Swimming Blogs - Joshua Baseheart

Well, there's no more snow on the ground, and here in Wisconsin, that can mean only one thing: summer is very near. And as summer approaches, so does Olympic Trials. After all the record setting swims in the last couple months, you can feel the excitement in the air... or I should say, in the pool. From the people who are going to be following the results at home, to those looking forward to just swimming in the meet, to those who plan on re-breaking some of those records, there is a lot of built-up excitement and tension that I think will come to a head this summer.

When I think back to about a year ago, trials seemed so far away, and I had so much more hard work ahead of me. I knew that I had a winter of hard training, and then come summertime, I would be ready to race. Plenty of time to make stroke changes, improve my diet, and get a lot stronger. Well, a few weeks ago, we had a warm day, and I got almost a little panicked, feeling like I wasn't yet prepared for trials. Luckily for me, it snowed again after that (yeah, in April), easing my panic. I've had some time now to think about this summer coming up, and what it means for me and my swimming career.

I am definitely excited for Trials, and I know that as it approaches, I will only get more excited. Hopefully this won't lead to me getting too excited, and losing sleep or anything, which has happened to me in the past...

Five years ago, when I first came within close range of making Trials, I was relaxed, having fun, and making cuts was the last thing on my mind. This was at US Nationals in Indy, in 2003. Four of my friends and my girlfriend drove down and surprised me by coming to watch me race. Before finals, I didn't take a nap - the six of us just wandered around a closing sale at K-Mart (I think) and bought a bunch of junk. My friends found body paint and ridiculously cheap and ugly shirts. To make a long story short, I had four guys with my name painted on their chests going crazy in the stands before my race, looking ridiculous and making fools of themselves. Before the race, I was laughing and having a good time. I watched Jenny Thompson win her 25th National title right in front of me, which was pretty cool, and then I raced. 23.42, no problem.

Fast forward a couple months, and I'm thinking, "Ok, I missed the cut by .03, and I wasn't even taking it that seriously. All I have to do is have a perfect race, and I'll get it. No problem." And that's what I tried to do again, and again, and again. All the while progressively focusing more and more on the tiniest little details, just trying to find those three extra hundredths. Come summer of 2004, I still hadn't found them.

I found that the harder I tried to make everything perfect for each race (having some coffee at just the right time, warming up just the right amount, the perfect amount of time before my race, having slept just the right amount and eaten all the right things), the outcome always remained the same: not quite good enough. I went so many 23.5's and 23.8's, it was driving me nuts! As I would prepare for meets, I would get super paranoid about getting sick or doing anything that might affect my taper. I would have bouts of insomnia, where I would dream I was missing my race or something. Basically, I was driving myself crazy, just trying to drop those 3 hundredths.

Well, this all went on until the spring of 2007, when I finally just relaxed. I started swimming races just to enjoy racing, and was actually able to race without thinking about whether or not that was going to be the race where I would get the trial cut. And what do you know? In finals of the 100 free, where the thought never even crossed my mind, I got the cut. That night, I just goofed around with my teammate Adam Mania, playing some "Extreme" ping pong, and not really caring about the rest of the meet. The next day, my girlfriend convinced me to time trial the 50 free, just because I was swimming fast right then. I did, and got that cut, almost 4 years to the day since I had first missed it. In all of those four years, after all those attempts at perfection, I never would have thought that the day I would get the cut would be the day after staying up late running around in our friend's basement, after not having cooled down enough after the 100 free. Who would have thought?

When I look back on Nationals last spring, I realize that I was just relaxed and having fun, just like I was in Indy in 2003. I wasn't trying to force things to be perfect, and I wasn't worried about things that weren't perfect. I was just having fun.

I guess when it comes down to it, you just have to trust in your training and preparation, and whatever happens at the meet, happens. One thing I've learned over the last few years, is that all you can control going into a meet is how fit you are, and how mentally ready you are. All I can do to prepare for trials this summer is continue to train hard for the next two months, and relax. When I get there, there's not anything I can do that's going to affect my performance in the meet. If I happen to get sick, then I get sick. There's no reason I couldn't still swim fast. If I can't sleep, then I can't sleep. Chances are that my body doesn't need the sleep. There's no sense in trying to control things that I can't control. So, for the next two months, I'm going to continue to train hard, and do what I can do now to make sure I'm prepared when I get to Omaha. The rest is out of my hands.