June 17, 2008:  Doogie Howser and Anne Frank

I can count five separate times throughout my life where I tried to keep a journal.  Four times I have failed.  The first was around the time of first or second grade when my mom got me one of those diaries with the golden lock so that no one could read your secret thoughts (not that it mattered anyways because I only wrote about stupid stuff like what my dog did that day). 

The second was around the “Doogie Howser, M.D.” days of the late ‘80’s and early 90’s.  I’m not sure how many of you are old enough to remember that show, but I loved it.  Doogie (Neil Patrick Harris) was a teenaged genius doctor who kept a journal on his old school, green-screened computer.  Every episode ended with Doogie typing on his computer about the insights of his day with this cheesy voice-over of his inner thoughts.  I thought that was the coolest thing ever (I was only 10 years old, keep in mind).  So I had my mom help me set up my very own digital journal, complete with password.  Again I would write about stupid stuff like what my dog did that day and eventually writer’s block ensued. 

Then in sixth grade or so, my class read “The Diary of Anne Frank” and my desire to keep a journal was once again revitalized.  I was amazed at how a young girl was able to keep such a vividly detailed and fascinating journal of her life.  So I got a cooler version of the journal with locket and started writing away.  I penned a couple entries about my best friends and various schoolyard gossips and gave up out of laziness. 

The last time I tried to keep a journal was before the last Olympics in Athens.  After making the team at Trials, I bought a journal at the local bookstore and began writing immediately.  There’s so much downtime at training camp that I thought I would definitely stick with it this time.  Instead of being plagued by writer’s block, there were so many things I wanted to write about I couldn’t keep up.  My handwriting gets really bad when I try to write quickly and (being the control-freak that I am) I couldn’t handle a messy journal.  After one too many eight-paged entries, my cramped hand and I gave up. 

The reason that I share these failed attempts is to provide you with a disclaimer that I may not be the most consistent blogger out there.  (My last entry was last fall… sorry about that.)  Today, I have made a pre-Trial resolution to keep it up this time and I won’t have messy handwriting to worry about.  The experience of going to Trials and making an Olympic team is incredible and I want to be able to remember it.  On my fifth attempt, I promise that I will keep it up.  The only thing is, is I cannot guarantee you that I won’t write about stupid stuff like what my dog did on a given day.   By the way, her name is “SheRa, Princess of Power” and she’s a three-year-old Border Terrier. 

I’m beginning my long journey home from Singapore with a 6-hour flight to Tokyo, followed by a 3-hour layover and then another 9-hour flight to San Francisco.  Fortunately I travel so much and have accumulated so many miles that I am able to upgrade to business class.  The flight attendants are passing out newspapers to my fellow passengers and my picture is all over the cover.  Thankfully no one has recognized me and I can be just another passenger.  (Even though it’s really flattering to have people recognize you, it’s a strange event when a total stranger knows who you are.) 

I loved everything about Singapore.  What a cool city/country.  The people are welcoming, the food is wonderful, swimming is embraced and the shopping is over-the-top.  I felt completely comfortable walking around the city by myself and was reassured by locals that it is absolutely safe for a young, single female to tour the city by herself.  What more could I want? 

The World Cup meet itself was great.  It was by far the most well ran World Cup that I have ever attended (and I don’t mean that to be a knock on any of the other World Cups that I have attended in the past).  The timeline was accurate to the minute, there was plenty of room to warmup/warmdown, transportation was straightforward and the hotel was incredible!  The fact that I swam really well doesn’t skew my opinion of the meet at all. 

Last night I broke the world record in the 100 SC meter backstroke (which I have held since November 2002).  I haven’t swum short-course meters that often in the past five years, but it was definitely a really great swim for me.  I knew that a personal best was possible after the meet in Durban because I was 0.4 seconds off of the record and I had a lot of room for improvement in that swim. 

Usually I am completely focused during my good swims, but last night was a little different.  After the start I broke the surface of the water a few kicks earlier than normal (for no particular reason) and when I turned at the 25, I realized that I was swimming on autopilot.  My mind was somewhere else.  Many athletes perform the best when they are in this mode, but I have never been one of them. 

Luckily I snapped back into it at the 25 and charged the race from there.  I kept my head still, hit my turns, had great breakouts and maintained my turnover.  I dove to the wall at the finish and SILENCE.  The crowd was not cheering and I was trying to process what had just happened.  I looked at the scoreboard and saw that the time was 0:56.5.  I couldn’t even figure out if that was a good time or not.  After three or four seconds the announcer revealed that my swim was in fact a world record.  The crowd and I reacted at the same time.  They were wildly cheering and I was goofily smiling.    It was the first swimming world record ever broken in Singapore, so not only was it a big deal for me, but it was a really big deal for the meet organizers. 

I haven’t reviewed the video of my swim yet, but it turns out that it was a really good thing for me that I was so out-of-it at the beginning of the race.  I took the race out much slower than I normally do and consequently had a much faster second 50 than in previous swims.  Live and learn. 

2007 has been a great year for me so far.  It has been five years since I have had a personal best in the short-course meter format.  Earlier this year at World Champs I had personal bests in my four best events (100 back, 100/200 free and 100 fly), which all were five-year old times.  When you have a long lull in personal bests, it’s important to have faith in your training and know that results will come.  They don’t always come when you want, but you need to stay focused.  I have 10 more months until Beijing and I have 10 more months of endless practices, hard work and lots of faith.  The 2 week training camp preceding Beijing will be in Singapore and hopefully I will be back here next year.

So I’m heading back home for the next couple weeks.  I will participate in the last World Cup meet of the circuit in Belo Horizonte, Brazil at the end of November.  Even though I’ve really enjoyed the past couple weeks of travel I’m really looking forward to being home.  I miss my house, my daily routine, my dog, my friends and family.  I think the first thing I’ll do when I get home is have a great breakfast (I arrive in the morning) and then take my dog for a nice long walk.  For now I have fifteen more hours of travel and I’m going to get back to Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour (great book!).

- Nat

First of all, thanks for having me on Swim Room! 

It’s hard to believe that the Olympics are less than a year away.  The year is already shaping up to be a really exciting, really busy, crazy year.  Right now I’m sitting in the Johannesburg airport on my way to Durban, which is the first stop of the World Cup Circuit.  It’s incredibly important for me to get a lot of competition experience and since I am no longer NCAA-eligible I can’t compete at the same meets as my Cal teammates.  So, when I heard that the World Cup Circuit was reinstated this year, I decided to participate! 

There are seven stops along the six-week circuit (Durban, Singapore, Sydney, Moscow, Stockholm, Berlin and Belo Horizonte) and I am attending three (Durban, Singapore and Belo Horizonte).  I would have loved to attend all of them, but that would have been way too much time away from my home, my family and friends and my training.  All the meets are the same two-day format, so I’ll swim the 100 fly, 100 back and 100 IM at each meet.  I may add another event or two, but I’m not sure just yet. 

Luckily I love traveling and it’s pretty easy for my body to adjust to time changes and new environments.  With the first two stops being consecutive meets, I will literally travel once around the world!  I’ve never been to South Africa or Singapore so I’m really excited to experience these new countries!  My favorite things to do when I travel are eating and taking photos, and fortunately I’ll have a little bit of free time at each of these countries to do these things. 

My flight from Washington DC to Johannesburg was the longest flight that I have ever taken at 15.5 hours!  Luckily there were some decent (I can’t say that they were good) movies to keep me occupied when I wasn’t sleeping.  It’s only an hour flight from here and I can’t wait to go to bed tonight!  Unfortunately my bags didn’t make my connection and I don’t have any extra clothes.  I am in bad need of a shower and would love to change into some clean PJ’s when I get to the hotel.  Plus, I only brought extra goggles and a race suit on board with me, so I don’t have a suit to warm-up in tomorrow morning.  I’ll look like a fool if I practiced in my FSPro.  I’m sure I’ll figure something out…  Wish me luck this week!