Ready to swim.

Jun
30

Ready to swim.

Posted by Kevin Doak on Monday at: 5:30am (June 30th, 2008)
Today I will fulfill my dream.

It was January 11th 2006 while I was attending Eric Namesnik's memorial service that I decided it was my dream to swim in the Olympic Trials. I was listening to Jon Urbanchek speak about Eric's amazing swimming career and work ethic when a quote he mentioned stuck in my head:

"A dream is a dream until you do something about it."

It took me all of about 5 seconds to reflect on my life and decide what my dream was. I wanted to swim in the Olympic Trials more than anything. I looked over to my right, where the "Countdown to Beijing" clock read a few hundred days. I started doing the math of how much time I had to train during the week and weekends. I had only gotten back into swimming in April 2005 for one Masters meet, I had been training once or twice a week at that point. I left Eric's Memorial service filled with respect for what he had accomplished, still sad to have lost such a great swimmer. A swimmer that so many of my friends had known and loved. A swimmer that I had never had a chance to meet. I left there motivated beyond belief. It was too late to swim that evening, but I started doing dryland training that night and had dreams of what it would feel like to compete in the trials.

Over the next 2 years I did my best to swim as much as possible while maintaining my businesses and lifestyle. It wasn't always easy to balance the things that were important to me, always keeping in mind how important my clients were to me. There were many times I said to myself:

"Nothing comes before swimming"

I'm proud to say I never let myself down. I balanced a lot in my life and made swimming a priority. There were days where I HAD to get work done, my clients never suffered because of my swimming but there were times my sleep schedule certainly did. There were days when I would stay up 36 hours in a row, alternating swimming, eating and working. It all got done though.

I kept my Olympic Trials dream a secret from everybody except my family and a few close friends. The last thing I wanted to hear was that I couldn't do it. I knew I could, I set my mind to do it, it was going to happen.

It wasn't until March that I had a chance to swim a long course meet, I swam in the Sectionals meet at IUPUI and narrowly missed the Trials cut by .55 seconds with a 58.54, the trials cut was a 57.99. At that point I knew I had another half a second drop in me.

I tried again a week later at the Ohio State Grand Prix in Columbus and shattered the cutoff with 57.00... much faster than I thought I could go while swimming my second long course meet. It was the most amazing feeling. I told myself, "no rest until trials."

The next few months were filled with some great experiences traveling to a few meets, I had at meet in Santa Clara, CA and one here in Omaha, NE. I met interesting people and competed against some amazing swimmers. I didn't rest for these meets, so I did marginal, but I was still proud to be there.

I rested for the swim this morning, the 100 backstroke at the 2008 US Olympic Trials. I've prepared the best I can with the time and resources I had available to me:

I work more than full time
I swim once or twice a day 6 days a week
I have no coach
I have no team
I never had consistant pool time

I'm as prepared as I can be, I shaved down tonight, I rested for this meet and tapered. I have the swim suit with the best reputation and technology, I have good goggles and a great attitude. I have my family here to support me and that means a lot to me. They will support me no matter how I swim.



I will do my absolute best tomorrow, this is my dream. Congratulations to me for setting a goal and achieving it. I'm proud of myself. Thank you to everyone who believed in me and supported me.

--Kevin Doak 7/1/08