Rusty Smith, a 22-year-old on the National short track speed skating team that is based at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., is sharing a weekly diary during the World Cup season on his preparations for the Olympics.

Last weekend, I went back to Los Angeles to work with my coach at home. But when I got home, I found out that I had a bunch of interviews that I had to do. Interviews are fun, but they are real time-consuming, so it cut down on a lot of the extra time that I had to spend with my coach.

	RUSTY SMITH
	Smith Age: 22 Hometown: Sunset Beach, Calif. Sport: Short track speed skating Accomplishments: In the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, he was 13th in the 1,000 and a member of the sixth-place relay team. At the 2000 Worlds, he placed fourth in the 1,000 meters, seventh in the 500 meters and eighth overall.

I had a five-hour interview with a local television station. They went surfing with me. They went to work with me at Home Depot. And of course, they were at the rink with me.

It was different being at work in California. I haven't seen a lot of those people since May. They were all like, "I thought you were in the middle of doing something…"

I still had a pretty good time at home. I was able to go surfing and hang out with my friends - something I don't get to do very often. My father and my brother both live in L.A. and I got to see them for a little bit. When I'm in California I love to get chili dogs at Weiner Schnitzel, but with my training I had to withhold myself from going there. It's one of the first times I went home and didn't get it. But I ate a lot of Mexican food that made up for it.

I was able to work with my personal coach, Wilma Boomstra, on two different days. She had a couple of little points to work on. It was a good time to go home and make some adjustments in my skating. She's been my personal coach for the past three years. She's good at technical things.

We have a real good relationships, I call her and tell her how skating's going. It's tough because she doesn't get to see me on a daily basis and for me to describe technical stuff over the phone is difficult. But I also send videos to her, and she gives me feedback on those.

Everything at home went well and then I flew back to Colorado Springs, Colo., on Monday. It was unnerving finding out that a plane crashed and then having to get on a flight that morning. It's not something you can really worry about because if something is going to happen it will happen, but it's not the greatest experience to go to the airport thinking about a crash.

I've got another three weeks before I leave for Olympic trials, so I'm really trying to focus on work here and make every day count. Training and skating are going really well right now, so I'm really happy.