A day of supporting others

With my 100m Free time trial out of the way on Tuesday I spent the evening watching the finals from the stands.  It was a great new vantage point of the meet.  I was in the upper deck with a few family members that came to watch.  I find the phrase I keep using to describe the meet is "All the excitement of an NBA game plus pyrotechnics".  USA Swimming really has outdone itself.  After the first event I headed down to the team seating to enjoy watching one of my teammates swim in the finals.  Once again I found myself just soaking in the team comradery as we all cheered together.

Later I went out to dinner with the team, laughed, smiled and headed off to bed.

Thursday was filled with watching races by my own Club Wolverine teammates and also my friends at EMU.  Results wise it was up and down, some good swims, others could have been better (as with any meet).  As with each day I've been here I got in and did a very short workout in the warmup pool just to keep a good feel for the water.  I've done a great job of meeting new people at this meet.  Anywhere I go, I manage to strike up a conversation with a random person.  It makes me feel like I've made the most of my experience when I make new contacts like this.  I've met swimmers from Tennesee, California, Illinois, Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, Arizona and Oregon to name a few.  The swim cap logo removal has given me even more new contacts.  I get the warmest "thank you's" for the service.  I'm not sure if it's entirely deserved, but I still really like providing a service that swimmers need.

After a mid day nap, I headed to Finals for a highly anticipated evening session.

This meet has been a bit of a learning experience on an Olympic Dream level.  Since I've met so many talented swimmers over the past few years, from a numbers standpoint, I know more HIGHLY talented swimmers than there are spots on the U.S. Olympic Team.  Inevitably I will know some swimmers that will become Olympians and others who will narrowly miss the 2012 Olympic Team.  If I've learned anything over the past year with Club Wolverine, attending high profile meets and knowing top tier athletes is that physiology isn't fair.  Every human is built differently.  A good swimmer can undergo ideal training but will never be able to move through the water as fast as Matt Grievers or Ryan Lochte.  During this meet I've seen harder trainers get beat by swimmers with bad training reputations yet have gobs of natural talent.  Moral of the story being (and I don't intend for this to be cynical): life isn't fair.  The only fair comparison we can make is to compare our former selves to our current abilities.  We are all built differently.  To bring the comparison to a personal level, I will never beat myself up about not being an Olympic swimmer because comparing two human bodies is not fair.  The only fair comparison is me against the clock.  As much as I enjoy racing others, the race against myself is the only fair competition.  I've always loved that about swimming.  If I have a bad race, I only have myself and my training to blame.  A poor performance is health, preparation or training related.  At times I enjoy a little trash talking to against my former swims since that is the only fair competition.  So in that light, "July 2011 Doak" was faster than "June 2012 Doak" in the 100m back.  Yet in the 100m free, "June 2012 Doak" was MUCH faster than all other swims in my life.

My evening was spent supporting fellow teammates who were swimming finals.  Unfortunately all the swimmers I was cheering for missed goals they had set for themselves.  From an Olympic Dream standpoint, this meet contains 32 people who will go home happy and hundreds of others who will go home feeling defeated.  I've been ultra conscious to be sure to support my friends and teammates, especially those who miss their goals.  I think it's one of the most important times to be a friend to somebody.  It's clear the swimmers who make the Olympic Team will get plenty of "Congrats" and attention, they don't need to hear from me, nothing I could say could improve their day.  In contrast, somebody who just got 4th after training for 8 years, could probably use a handshake and a smile.  I had a few of these sincere moments over the last few days.  One of them ending with a hug and a "Thanks Doak, I appreciate everything you've done for me".  It felt good to have supported somebody in their Olympic aspirations.

After the evening session I was given a free "Athlete Dinner" coupon to eat a "USA Swimming approved meal" at the buffett upstairs in the Centurylink Center.  I jumped on the chance to eat for free.  As I left the athlete area around 8:30pm I exited a an area the fans have learned that the swimmers leave the pool through..  As I walked through the door, the camera flashes started in rapid succession!  All I could hear was "who is it? WHO IS IT?!" over and over.  At one point I heard "Are you famous?" to which I just smiled.  Since I had to pass about 50' of fans with cameras, I was eventually stopped and asked if some kids could take a picture with me.  I smiled and agreed.  I think it's adoreable that these kids clearly look up to anybody swimming at this level.  The experience made me smile, it was my moment of undeserved fame with the cameras snapping and kids cheering.  It was a good feeling regardless.

So back to the free meal upstairs.  At $24.00 a plate I was surprised how popular the dinner was.  There was nearly everything you could imagine to eat, I was fairly impressed.  I was there alone and considered joining another table for some conversation. In the end I chose to sit alone and people watch.  As I ate my dinner by myself I looked around at all the other swimmers and coaches.  What I saw made me happy.  Everybody there was smiling and laughing.  People attend this event for the experience, and the experience seems to be pretty darn good.