Knoxville

Knoxville:

The natatorium here is new - 3 months new, in fact! This selection camp is (as far as I know) the first event that's ever been held here. The pool is beautiful. There are four one meters and four three meters, a hot tub, a cold tub, air-filled stretching mats (excuse me while I nerd-out, diver style)... chlorine that doesn't seem too hard on my hair... plenty of room on the deck... great lighting... ! The wall behind the platforms and springboards is made of orange and white panels, which makes the whole diving end of the natatorium look really amazing. It reminds me a little of Mondrian painting (I had no idea the guy was named "Mondrian" until just now. You can thank wikipedia for this reference!). I keep meaning to take some pictures of the pool... don't worry, it'll happen some time before I leave!

Practices have been good. We got here unusually early - I arrived on Friday, and won't compete til this Thursday! I guess that means I'm now halfway through the waiting game. Sometimes it feels like it's going by fast, and other times I'm not sure if we'll ever get to the third. For me, ime seems to warp when there's something major on the horizon, probably because I pay so much more attention to the hours, days, and minutes leading up to the event. (FYI: Two days and thirteen hours til go-time, baby.)

I'm liking the city of Knoxville. There's actually a lot of down time at meets - we spend a few hours practicing each day, and that's about it - so it's nice to be in a place where there are lots of restaurants and shops within walking distance. Our hotel isn't too shabby, but there's about an inch of crack underneath each door, which means that everything that goes on in the halls - doors closing, conversations with more-than-six-inch-voices, footsteps, room parties, kids on school trips sneaking out after curfew - is heard pretty clearly. Likewise, everything that goes on in the rooms - television, conversations, sweet monkey nay nay - makes its way on out into the hall. This has made it hard to sleep the first few nights here.

Two girls on our team - Kaylea and Michelle - bought a drawerful of art supplies, and we've all been making posters for each other. I'm not exactly an artist (the stick figure divers I drew on Michelle and Kaylea's sign look a little like aliens) but I've enjoyed the sign-making, for sure! Kaylea's mom bought three cowbells. There may be fewer spectators at this meet than at Indy trials, but we're doing our best to try to make the stands just as loud and colorful!

Airports are my second home

I leave for Tennessee in an hour. Quick turnaround, eh? I had to unpack last night so I could pack again. I realized at around 9:30PM that I probably should have done laundry sometime in the last few days, but oh well... maybe if I smell I'll intimidate my competition?

It's been a good week, practice-wise. We got rained out yesterday (or rather... lightninged out. We divers don't stop for a little rain - no way! The rumor is that a few years ago, lightning hit the tower, bounced across the pool to the three meter, then flew across a long stretch of cement to zap the swimming pool. The pools were empty... but if they hadn't been we'd all have been french fries. or popped corn. Or burnt marshmellows. Or charcoal. Take your pick of something hot and extremely unpleasant. But I digress...)
Anyway, the good news is that I'm feeling a lot more confident in my abilities than I was going into the last meet, which is vital. There's some tough competition in both the synchro and individual events. I can win, but to do so, I've got to go all out - no room for fears or mistakes!

Well, it's travel time in fifteen minutes and I still can't find my warmup jacket, so... au revoir...

The Journey Continues

Great news: Although originally, only the top six at Trials were supposed to qualify on to the selection camp and I was 8th, my coach and I submitted a petition asking to dive individual 3 meter there. US Diving has a petition process through which a top level athlete who has a strong chance to make the Olympic team and has a legitimate reason for missing a qualifying opportunity is given a second chance to qualify. My petition basically argued that I dove poorly at Olympic Trials because I was coming back from an injury, and that I would have a chance to make the team if allowed to compete at the selection camp. The committee of people-in-charge-of-such-things voted today, and it was accepted! The journey continues! Ole!

Success Comes in Cans...

(Not cannots!)

I got back from Indianapolis last night, five hours later than I was scheduled to arrive (I'm not sure how a direct flight from Indy to Houston with lovely weather at both ends managed to go so wrong... Probably a butterfly flapped its wings in Newark, or something.)

It was a long ending to a long week, lets put it that way. I competed in the prelims and semifinals of Olympic Trials on Thursday afternoon and evening. There were a few good dives, but I just kept second guessing myself. I ended the competition on Thursday in 10th place, which was disappointing. I had worked hard for this. I could dive a lot better, and I knew it!

I did some soul-searching on Thursday night, and realized a few things:

My mind was pretty far from where it should have been. I've had a major setback in the last few months - I was out for most of February and all of March with a back injury, and while the physical effects are now gone, I allowed the missed training to take a big bite out of my confidence. Confidence is a funny thing - I won the last 4 competitions I competed in before I hurt myself. I won one and three meter at NCAA Zones in March of 2007. I won one and three meter at NCAA's in March of 2007. I won three meter at Nationals in August of 2007. I won three meter at the World Cup Selection camp in January of 2008. I went to World Cup in February, hurt myself, and couldn't compete. I wasn't back doing my dives yet in time for US Nationals in April. And then I arrived in Indianapolis, hoping to win but secretly doubting myself. Not a good combination.

Friday morning, I had the best practice I'd had since before I hurt myself. Things that I had struggled with the day before were easy, and I was clear and confident with what I was doing. It felt like a reminder - this is you. this is what you're capable of. Saturday morning's practice was also great, and Saturday's competition was a lot better than either round on Thursday. Saturday just wasn't enough to get me out of the hole I'd dug for myself.

I placed 8th at Olympic Trials. Now, 8th at Olympic Trials is great, but when you go in hoping to win, 8th is about eighty times less cool. The winner (And nearly official member of the 2008 US Olympic Team) was Christina Loukas.

Luckily, I have one more chance. I'm going to Knoxville for the US Olympic Team selection camp on Friday, and competing there next week. I'll compete with my synchronized diving partner, Nancilea, to earn a spot in the synchronized three-meter event, and hopefully I'll also be invited to compete three meter for a chance at the second individual spot. My Olympic Journey definitely isn't over yet!

I've got some work to do this week. I need to completely banish all the negatives -- all the what-if's and the I-don't-knows -- and really just go for it. The competition will be stiff, but I can do these dives great. It all comes down to trusting the coaching and the training I've had over the last few years and believing in my abilities.

Pre-competition thoughts

Well, I compete today! The jitters have mostly gone away, and now there's just a lot of adrenaline.

My goals for this competition can be summed up by something that one of my favorite athletes said a few days ago:



(This is an excerpt from an AP article)

Woods had such a clean lie in the bunker that he might have gone for the green in two if the U.S. Open wasn't on the line. Instead, he hit a terrible shot to the right and into the rough, and had to hope that his 60-degree wedge was the right choice. It settled 12 feet away, giving him yet another putt that he couldn't afford to miss.
"A little wobbly down there," he said of the poa greens, a grass that gets bumpier in the afternoon sun. "I played probably 2 1/2 holes outside right. Just take it back and make a pure stroke, because once it starts slowing down there ... you don't know what's going to happen. All I could control is my stroke."
He started to backpedal as the putt neared the hole, paused to make sure it was in, then clenched and pumped both fists toward him in rapid-fire succession, screaming with joy with his face to the sky.

It's an old Zen saying - If you want to hit the target, you can't aim for it. I have to be able to get on the board and concentrate, not on hitting the dive ("hitting the dive" - v. - To do a great dive), but on controlling my stroke - on doing what I need to do in order to hit it. Diving happens too fast to think about everything and control everything. I have to focus on my cues - the really important things - and trust that muscle memory will take care of the rest. If I hold my hands up on my hurdle, focus on my armswing, and kick out of the dive on my spot, then the dive will be good without me worrying about any of the rest.



Not overthinking is easier said than done, especially when it's the Olympic Trials and fifteen great dives (five in prelims, five in semis, five in the finals) will get me a berth on the Olympic Team. It's really tempting for me to say "ok, this has to be perfect, so I need to focus on making every little move I make perfect, because I need to do the greatest dive I've ever done" but that's the wrong path. I need to trust my body and myself. I need to trust that I've practiced enough, and I don't have to do anything above and beyond what I do in practice. Extra thoughts, which slide all too often into being extra worries, won't help. I want to win. To do that, I have to believe in the training that's brought me this far.

Photos and Interviews (and lemurs)

After practice yesterday I got pulled over to do an interview for AT&T Blue Room, who will be broadcasting thursday and friday's events live over the internet. They took video of me making my "serious" face, then my "happy" face. In my head I kept thinking of that scene from Austin Powers where he's photographing models: "You're a tiger baby. Grrr. Now you're a lemur. Be a lemur baby, yeah." If any of you watch the AT&T Blue Room broadcast and there's a shot of me with a funny look on my face, it may be because I was trying to do a lemur impression.

I always feel a little silly interviewing. When I was in highschool and the local papers first came a-calling, I dreaded them. I was terrified that they'd ask me a simple question and something really dumb would come out. My mind would sort of freeze up and I'd keep forgetting words.

I've gotten better at newspaper interviews, even to the point that I enjoy some of them, but live ones still give me the heebie jeebies. I love the opportunity to express myself and help publicize my sport. I love writing. Blogging is great because I choose when to post, and I can edit as much as I want before I do. But live stuff, and things that involve other people trying to make their own stories out of what I say, is different - I worry that what I say won't really convey my message, or that my words will misrepresent me. I think, in the end, that most interviews end up sounding just fine, which should, eventually, teach me that it's silly to stress over them. But I guess I'm still a worrier when it comes to public speaking. I'm hoping that practice and time will help fix that.



Here are a few pictures that my mom took of me the other day.


This is me diving. I really like the boards at Indy, which is lucky, because we seem to have an awful lot of meets here!


There have been a lot of swimming, diving, and synchronized swimming trials at Indianapolis. Behind the boards are the names of all of the people who have qualified to the Olympics from Indianaplis Trials. The most recent is the 2008 Women's Synchronized Swimming team.


This is me and my synchronized diving partner, Nancilea. There won't be synchro at this trials - We'll compete for our spot in the 3 meter synchro event at the US Olympic Selection Camp, which will be in Knoxville in two weeks. The stands behind us are empty now, but they'll be completely full once the competition starts!


This is just a bunch of people waiting in line at practice. Every single one of us is in it to win it, but the sport of diving is also sort of like a family. Everyone knows each other, and we're usually a friendly bunch.

Indianapolis - Trials

I got to Indy, and trials, yesterday, after an easy, uneventful trip. I feel like my last few airplane flights have been all-day, airport-to-airport-to-airport affairs, and in the future I probably shouldn't underestimate the value of a nice, easy direct flight. This is sort of an ongoing battle between my coach, Rick, and I - He's all for staying in the nicest hotels, getting the most convenient travel arrangements, renting cars, the works... I'm usually fine with cheap hotels, bumming rides, and layovers (I think that's genetic). But hey... this is Olympic Trials. It's a good time to err on the side of comfort.

Hard to believe that four days - eight practices - stand between me and the meet. I'm competing individual three meter on Thursday afternoon. Semifinals are in the evening, and finals are on Saturday.

I'm also trying to make the Olympic team in Synchronized 3 meter, with my partner Nancilea, but they won't have any synchro events this week. All the synchro teams will be decided at a "Selection Camp" in two weeks in Knoxville. This is a weird trials, that way. Any other year, this meet would be IT. I'd fly in, dive my two events, and either place in the top two (individual) or top team (synchro) and be an Olympian, or else get third or lower and have to wait four more years for another shot. I'd know by the end of the week whether I was going to Beijing or not.

Now, only the winner of each event in Indianapolis will be named to the team. The top six in each event, as well as the top-level synchro teams, are invited to the Selection camp, where the rest of the team will be chosen. So the Trials will be over by Sunday, but two-thirds of the Olympic team won't actually be set for another three weeks.

Anyway, things are going well so far. Today's practices were exciting. I felt juiced, and just a bit nervous at first, but as I dove, I started to feel more like my normal self. I like my hotel, and it's fun to have so many teammates also at Trials (The Woodlands, which is the team that my coach and I have been training with since shortly after I graduated from Stanford, has 8 people competing at this meet! That's a lot!) I've come to a lot of big meets on my own, and while I know all of the other divers on the deck, it's nice to have great friends here that really share the excitement, stress, joy, and anticipation of Trials.

USA Diving Olympic Trials will be live on NBC from 3:30-4:30 on Saturday, June 21 and 3-6 on Sunday, June 22. My event - Women's 3m - will probably be on the later side of the time slot on Sunday!

Two days til Indy!

Two days til I leave for trials. TWO DAYS. I seem to have written a ton of catch-up emails to friends and family over the last week, and I always have to emphasize the countdown - SIX DAYS til trials... FIVE DAYS... FOUR DAYS... you get the idea. It's ridiculously soon! Indianapolis, Here I Come!

This is my second Olympic trials, but my first serious chance at making the team. It's amazing to look at how much my life has changed, and how far I've come, since then. I was a freshman at Stanford in 2004. I had just finished my freshman year when I competed at the last trials - In fact I emailed in my last final paper two days before I competed! In 2004, I surprised myself by moving on from the Spring Nationals qualifying meet to Nationals... then I surprised myself again by finaling at Nationals and qualifying, at the last possible opportunity, to Olympic Trials... Then I surprised myself again by making it through the prelims and semifinals of Olympic Trials to the finals! In the end I was 8th, and I was happy with that.

I won't be happy with 8th this time around. I've improved so much in the last four years. Since 2004, I've come into my own as a diver, won some national championships, upped the difficulty of my list, and gained a ton of confidence. I graduated from school last spring and moved down here, to The Woodlands, Texas a few months later. Rick, my coach from Stanford, came down here to continue training me as soon as his college season was over in April. My training situation in Texas couldn't be better - I get to train full-time with my synchronized diving partner, Nancilea, who lives here, along with eight other divers currently training for Olympic Trials (more than anywhere else in the country!). Plus, I get to have the coach who has gotten me to where I am, who knows my diving inside and out, and who knows exactly what to say and do to make my dives better.

Anyway, I compete at Trials next week, and I'm really starting to feel ready. I injured myself in February and couldn't get back in the water again until early april, and at times it's felt like the comeback process has been very long, and very slow. I've really only felt like myself again in the last week or two. Dives that were easy for me before the injury are easy again, and I finally feel free to concentrate on "the last six feet" before I hit the water. (In diving, entering the water with no splash is the most important part of the dive. You can jump as high and spin as fast as you want, but if you make too much spash on the entry, you won't get a good score. Thus, "the last six feet" are very important!) Anyway, every day in the past week has been better than the one before it. Ready or not, Trials, here I come!

All my dreams are waking up

A line from a song keeps running through my head:
"Right now, All your dreams are waking up."

And they are. The Olympics are something I've been dreaming about for... what feels like forEVER. I've worked out for thousands and thousands of hours. A fellow gymnast-turned-diver friend of mine and I once tried to figure out how long we've spend upside down in our lives - I think it came out to more than a few months, total. I've literally worn holes in the bottoms of my feet from walking on too many diving boards.

But that's beside the point. I'm not knocking the journey - I love what diving has brought to my life, and wouldn't trade it for anything - but when I lay in bed at night, I don't picture myself at practice. I picture myself, in Beijing, on the far right three meter in the Water Cube, with so many faces watching me that they blur together. I hear the sounds of a thousand people trying to be quiet, and I smell the chlorine and hazey dustiness that I've come to associate with pools in China. I feel the rough spots on the balls of my feet when I walk down that board.

I've seen it in my mind so many times, and hopefully, soon, it's coming up for real. Very soon - Right now I feel like I'm juuust in the last moments of The Calm Before The Storm. I leave for Olympic Trials in four days. Then everything happens in a row - US Olympic Trials in Indianapolis... two weeks later, Trials, part 2, in Tenessee (I'll explain more about that later). In three weeks, I'll know whether I'm to be an Olympian or not. A few weeks after that I go to US Nationals in Pasedena. If I make the Olympic team, I'll leave straight from there for Beijing. Then it's a week of training in China, a week of competitions, and it's all over. Ten weeks from now, the Olympics will be over.

The time has come, and all my dreams are waking up. Every moment counts. I won't get these moments back.