I'm going to the 2012 Olympic Trials!

I'm surprised and happy to report that I achieved my Olympic Trial cut in the 100 meter backstroke this morning!  I was feeling great in warmup, had a few awesome starts, Coach Mike Bottom took my rates on a 35m swim and I was nearly at my ideal pace, just a little slow.  I did a bit more swimming, a few blast strokes to test out a faster pace and got out to warm up.  I watched my teammates swim the 200 Free while I talked to a few of the guys and stayed warm.  When the last heats of the 200 free were in the water, I chose to loosen up in the diving well prior to my race in heat 8.  I watched the first few heats of the 100 back, took off my warmups and headed over to the starting end of the competition pool.  As I passed Coach Mike Bottom, he smiled at me and asked, "how are you feeling"... I responded with... I'm ready.

I was prepared in every way possible.  My goggles were brand new, unscratched, and new bungie straps for high tension. I had a new Speedo Aqua-V, wrinkle free cap.  My suit was a new Speedo LZR jammer.  I trained with a great team for the last 2 months, learning about how to improve my stroke.  I tapered for 5 weeks, an amount of time I thought was too long, but turned out to be ideal.  I got 8 hours of sleep, a decent breakfast and arrived at the pool in plenty of time.  I warmed up exactly how I wanted to, actually found myself pacing Olympian Matt Grievers at one point.  I got out and was ready to go.

My race was as good as could be expected.  I hopped in the water, adjusted my cap and tested the traction on the pads.  They were the Omega pads, my least favorite to start on, but I was prepared.  The buzzer went off and I had a fantastic start!  Perfect underwaters and surfaced in 14 meters.  I purposefully came up early because the ref's were DQing everybody for anything possible.  I got right up and started turning it over in near perfect pace.  I flipped in a 27.09, my fastest split of all time, around 2 tenths faster than ever before.  I had acceptable underwater kicks and felt the pain set in as I passed the 25 meter mark.  I knew I was in trouble.  My old fashioned "fall apart at 75 meters" curse set in.  I felt my pace slow down and began to lose feeling in my legs.  By the 85 meter mark I couldn't feel my legs at all, I kept them moving but they weren't doing much for me.  My arms slowed down quite a bit.  A few guys in my heat passed me up.  I was giving it all I had.  I saw the flags pass by and knew I only had a few more strokes to go.  I did a shallow dive to the finish and touched the pad in:

57.44

I achieved the Olympic Trial cut by 0.15 seconds!  I did a quadruple take on the scoreboard to ensure I was seeing the right lane, as I looked to my right I saw my teammates and all three coaches with their arms up and huge smiles on their faces as they all realized what I did!  I had done it!  I gave a small fist pump when I saw that time, I just had to, it has been my goal for the last few years and I finally achieved it.

Thank you to all who supported me!  I'm headed to Omaha in 2012!