Looking forward to some old fashioned competition

I've noticed over the last few years that people I knew in college are getting back in the sport.  It's definitely increasing each year.  It's common knowledge that swimmers just seem to need a break after college.  They seem to take 10 years off and get back into it.  I'm excited to have an opportunity to swim against some of the people I swam with in High School and College again.

I did my first "P90X Ab Ripper" in a long time.  I'm proud to say I made it though the whole thing without much trouble.  I'll also admit I'm hurting today!  It really is quite a good 15 minute core workout.  I've been much better at hitting the pool each day.  As I always say, consistency what works best for me.  3,000 yards, 6 days a week.  I've made it a priority and I'm feeling good in the water.  I've tried to focus more on some sprinting.  I feel as though I've fallen into a "cardio" rut where I'm doing too much slow swimming and not enough burst speed exercises.  It's affected my backstroke more than anything.  I've been very disapointed in my 50 and 100 backstroke.  I just can't seem to rev it up at these meets.  It's gotten to the point that I'm starting to wonder if I need to move on from backstroke.  I truly don't have the speed I did even 2 years ago.  My butterfly and freestyle seem to be fine.  If it was an issue that affected all my strokes I would simply say I'm out of shape, however it seems more likely that I've just lost my backstroke temporarily.  It's never happened to me before so it's an odd place to be.  I think more sprinting will help.  We shall see.

I signed up for the 2011 Eric Namsnik Grand Prix .  Arguably the highest profile meet in Michigan this year.  It's a USA meet so in typical form, all the big names come out for it.  I'm sure we'll see a handful of Olympians and other hopefuls duking it out.  I'm excited to be able to swim in the meet, especially considering how poorly I've competed lately.   I'll be swimming:

50 Free
100 Free
100 Fly
100 Backstroke

I'm a realist so I can say with certainty that I'm not prepared for this meet.  I'm not in good shape and I haven't had that many respectable times lately.  Still, it's provided me some additional motivation to train and should be a blast to compete at that level again.  I'm looking forward to it.