Okay, I'm in a complete funk now. At spring nationals this weekend, I had what was probably the worst meet of my career, performance wise. Really can't understand why, as the meet was run really well, I thought I had trained and tapered properly, and everything seemed to be in order. Come competition time, I sucked. Had a so-so 400IM, got dq'd in the 200Br, and just went slow in everything else. Not making excuses, but now I feel horrible. Don't want to train, and I'm almost embarrassed to look at my results.
So now what? How do I get over this desire to quit?
(I know, I'm taking this way to seriously, but I can't shake the feeling of being a failure)
I had a masters coach who brought over her college team's mantra regarding meets:
1) Swim hard
2) Have fun
3) Make new friends
If you can do all three at a meet, great! If not, accomplishing just one of them is also a victory. I had a meet years ago that I swam terribly at, but I have fond memories of the trip, because #2 was achieved. Now, granted, the having fun part consisted of all of us piling into a hotel room to eat Italian take-out and watch a movie, but it was a fun night, and it salvaged the entire trip for me.
Also take note that #1 says "Swim hard" not "Swim fast". If you gave your races 100% effort, and didn't give up on them, you can consider each race to be little victories that can be built upon going forward.
Listen to the advice of the blue one. The second and third one's are really key to getting over a bad meet. If you don't have friends or make new friends around you, you spend too much time thinking about the bad swim. Friends(new and old) help put a bad swim behind you really fast.
I had a masters coach who brought over her college team's mantra regarding meets:
1) Swim hard
2) Have fun
3) Make new friends
If you can do all three at a meet, great! If not, accomplishing just one of them is also a victory. I had a meet years ago that I swam terribly at, but I have fond memories of the trip, because #2 was achieved. Now, granted, the having fun part consisted of all of us piling into a hotel room to eat Italian take-out and watch a movie, but it was a fun night, and it salvaged the entire trip for me.
Also take note that #1 says "Swim hard" not "Swim fast". If you gave your races 100% effort, and didn't give up on them, you can consider each race to be little victories that can be built upon going forward.
Listen to the advice of the blue one. The second and third one's are really key to getting over a bad meet. If you don't have friends or make new friends around you, you spend too much time thinking about the bad swim. Friends(new and old) help put a bad swim behind you really fast.
