Lakeside High Grad Trains for 2012 Olympic Trials

It’s 6:45am and John “Jack” Lane is doing what he does almost every other morning. He’s swimming in a pool during precious summer hours most students spend lying in bed.

“He lives in the pool. There’s no other place you can find him,” is the answer you get when you walk in to the Dynamo Swim Club in Chamblee.

The 18-year-old graduate is getting ready for the 2012 Olympic Trials next June with his team at the swim club. Doing this requires about 24 hours of training per week during the summer, sometimes five hours a day, and 21 hours during the school year. Practices start around 7am and go until 10 in the morning every day but Sunday. These are supplemented with two more hours of training in the afternoon two to three days a week.

Only the top two swimmers in each event will become Olympians for life, according to the USA Swimming website. With those odds, Lane said his focus is on training for his college team.

Lane signed a letter of intent with Stanford University and plans to continue to swim for the school’s men’s swimming and diving team.

Currently, he swims 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly and 200m individual medley.

All his training leads to eating a lot more than the average 18-year-old does. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps released sample menus of his 12,000 calorie daily diet that made dieters everywhere jealous.

Lane said he has never counted the calories.

“You can ask my mom,” he said. “She feeds me.”

“A lot,” she said.

Any given day may consist of oatmeal or a whole grain bagel for breakfast, a smoothie, eggs and another bagel after practice, a sandwich for lunch and chicken or fish, whole grain pasta or brown rice and some kind of vegetable medley for dinner.

“I try to eat pretty healthy and eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, fish, chicken. I don’t tend to eat a lot of red meat.”

The All-American swimmer graduated from Lakeside with a 4.0 unweighted GPA by balancing practices with really good time management.

“You just need to know how to really avoid distractions at school and get stuff done,” Lane said.

Taking some “breather classes” didn’t hurt either, he said. He has also learned dedication and teamwork from swimming.

“When I was younger I swam for times and to beat people. Recently, I’ve been thinking about what’s important and that is the community that you get from it. Your teammates end up being your closest friends that become you family, and your coaches are your mentors that teach you so many things that extend beyond the pool.”

Staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool can get pretty boring, Lane said.

“He’s able to focus and work 110 percent but still enjoy life at the same time while making sacrifices, said Lane's former high school coach, Tricia Newmyer. “He’s very humble. He could be wearing a T-shirt around that says ‘There’s no I in team’.”

Newmyer recalled Lane trying to prevent her from making an announcement when he broke the Georgia state record in the 100m butterfly.

Another memory: Lane pulling up the bronze and silver winners at a competition after winning the gold medal.

“It would have meant more to him if Lakeside [as a team] could have won,” she said. "The list can go on and on."