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)
Get in and swim. If nothing else, this will help you gauge your taper. Did you taper too long or too short? By getting in and swimming you should be able to tell by your repeat times and how you feel. This allows you to learn from this performance otherwise it could be repeated.
welcome to busting your rear and getting no reward.
you are NOT at the front of the line by any means.
no, this is not my normal king of sarcasm remarks.
as one of my good friends and fiercest competitors told me this weekend -> there are a lot more bad races than there are good races.
yes, go back and read your training log. see what you did. or didnt do. learn from it.
i promise you this...quitters never win.
sunruh said exactly what I was going to chime in with.
1. Everyone has poor races / meets.
2. Learn from what went wrong. Figure out what to do differently next time.
If it helps, I had a disappointing meet too. I know why, and can justify my poor swims, but I'm still disappointed. But I still had fun hanging out with my teammates and meeting new people and just being in the atmosphere of Masters nationals.
welcome to busting your rear and getting no reward.
you are NOT at the front of the line by any means.
no, this is not my normal king of sarcasm remarks.
as one of my good friends and fiercest competitors told me this weekend -> there are a lot more bad races than there are good races.
yes, go back and read your training log. see what you did. or didnt do. learn from it.
i promise you this...quitters never win.
This.
Everyone has bad meets. No one is exempt. I had a disastrous meet last December where I felt horrible, swam poorly, scratched half my events and left early. I knew I had to get my training back on track, including lifting.
You'll feel better in a couple days. The memory is probably just too acute right now. You'll be able to figure a path forward once you've digested everything. And tapers are tricky things. If you haven't had that much experience with them, you might have missed it.
Put another meet or goal on your calendar quickly so you have something else to aim for. Print out your original post, tuck it away, and put a reminder on the calendar to look at it again in a month and at 6 months from now. Chances are, you won't remember it as much because by then, you'll have moved on to other stuff. Give yourself a week to recover mentally, eat some ice cream, pizza, and a good IPA, then get your buns back in the pool and start working to the next goal meet or event. This will be in your rear view mirror and you'll have motivation to do bigger and better things. You can do it. :)
I feel your pain- been there, done that. :bighug:
My solution? Try some completely new events! I keep getting injured when I train too much breaststroke, so I have backed off. My coach is convinced I'm better suited to distance events anyway, so I took on the 400 IM, 200 fly, and distance free. Training for 400 IM has been terrific, because I have to train all four strokes. This allows my body to avoid the repetitive stress of training too much of one stroke.
Perhaps this would work for you. Put those bad races behind you and set some new goals. Just don't give up! :cheerleader:
I always learn more from a bad swim than a good one(but good ones are a lot more fun.) Do you have any videos of your swims to study? What made this meet different;diet,sleep,jet lag,length of taper,different technique? Think about it and review.
I had a great meet for me,but my 50 BR wasn't as good as the other 2 BRs. Replaying the race in my head I realized I had probably shortened my pull the 2nd 25.That made sense as my stroke count for the 2nd 25 was high.Knowing what to work on helps motivate me.The great thing about Masters Swimming is there is always another meet coming up.
Thanks for the replies. Don't think there's any danger of me quitting, but it really is a downer feeling right now.
I didn't have the highest expectations going into this meet, but I was surprised at how slow I went in some events. Getting DQ'd for the first time in my life in the 200br was a bit of a shock.
Sunruh, I was in your heat for the 500 free. I guess I can take some consolation in knowing I was in a fast heat and didn't come in last!
We've all been there! I had a very poor meet in Mesa a few years ago and still don't know why. However, I've had good swims at other big meets. Like a lost love, this too shall pass. The points others have raised are good ones. You should also look closely at your results and see if you can find some positives. Did you swim the first 50 of any race at the pace you wanted? Were any of your starts good ones? Did you do the number of dolphin kicks off the start that you had planned? Did you nail any of your turns? I bet if you really broke it down, you could find a few things that were positives.
And if for some reason you can't, you can say you were there when Nathan Adrian swam a 41.13!!!
