Swimming Olympic Trials!

I drove down to Omaha on Monday to work with the medical team at the swimming olympic trials this week.  The homecoming was bittersweet, as the power went out last week in a huge storm, and my apartment still has no power.  Unfortunately, all of the meat in my freezer had to be thrown and I am staying at a friends place for a few days.  The atmosphere at Qwest Center is quite an experience; 12,000 fans poured into the stands last night to watch the finals.  They built 2 pools in this facility, the 50 meter competitive pool and another warmup pool adjacent to this.  It is fun to see some of the top guys, like Micheal Phelps and Katie Hoff, and how they handle the pressure.  Phelps looked calm, but I guess that is expected for a guy who basically has to screw up big time to not make the team in all of his events.  But it is interesting seeing what these guys have available for them.  I heard of a few swimmers say they have 3 massages a day for the most part!  They have massage trainers on hand for free massages to all the swimmers which is pretty cool, and the top swimmers probably brought their own masseuse to do this for them.  I think massages are some of the best training/recovery tools that an athlete can use; unfortunately, most do not have the opportunity or money to get one on a regular basis.  But self massage comes in handy, or convincing a friend to tear into your calf and hamstrings for you.  The other interesting thing I saw was that the athletes utilized lactate meters.  While it is not very surprising, it is just another useful tool many swimmers use to monitor their levels after a race and during their cooldown.  I read somewhere that Phelps lactate level after a 200 meter race (cant remember which race) is around 5 mmol while most will be at 10-15 mmol.  His level of clearance is far superior to most and just shows why he can do so many races and recover so quickly.  And I noticed after one of his races, that he warmed down for probably half the time as alot of the other swimmers.  

Another thing that is mind boggling about swimmers is their volume of training.  There was one teenager girl that was in getting some ultrasound; she was telling me about her training and said she is in the pool from 6-8am and 3-5pm.  I have always known about the ridiculous volume of training swimmers do, but just thinking about middle school and high schoolers training 4 hours a day seems absurd.  I could barely get myself to go on 3 mile runs max in high school, and I was lucky to do 5  18-20 min runs a week (which I called 3 miles...).  My focus was to just get it done, and I hated getting out the door.  Granted I had absolutely no idea about training in high school, and it was only until college that I realized most people ran 3-5 times as much as me.  I remember meeting a high schooler once who said he ran 70 miles a week, and I didn't believe him!  I was thinking, I barely run your daily volume in one week!  I guess that is what you get for small town sports.  The other reason I never thought about running more was because I was always getting injured anyways due to my high arches (and probably lack of any base training).  Needless to say, it took me two years of collegiate running until I finally put in consistent training, and my first time over 50 miles a week was the summer before junior year of college.  Cross country in the subsequent fall was my breakout season, after which I basically spent the remaining year and a half of college injured and never got back into consistent training.  I finally realized the importance of consistent training and volume, although it would have been nice to start this in high school!  Better late than never.

All in all, it has been fun being surrounded by so many athletes who have dedicated their lives to training at a high level, day in and day out.