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Today I sent myself home early from practice. I'm entirely drained physically. I have a feeling it's a combination of:

• Stress from the high profile meet
• A few days of being on my feet walking around taking pictures for friends
• 2 physically straining races
• Not sleeping in my own bed
• 10 hours of travel
• Many of hours of work during the meet
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I was just reflecting on what I did to prepare for World Champ Trials. My "rest" didn't really amount to more than a day or so. Basically I took it easy for 2 days and then tried for a lifetime best in a 100 meter backstroke.

When I realized that I pretty much went a 59.65 in a glorified practice I was suddenly impressed! Leave it to me to somehow twist a situation into something positive...

So to recap, I don't think 59.65 is too shabby at all!

After a night off I'm headed back to practice at EMU today to take what I've learned about competing and apply it to my training.

I'm back home and happy to have competed this week! I really wish I would have performed better but I knew going into this that I wasn't tapered and shouldn't expect much. I was really hard on myself for swimming a 100 backstroke in 59.65 seconds, only to come back and swim a 50 free in 25.00. Looking back, I shouldn't beat myself up for it.

Aaron Piersol, the former world record holder in the event lost his world record a week ago to Spain's Aschwin Wildeboer Faber. Piersol was 52.54, Wildeboer broke it with a 52.38 and then Piersol came back tonight with a 51.94!

It's been an amazing few years for all the events, since the introduction of the tech suits, almost every single world record has been broken.

50 Free: 25.00

That's REEEALLY slow! My best is a 23.69. The worst part about this meet is that I feel pretty good! I'm just swimming slow and its embarrassing! I'm gonna warm down and get some food.

I have the 50 free coming up in 20 mins. My legs are just gone. I have no excuse for my poor performance in the 100 backstroke. All I can say is that my legs failed me. My start was good, my arms were good, my body rotation was good but watching the video, I barely made it 65 meters before my legs failed. Once I couldn't kick I also couldn't rotate my body and my armstroke suffered.

I'm hoping for a decent 50 free but at this point I've set the bar pretty low, as long as I finish it alive I'll be ecstatic.

My legs are still tired and feel exhausted after only one hard race.

That swim embarrassed me.

I was out in a 27.81 and I was holding back a little for the last 50 meters. I brought it home in a 32.84. Its difficult for me to grasp how absolutely horrible that time is for me. I finished in a 59.65 which is 2.65 seconds off my best.

My legs entirely failed me. I had NOTHING left in my legs at the 75 meter mark. I couldn't even feel them. I even thought about just not moving them anymore since they were probably slowing me down. I'm scared to watch the video.

On the other hand the rest of my race felt pretty good! My start was awesome!

I just had a nice conversation with Randall Bal, he's one of the fastest backstrokers in the world. He's actually a really cool, down to earth guy! We talked about being "old" swimmers (he's a few months older than me) and balancing life with swimming among other sport related conversation.

My event is about 20 minutes away, I'm in heat 4 lane 2. I'm nervous but excited! My heat has a nice balance of 56 high to 57 low swimmers. I will have some good competition!

I'm warmed up and ready to swim! My start feels really good and it seems like it will work on these Omega pads.

I feel nervous and I'm a little shakey, I didn't get to eat much this morning due to getting up a little late. I'm 99% sure I'm the only person not wearing a full body tech suit. There was ONE guy yesterday in LZR legs. I feel empowered and inferior for it all at the same time. I'm ok with it.

This is a really cool city! I always have a great time in Indianapolis!

Tonight I saw a few American Records fall and I got to catch up with a lot of nice people from the swimming community. I had a good conversation with my friend Kara Lynn Joyce and also got to meet Olympian Cullen Jones. Cullen seems like a really nice, down to earth guy. I'm really impressed with what he's doing with minority swim programs.

As far as my swimming goes, nothing really went to plan tonight but that's ok.