Follow Jeff Commings on his road to the Olympic trials

Here is the first post from Jeff Commings new blog. Jeff has recently written his memoirs, Odd Man Out: An Autobiography: True Stories of a Gay Black Swimmer, and he's now a masters swimmer training for the Olympics!


I'd like to welcome all of you to my official blog! It's been a long time since I've blogged, but I'm sure it's just like riding a bike.

The goal of this blog is to log all my workouts in and out of the pool as I prepare for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials. As I mention in the subtitle of this blog, I will be 38 years old when I compete at Trials, so the workouts you see in this blog will be very different from what the typical Trials competitor will do. I hope these workouts inspire Masters swimmers and others to get in shape, stay in shape and reach goals you thought were impossible, just like the goal I had of competing in my third Olympic Trials.

A little background is required. I competed at the Olympic Swimming Trials in 1992 and 1996. Both experiences were horrific. In 1992, I was so nervous about competing that my body went into convulsions just before the start of my prelim race of the 100 breaststroke. In 1996, I was not well-prepared for the meet. This time, I'm going to swim for fun and soak in the experience. I qualified for next year's Olympic Trials at the Arizona Senior State Championships on July 9 with a 1:04.42 in the 100-meter breaststroke. The qualifying time is 1:04.69. I will be the oldest competitor in the event by about seven years. I have absolutely no designs on making the Olympic team. In order to do so, I will have to swim more than four seconds faster than I swam to qualify for the meet, and about two seconds faster than my all-time personal best, which I did in 1993.

My primary goal is to not get "DFL," or "Dead F------- Last." After a lengthy discussion with my coach, Mark Rankin, we thought it would be a nice goal to also swim under 1:04.

My workouts in the pool will not be too much different from what I have been doing for the past three years, though there will be an added emphasis on increasing leg strength with vertical kicking in the pool and more plyometric work at the gym.

If you have any questions about what you read here, please post a comment or write to me at jeffswim@aol.com. First workout posted tomorrow!