No Limits Read online

  In Palo Alto, I was on my game. Bob said it felt like every day in Palo Alto for him, watching me, was like Christmas. However, Lochte was on, too.

  Lochte and I don’t do a lot of head-to-head sets because, as Bob figures, somebody’s likely to learn something about the other guy. One morning, however, we lined up for a complicated set, four of each stroke, that ended with fast 50s of each stroke—fast meaning race pace. On the fly, Lochte was close to me; on the back, dead even; on the breast, he was perhaps a full second ahead, a huge difference; we were dead even again on the free.

  I was happy with the set. Bob was happy, too, but you could almost see him thinking, hmmm. I knew he had noticed how fast Lochte had gone during the breast.

  If I never once imagined Ryan beating me, Bob probably thought about it every day. Maybe that’s the way we have to go.

  The Singapore camp was mostly about resting and recovering, not hard training. I did do one butterfly set that undeniably hinted at what kind of shape I was in: three 100 flys, with easy 200s in between, each 100 faster than the other. I did the last one in 51.6. It was maybe the best practice I had ever done, and just to put it in perspective: A week before the 2007 Worlds in Melbourne, I pushed a 53.8, which Bob and I both thought was terrific.

  So, a 51.6. Bob walked over to another one of the American coaches and said with a big smile, well, my work is done, I’m officially on vacation.

  Hardly. But we were both feeling good about where I was.

  When swimmers are gearing up for a big meet, we go through a cycle that’s called “shave and taper.” As the meet draws near, the idea is to keep training but include more rest, drawing on the weeks and months of hard training beforehand, the objective being to peak at the meet itself. That’s called the taper. The challenge is in getting the timing right, complicated by the fact that what works for one swimmer might not—indeed probably won’t—work for another. There’s no one-size-fits-all. Bob puts it this way: When you taper swimmers, it’s like a haircut. You never know if it’s any good until it’s too late.

  That 51.6 also suggested my taper was dead-on where it needed to be.

  As for the shave, swimmers shave their bodies before a major competition on the theory that body hair creates resistance. You have to shave everywhere; well, everywhere that isn’t covered by your suit. It makes you feel clean and smooth. Super-clean and super-smooth.

  For most of the winter, in Ann Arbor, I had let my beard grow. As the year went on, I showed up at most pre-Olympic events with facial hair, sometimes a goatee, other times an excellent Fu Manchu. I’m just messing around with it a little bit, I told everyone after we got to Beijing, sporting the Fu.

  When the facial hair goes away, that’s how you know I’m getting serious.

  I showed up for my first Olympic swim in Beijing, the prelims of the 400 IM, clean shaven. Even the hair on the back of my neck was neatly trimmed. Courtesy of Lochte.

  He didn’t have me trim his; he likes to keep his hair long and shaggy. Besides, no one would trust me with clippers. Or at least no one should.

  If it seems just a little weird that Lochte would be trimming my hair one day and then we’d be racing each other two days after that for Olympic gold—well, that’s both the way swimming is and the way he and I get along. Someone’s got to trim the hair on the back of your neck if you want it done, right?

  During one of the media scrums before the Olympics started, Lochte had said, “When me and Michael talk, it’s strictly anything but swimming. We don’t talk about swimming at all. That’s—I guess that’s good for both of us. We’re not always getting wound up in this whole Olympic thing. I mean, we have down time to relax.”

  The day before the 400 medley prelims, Friday, August 8, was the day of the opening ceremony. Much as I would have loved to have gone to the ceremony, there was just no way; I had to swim the next day and couldn’t run the risk of marching and then standing in the heat and humidity.

  I didn’t want to get up and worry about shaving the morning of the prelims, which were the following night, so I decided to shave down then. In our little suite in the Olympic Village, there was nothing on the floor to keep the water from the shower inside the shower itself; we were forever, it seemed, dealing with a small flood. I was in the shower, with my music on, shaving, and Lochte yelled out, hey, why are you shaving now?

  When I explained to him what was up, he decided he would shave then, too.

  While we were in the midst of shaving down, I said, referring to the 400 IM, let’s finish this. One-two again. Erik and I did it in Athens. Dolan and Erik did it in Sydney. Dolan and Namesnik in Atlanta.

  Let’s get after it, I said.

  Let’s get after it, he said.

  I knew I had to have a good first race, and that was a very good thing. I can’t emphasize it enough: A good first race sets the tone.

  Laszlo Cseh, the Hungarian who had won the bronze in Athens, was in the first of the three seeded heats. He went 4:09.26. I watched that and thought, I’m going to have to go faster if I want to be in the middle lane in the final. And I definitely wanted to be in the middle in this race.

  Lochte went in the next heat. 4:10.33. At this point, with my heat still to go, five guys had already gone 4:12 or better. I was thinking, okay, get after it.

  At 150 meters, my butterfly leg already over, halfway through the backstroke, I realized I was going fast. I was, in fact, under world-record pace. I thought to myself, not so fast, not tonight. The last 200 meters, I put it on cruise control. I hit the wall, took my goggles off, looked at the clock, and saw 4:07.82.

  An Olympic record.

  I did not expect that at all.

  My prelim time was a full 44-hundredths better than my winning time in the finals in Athens.

  And honestly, while this prelim race didn’t hurt that bad, my strokes didn’t feel the way I quite wanted them to. I could do better.

  Cseh was asked after the prelims if he could win. “That will be hard,” he told the reporter. “I’ll try everything but that will be hard. If somebody wants to win this race, they need a 4:05.” His personal best, as I knew well, was 4:07.96.

  Lochte said, “If I’m right there with him, then there’s pressure. We’ll see what happens.”

  I felt no pressure. My plan was to get some sleep and be ready to go in the morning.

  Amid dreams of 3:07.

  • • •

  In the summer of 2001, Jacques Rogge, who at that time was the newly elected president of the International Olympic Committee, had a conversation with Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Sports. NBC, as it had since 1988, would be broadcasting the Summer Games. Beijing is twelve hours ahead of New York. The 2000 Olympics from Sydney, fifteen hours ahead of New York, had largely been shown on tape delay. That had rubbed some critics entirely the wrong way. Now, Ebersol wanted to know, was it possible for certain events in Beijing—swimming and gymnastics, mostly—to be moved around, switched so the finals took place in the morning, Beijing time? If so, they could be shown live in prime time on the East Coast on NBC, which was paying the IOC nearly $900 million for the right to broadcast the Beijing Olympics.

  Rogge said he’d have to get back to Ebersol. The IOC president would have to check with the heads of the international swimming and gymnastics federations. At an Olympics, even though most people think the IOC is in charge of everything, those federations are actually still in charge of running the sports themselves.

  More than three years later, Rogge got back to Ebersol. Yes, he said, swimming and gymnastics would be moved.

  Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2004, Dick Ebersol was seriously injured in a plane crash in Telluride, Colorado; his son, Charlie, survived the crash; a younger son, Teddy, was killed. Several months later, on what turned out to be the very first day that Dick returned to work, my mom and I happened to be in New York. We asked if we could drop by his office; we wanted to see how Dick and his family were doing. With us was Drew Johnson, who, working
with Peter Carlisle, is part of my team at Octagon, the agency that represents me.

  It was a very, very emotional meeting.

  Sitting in his office, Dick said at one point, I have something to tell you. I want your reaction, please understand it’s going to happen no matter what you say, but I want you to know: the swim finals are going to go off in the morning, the heats at night. Would that be a problem?

  No way.

  I was thrilled.

  For real.

  Swimming being on during prime time is everything I want for the sport, I told him. I’m trying to leave the sport bigger and better than it was when I was lucky enough to have first found it.

  Dick asked me not to tell anyone about the news until it broke, which it eventually did, of course, after which I was asked repeatedly what I thought about swimming in morning finals.

  It’s the Olympics, I responded. If you can’t get up to swim in the morning, don’t go.

  Which I believed 100 percent. Swimmers swim in the morning, anyway. To get to the Olympics and represent your country is an enormous privilege. How could anyone seriously think about not being able to perform? To say that you didn’t want to give your best because it was ten in the morning instead of eight at night was an excuse.

  The Olympics are no place for excuses.

  The morning of the 400 IM final, Sunday, August 10, I met Bob at our dorm in the village—he was on the first floor, I was on the third—for a wake-up swim at a pool in the village. I was maybe ten minutes late meeting him. That sort of thing drives Bob crazy, especially on race day. He kept looking at his watch but not saying anything. Just looking at the watch.

  We had never done a wake-up swim before. Some coaches swear by them. Not Bob. But we’d never had a morning final before, and Bob didn’t want to spend the next thirty years wondering if he should have had me do a wake-up swim. So I did 500 to 800 meters, just enough to get moving.

  Lochte had already done his wake-up swim. Katie Hoff, who is from Baltimore, too, and is an old friend, was doing hers. She would go on to win three medals in Beijing.

  After that, we walked over to the dining hall for breakfast: oatmeal and fruit. And one of those cultural moments: no brown sugar for the oatmeal. I used white sugar. No excuses.

  By now we were only three or four minutes behind Bob’s schedule. He kept looking at the watch.

  This was his way of saying, I want to get this first race over and done with.

  Me, too.

  For years, I’ve had the same routine to get ready for a race. I got to the Cube, per the routine, two hours before the race.

  Like I always do, I stretched and loosened up a bit first. Then I got into the water, wearing just a brief; it’s not the time for competition-style suits, much less full-body gear, and swam my warm-up: 800 mixer to start, alternating a 50 freestyle with a 50 of something else, anything but free; 600 meters of kicking with a kickboard; 400 meters of pulling a pull buoy; however I want to do it, something to warm up my arms; a 200 medley drill; then some 25s just to get the heart going a little bit. Since I was getting ready for a 400 medley, I also did one or two 25s of each stroke. When I was done with that, I swam down for 75 to 100 meters.

  That was that.

  Usually, while I’m doing this warm-up, Bob goes and gets himself a Diet Coke or a coffee—straight-up black, of course. Not this day. We were both feeling slightly paranoid. I asked him to stick around at one end of the pool with my water bottle. That way we could make extra certain no one was going to do anything outlandishly stupid like trying to poison me.

  Warm-up went by uneventfully. I dried off, got warm, put my headphones on, and sat on the massage table. I always sit; I don’t lie down. From that point on, no matter the event, Bob and I don’t talk until after the end of the race. I mean, what’s there to say?

  In Beijing, the headphones were plugged into a black iPod, which I had gotten as a bonus for buying an Apple laptop at a store in Ann Arbor a few months before the Olympics. Here was the deal at the store: iPod or free printer. I never print anything so I grabbed the iPod. What’s on my iPod? Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy, to name two, especially Young Jeezy’s “Go Getta” and Lil Wayne’s “I’m Me.” The lyrics to “I’m Me” are definitely not G-rated. But that’s not, for me, the point. When I hear Lil Wayne do that song, I hear him saying, I’m my own individual, and that’s me.

  At the Cube, there was a television in front of the massage table. The choices invariably seemed to be archery, volleyball, or women’s basketball.

  About forty-five minutes out, I hopped into my suit, the Speedo LZR Racer. Some guys like to wear a brief under the LZR. Not my way. Under the LZR it’s me. Some swimmers have said they need help putting on the LZR. Not me. I put a plastic garbage bag on my foot and rolled that leg of the suit over the bag, then up my leg; then I put the bag on the other foot and did it on that side. Easy.

  For the individual medley I wore a suit that went from waist to the ankles—essentially swim pants. It can feel too constricting, especially trying to do the butterfly, to wear a full suit, one that wraps over the collarbones.

  With thirty minutes to go, I got into the water again to do 600 to 800 meters. I was in the water for ten minutes, max. I got out, dried off, and grabbed my USA parka, put my warm-up pants on, put the headphones back on.

  With about ten minutes to go, I grabbed my credential and walked to the ready room. The credential is your ID pass at the Olympics; it’s a laminated plastic card that includes a picture and a barcode. For security reasons, you can’t go anywhere without it.

  When I’m in the ready room, I’m there by myself and to be by myself. Usually, the officials who are in the room try to sit all the guys in the same row if you’re in the same race or the same heat. I never do that. I just find a seat where I can sit by myself and block the two seats on either side; my caps and goggles go on one, towel on the other.

  Lochte came over and said, good luck. I was, like, thanks, man, let’s do it.

  I knew, and Lochte knew that I knew, that, unfortunately, he wasn’t quite himself. He had been dealing with a pretty significant case of the runs. It appeared McDonald’s was his attempted solution. For a few days, he had been eating religiously at the one in the village cafeteria, chowing down each time on what seemed to be more than a dozen Chicken McNuggets, a burger or two, and fries. Lunch and dinner. If Lochte wasn’t quite himself that day, well, he’d had an ankle problem at the Trials and went under the world record. He was going to bring it as hard as he could, no question.

  They called our race. I put on the goggles and caps.

  It was time to go.

  As I walked out onto the deck, I looked for President Bush; I’d heard he was in the audience. I found him after a few moments, and it looked like he was pointing at me, waving his flag.

  After we walked out to behind the blocks, I did what I always do there. I stretched my legs on the blocks, two different stretches, one a straight-leg stretch, the other with a bent knee, left leg first.

  I took the right headphone out.

  Once they called my name, I took the left headphone out, the parka off. It’s my routine to stand on the left side of the block and get onto it from that side.

  I made sure the block itself was dry. This is a lesson learned the hard way. At the 2004 Santa Clara meet, before the 400 IM, I didn’t notice the block was wet. Instead of diving in, I more or less fell off the block. Embarrassing. Since then I’ve always made sure to wipe the block with a towel.

  Once up there, like I always do, I swung my arms, flapped them, really, in front and then in back, slapping my back.

  Some people have suggested that’s a routine I do to psych people out. They think that I’m thinking: Even if you can’t see me well behind your goggles, here’s the sound that’s announcing you’re going to get your butt kicked. Nothing of the sort. That would be poor sportsmanship in the extreme. It’s just a routine. My routine. It’s the routine I’ve gone through my wh
ole life. I’m not going to change it.

  I get asked all the time what I think about when I’m up on the blocks, in the instant before the starter says, take your marks.

  Nothing.

  There’s nothing I can change, nothing I can do to get faster. I’ve done all the training. All I can do is listen for the beep, dive in the water, and swim.

  • • •

  I had told Bob I intended this 400 IM to be the last one I would ever swim competitively.

  It’s not that I couldn’t swim it again. More, I simply didn’t want to. It’s that demanding.

  If I was going to go out, then I wanted to go out in style.

  The idea in the first 50 was to use that easy speed and then turn it on just enough so that at 100 I would have a lead of half a body length, maybe even a full body.

  At the first wall, Cseh was in first. I was just behind. Perfect.

  The next 50, I gave it a little more juice. As the fly leg ended, I was in first, Cseh second, Lochte third.

  I figured I’d be ahead after the next 100 as well, after the backstroke.

  Lochte apparently had a different idea.

  He went out hard over the first 50 of the back and turned there in first.

  At 200, I was back in front but not as far ahead as I had planned when I was visualizing. Lochte was just behind me, Cseh third.

  We turned for the breaststroke.

  This was where Lochte apparently thought he could school me.

  No way.

  The breaststroke felt as good as my breaststroke has ever felt.

  Coming off that 300 wall, I had no idea where either Lochte or Cseh was. I knew only that I had to give it everything I had in the free.

  It wasn’t until I turned at 350 that I knew what was what. I was in Lane 4. Cseh was in Lane 5, the one next over to my right; Lochte in 6, one more over. When I came off the 350 wall and took my first breath, turning my head to the right to breathe, which was in their direction, I couldn’t see either of them, couldn’t see the splash from their hands. I was way ahead, and suddenly I had the same feeling I had in Athens. You take your first freestyle stroke on that last leg, the race is almost over, and you’re in the lead. Underwater, just as I’d done four years before, I smiled. I smiled as I churned for home, going strong.