Phelps paying price from taking too much time off after 8-gold haul in Beijing

Phelps slowly finding his way after break

IRVINE, Calif. — Michael Phelps knows he took too much time off last year, and now he’s paying the price. He’s lost races this season, his stroke has appeared off-form, and the clock is ticking faster toward the 2012 London Olympics.

“I think he maybe overdid it,” coach Bob Bowman said Wednesday. “But he doesn’t do anything halfway. He either really goes for it or he really doesn’t go for it.”

Phelps is back going for it at the U.S. national championships. He won the 200-meter freestyle and 200 butterfly on Wednesday night, leading all the way in both races.

But he didn’t go for much from August 2009 to this March, taking an extended break from the relentless training grind that had defined most of his life.

Of course, that kind of discipline helped him achieve his record haul of eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.

But after the greatest meet in the sport’s history and the whirlwind of travel and appearances that his historic achievement generated, he was ready to get away.

“I don’t know if I needed it, it was more that I wanted it,” he said. “It was probably not best swimming-wise, but I wanted to clear my mind and get ready for the next couple years.”

Bowman cautioned Phelps about the consequences of such a break, but his superstar pupil ignored him. In fact, Phelps went his own way so much that he rarely checked in or came to the pool only twice a week, just often enough to frustrate Bowman.

Last November, Phelps showed up for a week of workouts the entire month.

“We would not be able to get anything consistent together,” Bowman said. “I run my program 100 percent. He was on another program. It was very difficult for me and I didn’t handle it well.”

Phelps’ program involved golfing, sleeping a lot and “being lazy pretty much,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing and at that point in his life the things he was doing were more important than the swimming,” said Bowman, who gave tacit approval to Phelps’ vacation.

“The hard part was if you’re a 100 percent coach and you run a 100 percent program and your best athlete isn’t 100 percent. I had a hard time reconciling that at first.”

Bowman kept busy coaching others at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. He wasn’t thrilled that his youngest pupils saw Phelps slacking off, but at the same time, he got his first long break from the swimmer he had overseen since Phelps was a young boy.

Phelps and Bowman got thrown back together in February when they attended the Vancouver Olympics together. They watched Apolo Anton Ohno zip around at short track speedskating, and Bowman saw Evan Lysacek win figure skating gold.

“It inspired Michael, you could tell he was getting into it,” said Bowman, who had never before had a chance to enjoy an Olympics.

By March, though, Bowman laid down the law. He told Phelps it was time to either get back into serious training or to forget about the 2012 Olympics.

Phelps balked at waking up early to hit the pool like he’d done for years. Bowman was flexible, telling Phelps he would hold workouts at noon and 10 p.m.

“That would be great,” Phelps said.

One thing didn’t change. The dynamic between the 25-year-old superstar and Bowman was prickly as ever.

When Bowman tried to give direction, Phelps would snap, “You’re on me all the time.”

Bowman tried another way, asking Phelps what he wanted to do. “Well, you’re the coach. Tell me what to do,” Phelps shot back.

“I can make it work any way he wants to work. I just need to know what that is,” the coach said. “Sometimes he doesn’t want to tell me.”

Much of the attention that followed Phelps after Beijing has died down, at least in the United States. He needed constant security when he swam at the Paris Open in June.

Phelps finally understands that his life out of the pool won’t ever be as private as he would like. Being photographed with a marijuana pipe at a college party after Beijing taught him that.

“A big part of this year has been working on that,” Bowman said.

Although his break subjected him to weight gain, subsequent defeats and frustration when he returned, Phelps has no regrets.

“I’m happier now than I have been, maybe not with how I’m swimming, but from a mental state of mind,” he said. “I’ve been able to get back a couple things that I had lost. People, activities, just a mix of everything.”

Phelps declined to be specific, but he made clear that he has not re-established a relationship with his estranged father, Fred.

Instead, Bowman continues to fill that role.

“Both of us are probably the two most stubborn, hardheaded people. That’s why we bump heads as much as we do and as hard as we do,” Phelps said. “I would never expect to be where I am today without him and I’m going to finish with him.”

Whether Phelps ends his unparalleled career with more than the 14 Olympic gold medals he already owns won’t be known for another two years. But there’s one thing he rediscovered about himself during his break.

“A lot of big things and great things happen when you’re yourself, you’re relaxed, you’re having fun and your mind is really not thinking anything,” he said.