Living in the fast lane of Los Angeles was slowing Muna Lee down.

And for a sprinter who could live up to the label "World's Fastest Woman," that was not a good thing.

"I felt like out there I had too much going on. It was too busy," Lee said. "I took off the whole month of December because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, and I just went home [to Arkansas]for Christmas break and I told my mom I didn't want to go back."

Lee was training under long-time coach Bobby Kersee, husband of track and field legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Kersee has trained many of the United States' best athletes, including his wife and two-time Olympic champion Gail Devers, but it wasn't working for Lee.

With her dream of making the Beijing Olympics fading, the former Louisiana State star and NCAA gold medalist called her college coach, Pat Henry, who is going into his fifth year as coach at Texas A&M.

"I was asking him what I needed to do because my coach wasn't really there for me and I was working with someone else and staying with someone else," Lee said. "I was struggling and I said, 'Coach, I need to do something. I'm just not happy and they want to cut me.'

"I just had to do what was best for me."

By January, with all other avenues seemingly exhausted, Lee was training with Henry and Aggie women's sprint coach Vince Anderson in College Station, a location more suitable to the 26-year-old's personality.

As an A&M volunteer coach, Lee was given a workout program similar to the Aggie sprinters.

"Athletes are like other people, to be a high achiever you have to have a relatively stable environment," said Anderson, who came to A&M from Tennessee when Henry was hired. "What we offered here in her case, because she knew Coach Henry, was somewhat like being home for her. And the cost of living is less, so I think several stresses were removed."

With some weight off her shoulders, a healthy Lee showed what she was capable of by winning the 100 meters and finishing second in the 200 meters at the U.S. Trials five weeks ago.

Lee's 100 victory was considered by many as one of the big surprises of the trials, but not by Anderson.

"Coach expected it," Lee said. "I'd never won anything, and it was a big thing for me. I definitely felt like I came in under the radar. It wasn't really [motivation], it just felt good."

It's not that Lee was an unknown in track and field circles. She qualified second in the 100 at the U.S. Trials in 2004 and finished seventh in the Athens Olympics despite injuring her calf before the competition. A torn calf muscle and a pulled hamstring in 2007, though, had taken her out of the picture temporarily.

"She can run like no person I've ever coached, male or female. She is a running machine," said Anderson, who has coached his share of elite sprinters, including Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the 100. "Her talent is spectacular and never, ever should be disregarded when healthy. She's that good."

Lee's first national 100 title came in a personal best 10.85 seconds, beating Lauryn Williams, Torri Edwards, Texas' Marshevet Hooker and the U.S. women's most celebrated sprinter and 200 champ, Allison Felix.

The 5-foot-8 Lee earned her second Olympic berth a week later in the 200. Her time of 21.99 at Hayward Stadium in Eugene, Ore., made her the only American woman to double in the sprints. She will also run a leg in the 400 relay, an event in which the United States and Jamaica are the favorites.

"I've got a lot of work, but I'm going to take the 100 first and then worry about the 200 a day at a time," Lee said. "I don't think it will be as hard because our trials are really hard. Other countries have girls [at the Olympics] that only run 12 flat, so the [preliminary] rounds won't be as severe."

The prelims may not be as difficult to get through for Lee and the other Americans, but the finals will be a different story. Jamaican stars such as four-time Olympic medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown and Kerron Stewart and the Bahamas' Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, a bronze medalist at Athens in 2004, will be tough competition.

"No one can count me out anymore," Lee said. "I know I can't get big-headed, though, because those girls are just as good and it's pretty much wide open."

NOTES -- Lee said one of her father's biggest thrills at the '04 Olympics was trading pins with Yao Ming. ... Lee starred in basketball at Central High School in Kansas City, Mo. ... Lee plans to continue as a volunteer coach at A&M after the Olympics. She said coaching comes naturally because the "girls are so friendly and they really do listen." ... Lee won two individual NCAA titles while at LSU -- the 60 and 200 meters indoors. She won four other individual medals at NCAAs. ... Lee enjoys running the 200 the most. Before the U.S. Trials, Anderson felt that was her best event, but he says he's not so sure anymore with her recent success in the 100.

• Richard Croome's e-mail address is richard.croome@theeagle.com.