I so dearly wish I could post this as anonymous, but I guess none of you really know me, anyway, so here goes. I am not really superstitious, but I have found that by tracking my biorhythms, I can pretty much predict how my swimming performance will be. I suffer from what I lovingly call "melancholy" and have noted, often times in retrospect, that my bluest days happen to coincide with my emotional cycle on the bottom. Now, since we all know that swimming is 90% mental, I try to avoid spending money that could be better used elsewhere, on going to out of town meets, when I have a fairly good chance of not doing so well. (Granted this is a new observation, not one I have practiced most of my life.) If the meet fell on a "bad" weekend, and it was local, it wouldn't matter, I'd go & swim & just do my best. But since I'm a working girl now, I have to plan things out way ahead to get time off, hotel reservations, someone to take care of the cat & dog, etc., so the last year or so I've also been checking my biorhythms.
So here's the question. If you really feel like you want to go to a meet (obviously emotions are not at the bottom when having these great feelings!!) but you can see ahead that your biorhythms are going to be "so so" - would you spend the money to go out of town for a, most likely, "so so" performance? It just seems like its been sooooo long since I was able to get to a meet! (But I guess I could save the $500 for Nationals. . . . . ) :blush:
(small aside here - it's not like I'm on a team & will have fun companionship with team members)
Sometimes it not just times that are important at meets. I swam at a meet today and my goal was to do 4 SDK's at the start of the 50 free and to get a little deeper on the turn. The time will be what it will be.
I don't look at biorythms, but I do have a goal at a meet. And that goal is not necessarily a specific time. The best time of the season needs to be swum at Nationals or what ever your target meet is. The local meets give me an opportunity to work on skills that will in fact make me swim better at nationals.
So my advice is to work on skills you want to improve regardless of biorythms, and let the rest take care of itself.
Sometimes it not just times that are important at meets. I swam at a meet today and my goal was to do 4 SDK's at the start of the 50 free and to get a little deeper on the turn. The time will be what it will be.
I don't look at biorythms, but I do have a goal at a meet. And that goal is not necessarily a specific time. The best time of the season needs to be swum at Nationals or what ever your target meet is. The local meets give me an opportunity to work on skills that will in fact make me swim better at nationals.
So my advice is to work on skills you want to improve regardless of biorythms, and let the rest take care of itself.
