Lower times, better price

Wednesday, January 20, 1999

Lower times, better price

FEATURE: Despite Olympic hype and swim records, Keiko Price
still has

her motivation straight: Live to eat

By Steve Kim

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Keiko Price, she’s got some nerves on her.

As if breaking one UCLA swimming record wasn’t enough, she wants
three more. If anyone, she can.

At the NCAA championships last year, she swam her personal best
time in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 49.38 seconds to become
the new school record holder and national finalist.

Now she’s 0.27 seconds off the fastest UCLA 50-yard freestyle
time and 0.29 seconds away from breaking Olympian Annette Salmeen’s
school record in the 200-yard freestyle. What’s more, this year at
the Washington Husky Invitational, she came 0.03 seconds shy from
matching the 200-yard individual medley (IM) record on her second
attempt ever. She was surprised herself.

"I wasn’t even expecting that," Price said. "I get tired of
swimming freestyle all the time, so I just swam it because the IM
was different and fun."

All that sounds like anchovies compared to Price’s big catch.
Her most notable achievement to date is making the 1999 Pan-Pacific
meet by placing fourth on the 100-meter freestyle at the U.S.
Summer Nationals.

She’ll represent the United States with Olympic veterans like
Jenny Thompson and compete in Sydney, Australia, the 2000 Olympic
venue.

"That’s why we’re so excited she made the team," Price’s coach
Cyndi Gallagher said. "The Pan-Pac team is pretty much the team
they predict they’ll send to the Olympics. She’ll get to swim in
that pool in Sydney, like a rehearsal for the Olympics."

All this talk about the upcoming Olympics hasn’t gotten her
swept up in the hype, though. This one keeps it all under cool.

"I don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad that I’m not looking
too far into the future," Price said, "but when people ask me about
going to the Olympics, I just say I take it one day at a time. If
it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the
world. I’m not worrying or tripping or anything.

"Right now," she continued, "I’m working on this year’s NCAAs. I
want to be top three in the 100-free and top eight in the 50- and
200-yard free. Then I’ll focus on the Pan-Pacs, then next year’s
NCAAs and then the Olympic trials."

Back to the present. After raking up dozens of first place
finishes last year, Price continues to lead the pack with 16
individual wins to date.

All this speed doesn’t just shoot out of no where. It comes from
all the extra little things she pays attention to everyday, like
lifting more weights than expected, stretching before practice and
focusing on her swimming technique.

"For me, it’s a waste of time to go to practice and not give 100
percent," she said. "Once in awhile I admit I don’t give as much as
I can because I hurt and I’m just tired, but most of the time I
try.

"It’s important to remember your goals and remember why you’re
there," Price added. "I say to myself, ‘OK, this is my job, get it
done with and leave it at the pool.’"

And once she leaves the pool, watch out. Price is infamous for
her affinity for food. She is the epitome of the bottomless pit,
although all that’s consumed by her world-class appetite is quickly
burned away during those training hours.

"I have no shame at all," she laughed. "Everyone on my team
knows I love to eat. It’s like I live to eat rather than eat to
live. It’s going to be a problem because when I stop swimming, I’m
going to really have to watch it."

On that culinary note, Price shares her diary of her life as an
athlete, student, friend and food lover.

Monday, Jan. 11

5:22 a.m. Alarm goes off. Time to start off my day with a nice
workout at the Sunset Rec pool.

8 a.m. My favorite meal time. A bowl of cereal and three pieces
of toast to grub on.

12 p.m. My first class of the quarter. An upper division English
class. Just please don’t kill me with the papers! The class looks
pretty cool because although it is an English class, it’s going to
be about a topic I’m interested in – the Harlem Renaissance period.
Wow, she’s already assigning a ton of reading!

2 p.m. Hit the pool again!

5 p.m. Weights. Now, this is what makes swimming tough. But I
like it because it makes me look fit! It just kills to walk up
stairs and squatting to use the restroom.

8 p.m. Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles! Now this is why I swim. I
devour two succulent pieces of fried chicken and two waffles. You
definitely have not experienced the good life if you have not been
to Roscoe’s. My roommates, who are basketball players, and I are
here to celebrate one of my roommate’s birthday.

9:30 p.m. Time to get my groove on! A bunch of us are at my
apartment to finish off the birthday celebration with some dancing
and a Baskin Robins ice cream cake. Yum!

10:30 p.m. I want to stay up longer to hang out with my
roommates because they are so much fun but if I do, I’ll be hurtin’
tomorrow morning for workout at 6 a.m.

Tuesday, Jan. 12

5:15 a.m. Wake up and hit the water. I have 20 minutes to brush
my teeth, pack breakfast for my 8 a.m. class, stretch for workout
and pack a bag with my shoes and outfit for the day, because I’ll
be going straight to class from practice. What a busy morning!

6 a.m. Right now, I’m wondering if our coach, Cyndi, is going to
kill us this morning.

6:55 a.m. Only 35 more minutes of workout left. Cyndi can only
give us so much in that amount of time. I’ll survive.

7:20 a.m. Cyndi yells, "Go faster on this one, Keiko!" I’m
thinking, "OK, I can do this!"

8:07 a.m. I get to class late because it took me a while to get
ready from the pool and rush to Bunche in 30 minutes. Boy, I can
tell it’s gong to be a long quarter because this professor is
ridiculously boring and I have no clue what he’s talking about!

9:45 a.m. B-ball sign-ups for the Stanford game this weekend. I
love going to the b-ball games. There is nothing better than
watching a bunch of fine, sexy, sweaty athletes running down a
basketball court.

12:30 p.m. African American history class. Wow, I have never
been in a class at UCLA with so many African Americans! It’s so
nice to be surrounded by your people.

2 p.m. Practice No. 2.

5:45 p.m. I get fitted for my old teammate Lindsay Etter’s
wedding. I am going to be a bridesmaid. How fun. I’m just happy
that the dresses are black. I can wear black real well. I would
have died if the dresses were a color like pink.

7 p.m. I prepare salmon for dinner. Yum. I stink up the
apartment, though. When my roommate came home she said, "Yuck, what
is that smell!"

8:30 p.m. I try to read for English class but I keep nodding
because I’m exhausted. This usually happens every night so I have
to do the bulk of my studying in the weekends.

10 p.m. I give up! Nothing is registering. I need to get some
z’s.

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