One last long swim practice

This will be the Irongirl teams' last long swim.  I can’t believe it!  Our training season is almost over and we are less than 2 weeks out from Irongirl.  Todays practice will involve swimming further than race distance.  We will swim 600 meters. I’ve been reading a lot on staying present and not worrying about what other athletes are doing around me.  A key tenant of the book is to have fun while swimming and go at my own pace. So, instead of panicking, I decide to swim the entire distance backstroke. I don’t want to stress. I figure worse case scenario—if I have to backstroke the entire 500 meters at Irongirl, it would be nice to know how long it might take. Would I be able to complete it before the cutoff time?  This would be my chance to see. 

So, we get in the lane and I start.  Of course, the faster swimmers head out but I’m not going to panic. Oh, I forgot to mention, the swimmers training for the Oconee Olympic would be swimming 1300 meters. I knew some if not all would catch and pass me. Again, I didn’t panic and figured I could use this to simulate later waves where swimmers would catch and pass me.  On, I go, settling myself down..singing ‘Expect a Miracle’ by the Clark Sisters, ‘Control’ by Janet Jackson, ‘Lose Yourself by Eminem and I’m chugging along. After 450 meters or so, I get a bit distracted and remind myself, I can do all things through Jesus Christ..by now, the Oconee swimmers are passing me.  A couple times I swallow water or get water in my nose and choke up. I hate that choking feeling. It's so unnatural to feel my body seize up like that. I eventually regroup and keep going. Tuning out others and not worrying about being the last person. The goal is to finish before the cutoff and have fun.

Finally, I’m in the last 50 meters. Out of my peripheral vision, I see Cameron and a few others cheering me on. I make it to the end of the lane, climb the ladder out and hear Coach Beth say 30 minutes.  Whoo hoo!! I’ll take that. 600 meters backstroke in 30 minutes. That’s better than 40 or 50 minutes! Better yet, I accept that I’m much calmer on my back and will no doubt swim some of Irongirl on it. I know that due to limited visibility I don’t want to swim the entire thing on my back but I’m willing to swim some or most of it.  The goal is to finish the swim way before the cutoff and have fun doing it!

A takeway from this practice is to work on swimming 100-200 meters continuously over the next week. Not sure if I’ll reach that goal but I’m going to try.

Keep moving forward…