These past few weeks have really brought me down, emotionally
and as a result I’m sure physically. Swimming was always my strongest of the
three and by far my favorite. However, that has not been the case the last
month or so.
Part of it was hiring a coach. Let me explain before you think I don’t like my coach. I love having a coach and Katie is great. Before I started working with her I did the same two swim workouts each week. Each workout had some hard work towards the beginning but then second half was mostly pretty easy. The workouts Katie writes for me is a solid mix of hard with some easy the whole way through and often times the toughest part towards the end. I think it’s taken me several weeks to adapt to this change and that has been difficult for me. However, it’s EXACTLY what I need to get better. Plus the variety is awesome.
The other part is life. The recent event has been very difficult for me. Obviously this would affect me emotionally and mentally but I think it’s clear the stress has also affected me physically. All of this in turn affected me very negatively in the pool. For the first time I started dreading any part of the swim I had to do for time. If I saw “10x100 max effort for time” on the schedule I would stress about it all week. When it came time to execute it I would doubt myself and how hard I could push myself. Before I even started it seemed like I gave up. During it there would be a constant battle in my head between “give up” and “don’t disappoint Katie and myself, keep pushing”. I was afraid I’d use life events and stress as an excuse to give up and I was so tempted to do just that several times.
Between traveling and temporary pool closures I’ve used three different pools since I’ve started working with Katie, all different lengths. This has made it very difficult to determine what my progress has been. I couldn’t look at data to tell me if the hard work was paying off or if the stress was hurting my times. During this time I FINALLY learned how to do a flip turn. Yes, I know, it’s embarrassing that after all this time I just now forced myself to learn it. I’ve also started using paddles for the first time which I love! Started bringing a bottle to the pool to hydrate during the swim and started eating something before swimming. Lots and lots of positives and yet I only focused on the negative feeling.
Today I had 400 time trial on the schedule and yet I didn’t stress about it one bit. I prefer longer swim sets over short ones. I mostly wasn’t thinking about it because for the first time I had “fly” during a set and I have zero idea how to do butterfly. I attempted it for the first time quickly Sunday evening in the privacy of my neighborhood pool when I was all alone. It was horrible. I looked like I was a fish out of water or trying not to drown or something. Certainly felt like I was trying not to drown because I couldn’t figure out how to get my head high enough and swallowed a large mouth full of water once. I decide to swap “fly” for “fly drills” and even that was pretty interesting. But even though I figured it would be a disaster, I didn’t stress about it, I smiled about it. Every time I thought about having to try it, I actually smiled because I knew how ridiculous I’d look and I was ok with that.
Come time for the 400 TT I just went into it without much thought or care what my final time would be. And guess what you guys… I crushed it. Even my 4x100 at the end were faster than my 10x100 time trial I did two days earlier. I started the swim not stressing and just going out for fun and that’s what I found. I bought a new suit, a two piece which I was trying out for the first time. I thought it was time to not take myself so seriously and buy a suit I wanted versus the typical suit every other female wears. Don’t worry, it was still meant for lap swimming. And as stupid as it sounds, I feel like I’ve found my lucky suit.
Today I found my swim mojo again. It’s been gone for a long time but I’m so happy it’s coming back. And about time since I have my first 1.2 OWS race this weekend and you bet I’ll be wearing my new lucky suit. I’m digging myself out of the hole I’ve been in for a while. I know I still have work to do but it’s a start. One good day at a time. I should mention my morning took a sharp turn in the other direction but I’m trying to focus on the positive. So that was a whole lot of blabbering to pretty much say I’m starting to swim better but I’m just happy to have something happy to talk about right now. Happy hump day.
Part of it was hiring a coach. Let me explain before you think I don’t like my coach. I love having a coach and Katie is great. Before I started working with her I did the same two swim workouts each week. Each workout had some hard work towards the beginning but then second half was mostly pretty easy. The workouts Katie writes for me is a solid mix of hard with some easy the whole way through and often times the toughest part towards the end. I think it’s taken me several weeks to adapt to this change and that has been difficult for me. However, it’s EXACTLY what I need to get better. Plus the variety is awesome.
The other part is life. The recent event has been very difficult for me. Obviously this would affect me emotionally and mentally but I think it’s clear the stress has also affected me physically. All of this in turn affected me very negatively in the pool. For the first time I started dreading any part of the swim I had to do for time. If I saw “10x100 max effort for time” on the schedule I would stress about it all week. When it came time to execute it I would doubt myself and how hard I could push myself. Before I even started it seemed like I gave up. During it there would be a constant battle in my head between “give up” and “don’t disappoint Katie and myself, keep pushing”. I was afraid I’d use life events and stress as an excuse to give up and I was so tempted to do just that several times.
Between traveling and temporary pool closures I’ve used three different pools since I’ve started working with Katie, all different lengths. This has made it very difficult to determine what my progress has been. I couldn’t look at data to tell me if the hard work was paying off or if the stress was hurting my times. During this time I FINALLY learned how to do a flip turn. Yes, I know, it’s embarrassing that after all this time I just now forced myself to learn it. I’ve also started using paddles for the first time which I love! Started bringing a bottle to the pool to hydrate during the swim and started eating something before swimming. Lots and lots of positives and yet I only focused on the negative feeling.
Today I had 400 time trial on the schedule and yet I didn’t stress about it one bit. I prefer longer swim sets over short ones. I mostly wasn’t thinking about it because for the first time I had “fly” during a set and I have zero idea how to do butterfly. I attempted it for the first time quickly Sunday evening in the privacy of my neighborhood pool when I was all alone. It was horrible. I looked like I was a fish out of water or trying not to drown or something. Certainly felt like I was trying not to drown because I couldn’t figure out how to get my head high enough and swallowed a large mouth full of water once. I decide to swap “fly” for “fly drills” and even that was pretty interesting. But even though I figured it would be a disaster, I didn’t stress about it, I smiled about it. Every time I thought about having to try it, I actually smiled because I knew how ridiculous I’d look and I was ok with that.
Come time for the 400 TT I just went into it without much thought or care what my final time would be. And guess what you guys… I crushed it. Even my 4x100 at the end were faster than my 10x100 time trial I did two days earlier. I started the swim not stressing and just going out for fun and that’s what I found. I bought a new suit, a two piece which I was trying out for the first time. I thought it was time to not take myself so seriously and buy a suit I wanted versus the typical suit every other female wears. Don’t worry, it was still meant for lap swimming. And as stupid as it sounds, I feel like I’ve found my lucky suit.
Today I found my swim mojo again. It’s been gone for a long time but I’m so happy it’s coming back. And about time since I have my first 1.2 OWS race this weekend and you bet I’ll be wearing my new lucky suit. I’m digging myself out of the hole I’ve been in for a while. I know I still have work to do but it’s a start. One good day at a time. I should mention my morning took a sharp turn in the other direction but I’m trying to focus on the positive. So that was a whole lot of blabbering to pretty much say I’m starting to swim better but I’m just happy to have something happy to talk about right now. Happy hump day.
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