I might have some insight. For the record, I'm not an Olympian and I'm not setting any world records yet. I consistently swim 1:05-1:06 in my 100 LCM fly and 0:56.xx in the 100 SCY fly. I've done 1:04 and 0:55. But every time - every single time - I swim those races I don't think I can go that fast. I'm like "I'll just be happy if I go under 1:10" or "as long as I break a minute I'll be ok". And when I'm on the block I regret my seed times and signing up for those events. The fear of not meeting your seed time is a real thing, whether it's rational or not. Getting beaten is one thing - you can't control how fast other people go - but not meeting your seed time means you failed. A few times I've seeded myself with 1:08 or :58 and to be honest it just took so much pressure off. It made the race much less scary.
This I understand, but it's a question of degree. A few seconds on a 100 is one thing, 6 seconds on a 50 is another!
I might have some insight. For the record, I'm not an Olympian and I'm not setting any world records yet. I consistently swim 1:05-1:06 in my 100 LCM fly and 0:56.xx in the 100 SCY fly. I've done 1:04 and 0:55. But every time - every single time - I swim those races I don't think I can go that fast. I'm like "I'll just be happy if I go under 1:10" or "as long as I break a minute I'll be ok". And when I'm on the block I regret my seed times and signing up for those events. The fear of not meeting your seed time is a real thing, whether it's rational or not. Getting beaten is one thing - you can't control how fast other people go - but not meeting your seed time means you failed. A few times I've seeded myself with 1:08 or :58 and to be honest it just took so much pressure off. It made the race much less scary.
This I understand, but it's a question of degree. A few seconds on a 100 is one thing, 6 seconds on a 50 is another!
