its like an NBA playoffs game plus swimming!

The announcer just ended with "let's pick our olympic team!"

If anybody reads this soon hit the contact page and let me know if this session is on:

www.nbcolympics.com

They should have live video online.

I implemented a new blogging system so I can update it on the go, please update your bookmarks to:

http://kevindoak.com/blog.php

Thanks for understanding.

Wow, only 3 days left! I had a good practice today, it was nice and short, a few fast 50's and some underwater kicking. I'm proud to say I've been solid 27's from a push in a 50 meter back. I believe this is right where I should be for this point in time. I'd like to make some realistic predictions of my prelim time. I've been studying exactly what it takes to swim well on a race pace 100 backstroke. I would really like to make the semifinal session which is top 16. I believe it will take a 55 mid to make it back, perhaps faster.

I'm having a hard time not dreaming about the trials. It's on my mind every moment of the day. I'm both nervous and excited. It will be the biggest meet I've ever been a part of, packed in an arena with 15,000 fans, 1,000 athletes, the best coaches in the nation along with past and future Olympians. I just keep thinking about how it will feel to swim the 100 meter long course backstroke actually tapered, rested, shaved in a race suit. I've never been fully prepared for a long course meet. I will be ready.

I went through the psych sheet today to determine when the swimmers in my event swam the times they listed. The point of this research was to determine if I was swimming against people that swam their best in 2008. If they swam well recently they're capable of swimming even better next week. The flip side being, perhaps they swam their best time in 2005 and they might be a little rusty by now. I determined that about 80% of the swimmers swam the seed times in 2007, only a few swam them in 2006 and a handful of guys swam them in 2008. What does this prove?

Thank you to my supporters today , it was a great day! I updated the "Trials" page with a few links, I'm still adding new information as I have it. Thanks for checking back.

A few backstroke facts via Wikipedia:

I notice I hear "the videos are great, which swimmer are you?". If the gargantuan muscles aren't enough to tell me apart, I don't know what to tell you. I've been playing around with a video overlay which highlights the lane I'm in but it's not quite done. I might just implement a text field describing where I am in the pool for now. I'll get back to ya on that one.

I'm headed to the pool sometime today for a practice before work.

The second version of the Olympic Trial Psych Sheet was released:

2008 US Olympic Team Trials Psych Sheet (Version 2) PDF

No changes in the 100 back that I notice.

No more morning practices for me. I'm making sure I get at least 8 hours of sleep and wake up by 9:30am. This prepares me for a 8:30am wake up time in the Central time zone, plenty of time to get to the Qwest Center and warm up for an 11:00am preliminary session.

I took the morning off to catch up on some sleep, those 5:20am alarm clocks are rough! I might make the judgment call to cease all doubles (2 practices a day) till trials. I'm still fine tuning my all-out backstroke by doing lots of speed work. Most of it is fast 50's and 75's. I'm noticing a lot of excitement about the trials, I see it on TV, ads on the internet, people talking about it in public. I don't ever remember these types of things from 4 years ago, I'm definitely hyper sensitive about it because I'm finally part of it all.

Crazy weekend, had to work quite a bit this weekend which meant the only time I got in the water was this morning. I needed a little break anyway. I'll make tomorrow the start of my taper. I felt great in the water today. I headed over to Fuller pool to swim with the masters group over there and did about 4,000 meters. I really enjoy swimming with them, it's a great group. It's hard to believe trials are two weeks away, it's been a long time counting down the days.

I had a great practice yesterday. I did a great sprint kick set and decided to do some all out 50's for time with a minute rest. The results were great, I was going 28.xx from a push which represents the fastest I've ever gone in practice for a long course 50 meters. I think I needed to prove this to myself after my backstroke event this past weekend. This simple set proved to me that I have the speed, I'm faster now than I ever have been. The only challenge is converting that speed and harnessing in a race.

What a great weekend. I would have liked to do better in my 100 back, but I had a great 50 Free. I dropped almost a half a second to a lifetime best time of 23.76. It was a blast to be part of a meet so deep with talent. Here is an article written on USA swimming regarding this weekend:

http://usaswimming.org/USASWeb/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?TabId=0&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&ItemId=2048&mid=3774

I was just looking over the results from the 50 free and it struck me that I'm listed on the same page as Gary Hall Jr. and Neil Walker. These are two Olympians and pro swimmers I grew up reading about and watching on TV. This is exactly why I'm still training. I want to swim among the best of the best, these are two examples of what the BEST really is.

Last night was interesting, the tornado alarms went off at 2am. Apparently there was a 70mph tornado just outside Omaha. I was so tired I just fell asleep to the sound of the rain blasting into my window. I really had no idea there was a tornado, it's not exactly something I'm used to dealing with in Michigan.

I feel much better today, I'm about to warmup for the 50 free, it's the 2nd event today. I don't expect to make it back tonight but I'm hoping I'll have a decent time. My best is 24.20... we shall see.

I woke up early and warmed up before the preliminary session and did some test backstroke starts. I feel sort of lethargic this morning, I'm hoping I can find my speed for the 100 back. I had some trouble getting grip on the Omega pads during warmup in lane 2, which is the lane I'm in for prelims. I'll do my best this morning and give it all I can.

I'm in Heat 7 (of 9) in lane 2 for the 100 back, my heat has Chris DeJong and Cory Chitwood in it as well so there's plenty of motivation to go fast. The heat sheet says I'll swim at 12:27pm CST so 1:27pm EST. Here we go...

This morning I warmed up before the morning session began. There are enough swimmers here to fill 2.5 olympic size pools to the point there isn't even any room to swim! Right now I'm watching the morning session from the stands. I've gotten to see a few of my friends swim very well this morning. Zach Wood did very well in the 100 free and Christine Jennings did well in both the 100 free and 400 free. Below is a picture of the pool I took yesterday:

A good article was written on USA swimming yesterday about the Swimvitational and the Ultraswim meet:

http://usaswimming.org/USASWeb/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?TabId=80&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&ItemId=2030&mid=1707

Here are the highlights via www.usaswimming.com: