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I'm having a hard time not dreaming about the trials. It's on my mind every moment of the day. I'm both nervous and excited. It will be the biggest meet I've ever been a part of, packed in an arena with 15,000 fans, 1,000 athletes, the best coaches in the nation along with past and future Olympians. I just keep thinking about how it will feel to swim the 100 meter long course backstroke actually tapered, rested, shaved in a race suit. I've never been fully prepared for a long course meet. I will be ready.

I took today off, I will swim each day till my trial on Monday. I added some memorable quotes to the "Trials" page. I'll add more as I think of them, what's there now is just what I thought of today. I've been eating lots of good food and getting sleep. I'm feeling ready to go!

I made some minor changes to each page.

I went through the psych sheet today to determine when the swimmers in my event swam the times they listed. The point of this research was to determine if I was swimming against people that swam their best in 2008. If they swam well recently they're capable of swimming even better next week. The flip side being, perhaps they swam their best time in 2005 and they might be a little rusty by now. I determined that about 80% of the swimmers swam the seed times in 2007, only a few swam them in 2006 and a handful of guys swam them in 2008. What does this prove?

I just read this on a website:

"For eight days, some of the biggest names in sports will be in Omaha with one purpose in mind – to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing."

For the next week I'm going to be extra conscious of staying safe, the last thing I need is a cut or sprained joint distracting me from doing my best.

Thank you to my supporters today , it was a great day! I updated the "Trials" page with a few links, I'm still adding new information as I have it. Thanks for checking back.

A few backstroke facts via Wikipedia:

My friend James sent me a good article:

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/06/20/phelps-looks-to-make-olympic-history/

Although it's mostly about Phelps, it has a great part about the an athlete who got 3rd at the 2004 Olympic Trials:

It's days like today that keep me excited about the trials. I have a very busy business day but managed to get to the pool for a quick workout. I only did about 2,000 meters but I made it count. I did a quick kick set and was averaging 32 low from a push for a 50 meter kick. I know for a fact I've never been this fast in my life. The next set I figured I would try some fast 50's swim, I only had time for a few of them with 150 swim in between sets, but I had a few 27 high in there from a push... for me, this is hauling! These simple stats just get me pumped up!

I gave the site a slightly different look, larger menu up top and a few coding changes.

I notice I hear "the videos are great, which swimmer are you?". If the gargantuan muscles aren't enough to tell me apart, I don't know what to tell you. I've been playing around with a video overlay which highlights the lane I'm in but it's not quite done. I might just implement a text field describing where I am in the pool for now. I'll get back to ya on that one.

I'm headed to the pool sometime today for a practice before work.

I swam at Fuller Pool today, an outdoor 50m facility nearby. With a few cold days and a broken heater made the pool almost intolerable. I don't think I'll swim there again before trials, I find that EMU offers less distractions and therefore I get a better workout. After my workout I actually took a few moments to relax in the sun. I fell asleep there for a little while. It was really refreshing to just lay there for a while right after practice.