It's very difficult for my body to recover after workouts now that I'm older, so we have to keep them short, which means they're extremely difficult and intense. It sucks.

As for swimming, I'm now in the pool 5 days a week from 8 to 10 a.m. And I'm in the gym for an hour and a half, 4 days a week. Two days upper body, two days lower.

I get out of the pool after a workout and look on my BlackBerry to see if the nanny called and to make sure everything's okay. My child is always on my mind.

When I feel like my body is exhausted, I focus on making my fifth Olympic team so I can push through it.

I've written several deeply personal songs this year, which I really love. Some of them came out of intense sadness. This has been an extremely difficult year for me.

It's not just like it was a torn A.C.L.. It's a magnitude more difficult to recover from and repair. It can and has ended careers, without a doubt. However, I feel very comfortable with Carson as an athlete and the heart that he's got.