I wanted to reach out with a friendly challenge to all of our swimmers.
We are currently 3 weeks (JR/SR Champs) and 4 weeks (14&U Champs) from major championship meets for our TEAM, and beyond what you have all put into the water so far, I want you to try something a little different than normal for the next few weeks and at those meets.
First off, what I am going to ask starts now (today), in order to be prepared for the upcoming meets. Any time you think of swimming and your races coming up, I want you to try to think in the terms I ask for below, instead of what you normally do.
1. Forget about the “times” or “cuts” that you are going for at the meet.
Let those things come along the way. If we put them in front of us at meets, we often times fail to race the way you have trained to race. We set specific expectations of ourselves, which then leads to us having more pressure to perform. Take those expectations away at meets. The time to use them would be workouts, but we can discuss that later.
2. Commit to your best races every time you are on the blocks.
Too often we assume best times to be the only marker as to whether a race was good or not, and that’s just not the case. Not only is a non best time swim not necessarily a bad race, but a best time doesn’t mean that you did your best race on that day either. Instead I want you willing to give your absolute best “focused effort” each and every time you are in the water to race.
By “focused effort” I mean that you are willing to race the way you and your coach have worked to get you ready to race. So it has to be more than just effort, as we see people “over-swim” races all the time, but there’s no focus when that’s done.
All you can and should expect of yourself on that given day is to do your absolute best, on that day. If you can allow yourself to do that, then your times will be as fast as you are prepared to go on that day. From there, then it’s time to adjust what’s done daily to be better, but for now, adjust what you can and be ready to give your absolute best “focused effort” in each and every race.
3. Forget about how you “feel” at the meet.
Instead go back to all those times you didn’t feel good in practice, yet you pushed yourselves to fast swimming. Just remember the goal, “focused effort”, and paying attention to how you feel should have no impact on your effort, unless you let it.
4. Push the second half of races beyond what you currently believe you can do.
In short, get out of your head when that pain starts to set in (and yes, if you are racing correctly that pain will set in) and push yourself to give the absolute best efforts you can. You are capable of more, accept that you have that control and learn how to push to new levels by just letting yourself go.
As part of this finishing push, commit to attacking your walls. Too often when we get tired, we also let our turns slow down, but they don’t have to just because we are tired. They don’t take nearly as much energy as swimming, yet because of that we treat them as rest. Be different, be better, and attack those walls to beat people and be that much faster than you were last time in the water.
5. Focus on the efforts, be confident and above all else, remember to have FUN.
I put this one last because I think it’s the most important piece. Don’t get me wrong, I am as competitive a person as I know, and this may seem to go against that piece, but it’s actually how you will perform your best and yet still get the most out of this sport in and out of the water.
Focus on your efforts - In the end that all you can do, and guess what, there’s not a single person reading this that can say they gave it their absolute all every single time they did something. It’s just not that easy. That said, effort is the greatest focus as that is what you have control over. You don’t have control over the clock, that’s for sure. You never know how fast someone else will swim, that’s a huge mistake to judge success off of someone else.
Be true to yourself and push yourself to the best efforts you can give. When you are done you will then know whether you actually gave it everything in the pool or not, and you may also come to know that you gave it everything, had a great race without the results you wanted, and it may be time to take a look at what you do every day in workout, but that can all be done after the meet is over.
Regardless the result, remain focused on your effort every single time you step up on the blocks.
Be confident - It’s such an easy thing to say, but so hard to find when it’s not there for you. Just remember this when you start to get nervous. Do you consider yourself a better swimmer right now, than you would have when you went your best time? This doesn’t mean that things needed to go perfectly all season to be better. This only means you believe that you are a better swimmer now. Maybe it’s by training, or stroke technique, or knowing better racing strategy, or better mental game, or maybe just even the fact that you know you are more willing to push when it gets hard than you were before. It could be anything, but you have to believe that you are ready.
HAVE FUN! - Here’s the deal, this whole thing is a process, and the earlier and better we can learn to truly enjoy the process, the better. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be “fun” all the time, but you can enjoy it all the time. It also doesn’t take anything away from the competitive drive, it only reminds us that this should all be fun.
Don’t let the scoreboard determine if you enjoy this sport.
This sport is much bigger than times. It’s about learning, challenging yourself to the end of your limits and recognizing just how much that means when it’s all over. So don’t get so caught up on times that you lose the bigger picture. Focus instead of challenging yourself to push harder, learn more and improve yourself along the way, and the crazy thing is, I’m willing to bet your performances will be even better than you may think possible right now.
Thanks all and let’s go have some fun!
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