WCSN Blogs

I have itchy feet.  And not the kind you get when you want to travel.  Though, at this point, if I could make a career of running away I would.  No, I have itchy feet from walking, running, marching, and climbing all over this island on feet that are more used to water than the insides of shoes.

I’m growing calluses on my soles but I hope that in my recovery, my soul is not growing callous.  I don’t want a heart that’s scarred and hardened.  Missing making the Team this summer has crushed parts of me but I’m wary of some of the paths of healing, knowing that a few will make me into a person I don’t want to be.  So I move slowly, exhausting myself with the sights and sensations of Western Ireland until I can see my way forward.

Last week, Greg and I climbed Mt. Slievemore here on Achill.  It was a struggle at times and I realized that 15 years of kicking breaststroke had changed my knees more than I had thought.  But when we reached the top we were rewarded with an awe-inspiring view of most of the island.  The wind was strong and it seemed as if I could just jump and float on it like an osprey on an updraft.

Greg and the Irish wind have been my constant companions over the past weeks.  Greg shadows me like a wolf caring for it’s wounded mate.  He weathers my defensive snapping and turbulent moods with a patience I could never command.

The wind fills the silence, for which I am ever grateful.  Sometimes, while you are out walking you can’t hear anything as the wind shrieks over your ears, not even your own thoughts.  We’ve had unseasonably bad weather but it suits me.  The beautiful days in California were too much of a foil for my bleak heart.

A few days ago it was time to end the solitude.  My friend Zach was only a few hours away in Galway and I hadn’t seen him in over a year.  But I found myself scared of meeting my old friend, who had known me before I had broken my heart.  The only people I have really seen since Trials have been Greg, Dana, Andrew and Lacey.  People who were there when it happened and knew what it meant.

I’m afraid that others will see someone who has fallen, and think less of me for it.  But I think that I underestimate my friends.  Zach was just happy to see me, Olympics or not.  We had a great time and I was entranced as he told stories of his year of travel around the world.  In the end it was just two friends catching up.

It’s just another wound that’s starting to heal.  I’m finding them in the most unexpected places.  Take Scrabble.  I’ve never been ok with losing but now it’s even worse.  Greg hasn’t gotten any pieces thrown at him yet but, well, let’s just say I don’t think he’s rooting for himself to win.

Still, life goes on.  I’ve only been here two weeks.  It seems so short yet almost a lifetime.  When I get back, I’ll have weddings to go to and people to see.  Strange as it is to me, the world didn’t stop on July 1st.  I would do well to remember that.

Since trials I’ve been having some fun. I’ve been playing video games with friends, playing tennis, bike riding, and reading. It’s nice to be able to stay up late and sleep in for a change. I haven’t once woken up in time for morning practice. I wouldn’t have gone to practice if I had been up though. I have been thinking about swimming but I haven’t felt like I really needed to get in the pool yet.

One thing has happened with some stress. There was a terrible thunderstorm last week and my friend Matt Owen’s apartment building was struck by lightning. The building caught on fire and the fire spread quickly through the attic of the building. He lives on the first floor of the two-story building so that saved him from burning. There was plenty of smoke in his place though. He also had some damage from the power surge. His computer had a couple parts fry and his TV stopped working. He wound up having to stay with me for a couple days before they got running water back and the smoke smell went away.

This weekend we are going to have some excitement. Beth and I are going up to North Carolina to do some white water rafting. It has been a few years since Beth has done any and it has been at least 10 years since the last time I did. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will have a fun ride down the river.

It was a strange feeling, walking down the jet way, passport in hand, on my way to Ireland.  Like déjà vu for the thing that had not happened.  I was heading out of the country for the summer, but heading East instead of West

I hoped that Ireland could heal me and I left California shortly after I ran away from Trials.  By then I felt as though the raw disappointment of those first days had coalesced into solid lead inside of me.  Like cooling lava, it was no longer bursting forth, but just lay there, heavy as stone.

And as time has gone by, I’ve found that I have discovered a sort of peace here.  Some solace in the wind and solitude.  Here, you can be lost in the blue gray of the ocean, the ruin of high stone cliffs, and the majesty of long dead monuments.

On our first day here, Greg and I visited the Hill of Tara, seat of the High Kings of Ireland. We touched Lialh Fáil, the stone of destiny. Lost baggage left us ill prepared for the slick wet grass and cutting wind.  Still, the vast emptiness of the place, the sense of past drama and even that cold wet wind seemed to fill some sort of void in my heart.

Now we have set up at the summerhouse of one of my teammates on stark and beautiful Achill Island.  The house is the type of place that has no address, just a few distant neighbors and their twelve cats.  It has been comforting to find out that I have many friends who care for me and not for my success.  They have all come through more than I had ever expected, offering me help at a time when it’s most needed.

As the days pass, I feel the burden of my disappointment less and less.  It is by no means lighter.  Instead, it’s as if the exercise of carrying it and not collapsing under its weight has made me stronger and I can go longer and longer before I notice it.

Now, I can laugh with a gasp at our tiny car becoming airborne off a huge sideways bump in the road.  I chuckled at the local crazy bartender’s response to Greg’s question about the taste of a certain local beer - “It’s beer.”  I even found humor when we figured out halfway through our quick run this morning that it had accidentally turned into a 6+ mile trek.

I have faith that happy days and great days will still come to me and bury the disappointment of this summer beneath them.  I doubt that I will ever forget the pain of what could have been but I will remember that greatness of spirit cannot be left behind in a swimming pool.

I’ve woken up every morning since the 100 breaststroke and found that, even though I had my doubts, I lived.  I decided that I needed to be brave.  And so I wrapped my heart in ice and built a façade of grace.  I came to the pool every session and walked and smiled and laughed.  I swam, and when no one could see, cried into my goggles.

For myself, I decided to swim the 200 breaststroke.  It wasn’t an event that I had particularly trained for.  Still, I couldn’t just give up.  But the problem was that behind the façade was something that was still recovering from a serious blow.  And sometimes the mask would crack.  It was like a hollowed shell, that without the supports to make it strong, couldn’t protect as it should.

The 200 takes heart, and I found that I just didn’t have it.  The first 35 went great, the next 50 fine, but when the time came to charge I reached into myself and found the emotional well dry.  There just wasn’t anything left.

I didn’t make it out of the prelims.  But even if I had, it would have just been failure at some other time.  I felt weak for being unable to bounce back from the 100m but I was proud that I even jumped into the water.  Before the race, when I was struggling to be strong, I could have just walked away and disappeared.  But at least I tried.

I’m not going to make any decisions about retirement now.  I haven’t made any plans at all for next year.  I had hoped to travel, and I may still do that, either with swimming or without.  If I do come back to swimming, it won’t be for anyone but myself.  I think that it would be nice to not end on a miss, to swim well, and then ride off into the sunset with my head held high.

But this ignominious exit from the highest circles of the swimming world has tickled something in the back of my brain.  Like light through the snow, a small part of me starts to wonder if I haven’t just been kicked out of a gilded cage.

Professional swimming is a good life with good money, a decent schedule (if you don’t mind early mornings), travel to interesting places, and many accolades.  But it has its opportunity costs.  While you are committing yourself whole-heartedly to one thing, you cannot do so to another.

I’ve always maintained that I am more than just a swimmer.  That I will have bigger days in my life ahead.  But moving onto those bigger things is hard to do when you are complacent with the life that you have.  The seduction of the swimming lifestyle is hard to resist.

So I’m going to think long and hard about this.  And if I do come back it will be for me, no vendettas, no thoughts for my competitors, just my own enjoyment and goals.  I’ll have lots of time to think about it.  As I write, I am on my way back home and from there, Ireland.  I feel a little bad for running away from the meet.  But there is nothing for me back there and I need some time to myself before I have to deal with everyone asking me what went wrong.

One one-hundredth. Faster than you can snap your fingers. Faster than you can start and stop a stopwatch (even if you cheat and hit the button against your knee instead of using your thumb). Faster than you can blink your eye. That’s what I missed the Olympic Team by.

But as I looked up at the clock, trying to figure out what exactly had happened, that hundredth might as well have been a year. Because no matter how close I was to second place, the cold reality was that I was third. Third - we might as well call it first loser since first and second go on to the games and third through infinity watch from their couch. There is actually a medal for third place, if you can believe it. I found it nestled amongst my warm-ups after the race. A small consolation for smashed dreams.

The rest of the night was like a dream. Amanda pulled me over to hug me before we even got out of the pool, telling me that it was no time for tears and that I was awesome. Her support and my pride got me off the deck with at least a semblance of dignity.

But all I really wanted to do was get away. Wake up. Rewind my life and try again. I made it down the stairs from the pool trying to make good my escape but to add insult to injury found myself signing off on drug testing papers.

My coach, Lea, found me just before I made it up the stairs to the warm-down tank. I’m not even sure why I was going there since pretty much everything I had been working for had just ended. That’s just where I always went after I was done racing.

Like a sleepwalker, my warm-ups fell out of my hands and she too was hugging me in sadness. But a hug wasn’t going to take my sadness away. And even more than my own self-pity, I felt ashamed that I had taken up so much of her time and energy on a failed endeavor.

A short warm down, a run through drug testing, and it was time to complete my escape. My fiancé, Greg, was going to get me out of there but first I actually had to make it out the door. You would think that, the results of the evening, a tear-stained face, and the clearly spoken words of, “This is not a good time,” would have kept the autograph hunters off me. But no, they hounded me out the door and onto the sidewalk.

Back at Greg’s hotel I tried to digest the events of the night. All I wanted to do was fall asleep and let the pain of disappointed dreams fade into oblivion. But nothing hurts so badly as the loss of the thing you want most. I’d never played it safe with this dream and now I was paying the price.

I’d felt this loss before. Back when I was in the final round of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of four called back for second interviews but not one of the two named. Still, tonight it felt so much worse. No matter how tired I was, the minute I relaxed my brain the whole disaster of an evening came rushing back at me.

Today, despair lies on me like an avalanche. I still have some decisions to make but they are important ones, not to be made with emotion. I have to decide if I am going to still swim the 200, an event that, for me, has not been particularly successful of late. And then there are decisions beyond that. Fortunately, I am surrounded by people who care about me.

Our first full day in Omaha was exciting to say the least.  There was a terrible storm and a fire in our hotel.  We also saw a car accident and a woman hit by a car.  We also saw a new movie, WALL-E.

In the afternoon, right before I jumped in the pool, there was an announcement at the pool about a tornado warning and everyone had to get off the pool deck.  There was a really strong storm headed our way with 80-90 mile-per-hour winds.  The storm was so strong that it ripped large parts of the Qwest Center building right off.  We actually were wondering if they were going to be able to have a meet if the damage was too severe.  It turns out that the building will be fine though and the meet will go on as planned.

After the storm passed and we left the pool we were supposed to go to dinner on the other side of Omaha.  On the way we had to pass right through the path of the storm.  Power was out to most areas on the way out and the streetlights weren’t working.  This is probably what caused the car accident that we drove by.  Then a little later on there was a pedestrian in the middle of the road who was hit by a car.  We passed dozens of downed trees and several of them blocked roads, altering our route.  We finally got to a point where the police blocked off the road we were on and we couldn’t find a road that headed in the right direction that was clear.  At that point we figure that we just weren’t meant to head out that way.  So we headed back to downtown where out hotel is to eat.

After eating we walked back to our hotel to find fire trucks outside and everyone loitering outside the hotel.  It turned out that some water had gotten into the basement of the hotel and run into the circuit breaker causing it to smoke.  It was probably 45 minutes before we were allowed to return to the hotel.  In the meantime we watched as the bride and groom from the wedding party that was at to hotel at the time took pictures with the fire trucks.

What a crazy day.  Hopefully we have all our hiccups out of the way at this point and everything will go smoothly from here on out.  I’m getting ready to have my first race of the meet tomorrow morning, the 400 IM.  It is the event that I have been most looking forward to and I’m feeling pretty good.

A few weeks ago Lea gave our team a little talk abut being flexible at Trials and prepared for things to go wrong.  She wanted us to be ready to roll with the punches.  Well, the past few days have certainly been exciting but since we were prepared for things to go wrong we’ve come out of it pretty unscathed.

The whole team flew out on a bunch of different flights.  For the most part those went well.  I even got upgraded to first class so that was nice.  Unfortunately, our coaches and one of our athletes got hugely delayed and then their flight into Omaha got canceled late last night.  So I picked up a car when I got in and so did another girl when she got in later.  I had a small adventure getting to the hotel but I made it by about midnight.

This morning, we still had no coaches because they were stuck in Houston and just trying to get within driving range of Omaha.  So we made our way to the pool on our own.  Dana had her coaching credentials handy and so she was able to sign us all in.  We all got a good warm-up and I picked up my LZRs.  Afterward we caravaned our way to Old Town Omaha to have lunch and wander a bit.

Not too bad so far, considering.

We planned to go back to the pool around 5 PM after the coaches had made it in.  However, Mother Nature had different plans for us.  I looked out the window as my roommate and I left our room and saw that the sky was black and it looked like night out.  The wind was blowing like crazy too.  Then I looked back across the street and I could see the rain pouring down, moving towards us.  It was fast and as it hit we could hear hail striking everything and making a huge racket.  The lights started flickering and all the fire doors closed.  Then the hotel staff was pushing everyone into the basement.  All of the swimmers found each other down there and we hunkered down to wait (see pic).

About ten minutes later they let us out and we headed out to the pool.  It was still raining big fat drops but it wasn’t windy anymore.  There were huge lakes and rivers in the streets but we didn’t have too much trouble getting to the pool.  On the way we saw blown down trees and debris all over.  But the worst was yet to come.

As we approached Qwest Center we saw that part of a high wall had been torn off and there was a hole and a ton of debris around.  We went in but they had pulled everyone out of the pools.  We waited around for a while but then they sent everyone outside because they had to check for structural damage.  The pool was closed for the whole night so we just went to dinner.  On the way the GPS nav system died, which made things even more interesting.

Intense!  But I kind of feel like it is a big adventure.  And I swam a lot this morning so it was ok that I didn’t get to swim tonight.

I leave this week for Olympic trials. It’s so strange to think that after so much build up it is almost here. For the most part I’ve just been trying to avoid the hype and concentrate on being myself, doing fun things, and having a relaxed but focused attitude going in. I’ve done all the hard work. All that is left is to keep out of my own way.

Unfortunately, taper prevents me from doing a ton of active stuff. It’s also been super hot here. My activities have included playing Scrabble, watching Greg help Lacey and Andrew move all their belongings into their new house on the hottest day of the year, and reading. Relaxing, sometimes funny, but kind of boring.

I’ve also been hanging out in air-conditioned stores (the thermostat in my apartment stops at 88 but we definitely topped it out the other day) trying not to buy too much stuff. I found a whole stack of unused gift cards on my desk and so I’ve been trying to take my shopping urges out in stores that I have a card for. The downside is that I have no idea how much money is on each of the gift cards. Sometimes it’s something like $100 sometimes it is $1.

But it is a strange time, these last few days before Trials. I haven’t really thought too much beyond these next couple weeks and I’ve started to find myself side-stepping the future question all too often, even to myself. Hopefully, I have a long set of traveling coming up, but of course, it’s never good to count your chickens before they hatch. Then again, you never want to plan on losing.

I’m also getting married in just over a year. Who knows where in the world I will be after that.

So when I think to myself, “I might like to buy some pet fish,” I then abandon the idea because I have no idea if I’ll even be around to feed them, or if I’ll have to move them across the country, or if I will be right here, every day, to look at them and enjoy.

Yes, it is an uncertain time, with plenty of questions and an answer looming on the horizon. I try to focus on the answer I’ve worked for. But in the end I will simply have to race with my heart.

Lately taper hasn’t been that much fun.  I have been in a little bit of a funk while my body tries to figure out what is going on and rebuilds itself.  It has been going on for a couple weeks and while I know that I’ve done the work and will be fine, it is frustrating to swim slower when getting rest.

That was until yesterday night and this morning.  I am finally starting to feel stronger and on top of the water again.  It makes swimming so much more fun when you feel decent and swim fast.  Swimming fast is the reason we do this sport in the first place.  So it is still another week of resting and feeling better before it’s really time to throw down.  The more practices I have feeling like today, the more I know that I will be in good shape when Trials start next weekend.

JEI went pretty well.  I got in a few good swims and escaped the meet without getting injured.  I went 1:07.2 in the 100 br, 1:01.8 in the 100 fly, and then 2:32 in the morning of the 200 br.  Lea and I decided to scratch out of finals because my groin was feeling a little funny and we didn’t want to risk even a small injury this close to trials.  Plus I was able to get back home and rest instead of getting home close to midnight.  I felt totally fine today so I think that the plan worked.

Rest is going to be the theme of the next three weeks.  I was planning on lifting through this week but Lea decided (and I agree) that I need to rest up to get more speed in the front end of my races.  I’m doing great on the get home but haven’t found that “pop” yet to get me out of the gates and racing.  I’ve checked out the race videos and think that I just need to get a lot more out of my legs.  So, lifting is officially finished.

Other than that, not much is going on.  I just got the rest of my clothes from the What Not to Wear experience.  The people from the show weren’t happy with the tailoring that got done here so they brought a few pieces back with them to New York to have their tailor fix.  So now they are perfectly fitted to me…even more incentive not to eat my way out of finals!