This past weekend (March 28-30), the Colorado States Masters State Meet was held.
As a distance swimmer, I normally sign up for events like the 1650 and 400 IM. Following an almost two month fight with that stupid viral “plague” that was cirulating this past winter though, and easing back into practice with just three weeks before States, I was planning to skip the meet entirely.
Except that one of my teammates, who has always very kindly supplied me with great tips for training and beyond, made a suggestion. “Sign up for events you never do because then you won’t care about your times, but you’ll still bring in team points.”
It was an intriguing idea.
So I signed up for sprint events — 100 IM, Back & Breast as well as the 50 fly. The game I played with myself? “Swimming the middle 100s is a good way to work on your weaker half of the 400, even if you make a public spectacle of yourself.”
Leading up to the meet, I definitely had a lot of “what did I just do?” thoughts. New, even more distracting thoughts (“I haven’t practiced back starts.” “Do I need to change my breathing pattern for a 50 fly?” “Can I even do the time I made up to enter the 100 breast?”) swarmed with me in the warm up pool before each event.
I have to admit though, it wasn’t that bad of an experiment. Doing distances/strokes that you tend to skirt around in practice is a great way to take all expectation, and thus pressure off yourself at a meet. I couldn’t feel bad about the times I did because there was no pre-existing “self yardstick” to measure against.
And, my teammate was right and very wise to share her idea. I wouldn’t have wanted to skip the meet because I would have missed all the other fun — relays, watching people throw down PRs and catching up with friends from other teams I haven’t seen in awhile.
Until next time,
Rebecca, “swim evangelist”