We came home from Binghamton, NY last week after the most encouraging demonstration we've ever done! Our audience was made up mostly of girls age 15 and under who were there to compete at Age Group Nationals. I can't think of a group that could possibly be more of a target audience. They were cheering so loudly that it literally hurt my ears! We signed a ton of T-shirts for them, asked them about their synchronized swimming goals and fielded questions like "how can you do that?"  Some of the local families said they are planning on having a party and staying up all night to watch the live broadcast of us competing in China! We're going to remember the feeling of having the entire audience going nuts for us and bring it to the Water Cube in Beijing.

Then, I had a classic Fourth celebration this year. My family, my boyfriend and I went to a Minor League local baseball game, had BBQ and watched fireworks. One of the families from my home club was there and had my name announced and put up on the screen as a local Olympian. A few moments after that, the guy behind me spilled his beer all over me and then someone shouted, "Oh, no! Not on the future Olympic Gold Medalist!" It was hilarious! On the way out a lot of people wished me good luck and I was thinking how cool it is that they don't even know me but encourage me because they want to see the U.S. do well at the Olympics. It was all so American-Spirit-y!

Back to training...

All of our routines are choreographed now exactly the way we want them, so we just keep working on getting up to the highest level we possibly can. In order to increase our improvement rate, we're doing a lot of recording of ourselves on video and watching it right away, then repeating. When we're all staring at the screen and the coaches replay the video in slow-mo, nobody wants to be the one that he or she pauses it on and says "Who is That!?" Everything we see we're comparing to the picture we have in our minds of the perfect swim we want to have in China. And it will be here before we know it!

 

Andrea Nott is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This blog was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.