Got to get better

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There are less than 300 days left until the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. On one hand, that seems like an eternity: about 42 weeks, and at a maximum of 14 workouts a week (10 in the water and four in the weight room), I potentially have just under 600 workouts to go. And I thought sitting in the ready room was scary.

On the other hand, the days feel like they are ticking away too quickly. There's no more time to waste when it comes to preparing for the race that can make my podium dream come true. While many of my Canadian teammates are off to other countries to compete in World Cups and the Pan American Games, I'm bracing myself for a long, tough block of training. As much as I love to race, there are times when you just have to buckle down, put your face in the water, and do the work.

When I was preparing for the Olympic trials four years ago, I made a promise to myself: I wasn't going to leave anything to chance. I wanted to make sure that I did absolutely everything in my power to make the Canadian team bound for Beijing. For me, this had to go well beyond what I did in the water: working hard at practice is a given, and all of my competition was going to do the same. I knew that in order to swim faster than I ever had, I was going to have to work harder and make every decision, both in and out of the water, based on how it would impact my chances at the trials.

I achieved my dream in 2008: I represented Canada at the Olympic Games, even qualifying for the final of the 200 IM. But I came home empty-handed, and the bronze medal was more than two seconds beyond my grasp. What does that mean for me this year? Well, obviously I'm going to have to do what I did leading up to 2008. Only better. Way better.

So, where does becoming better start? I've been improving my world rankings over the last few seasons, but to be realistic about winning a medal, I'll need a significant jump this year.

My boyfriend's back

In the water, my coach Randy Bennett has made some changes to my program based on the skills that I lacked this summer at the world championships in Shanghai. For example, I'm very strong underwater when I swim backstroke. Unfortunately, the effort I put into my fast underwater kick hurts me later on in the race. That's part of why the front half of my 200 IM was so strong, but the back half felt more like a death sentence than a race. My great butterfly-to-backstroke turn came back to haunt me halfway through the breaststroke leg.

So, how do we solve this problem? By doing more underwater kicking and more fast turns. And when I say more, I mean "my-head-might-explode-from-holding-my-breath" more.
On the plus side, I've already seen some serious improvement in my turns even when I'm not feeling very "fresh" going into the wall (the way you feel on that last turn of a race). My underwater kick and turns aren't my only Achilles heel, however, which is actually a good thing: the more mistakes I made last year, the more room for improvement I have ahead of me.

Outside of the pool, I've officially fallen into a routine, high-performance oriented lifestyle. I've traded in my ice cream for cottage cheese, purged my liquor cabinet of every last drop of alcohol, and settled down with marathons of The Office on Saturday nights. Everything I put into my body and every activity I choose to engage in has to help me recover in between workouts so I'm ready to go the next time I dive in.

Luckily, just in time for the start of the season, the newest addition of my support team arrived: my boyfriend, Shane. Since May of 2010, we've been living thousands of miles apart: he was in his home state of Texas while I was training up in Victoria. For an athlete, I couldn't ask for a better boyfriend to support me: even when I'm on the other side of the world and racing while he should be sound asleep, he never misses one of my races and is always ready for my Skype call that's either filled with exuberance ("I broke a Canadian record!") or sobs ("I added five seconds and placed eighth!").

Over the next few months, when practices are daunting, the healthy food is dull, and staying in on Saturday nights has become monotonous, it will be nice to have someone by my side to help me through it. Because on those rainy mornings when you just don't want to get out of bed even with the motivation of the Olympic podium in the back of your mind, what you really need is that person to give you a good kick in the butt and remind you that it'll all be worth it in the end.

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