Getting over a bad performance

In addition to the other great advice, let me second this suggestion by Elaine. I'd also highly recommend mixing up events at your end of season taper meet. The best thing that helped me get over my crappy 400 IM at Nationals on Friday morning was swimming the 200 back later that day, an event I rarely swim. Beyond the complete lack of pressure I felt in that 200 back, I didn't have this whole huge history of past performances weighing down my mind. While I do swim some of the world's greatest events (e.g., 400 IM and 200 fly) over and over at Nationals, I am almost always mixing in at least a couple of off events. Beyond giving me a chance to record some masters best times with comparative ease (e.g., I had never swum a 200 back tapered and shaved in a jammer), these 'secondary' events really take the pressure off. Thanks pwb! I traded in some of my breaststroke events for your 400 IM and 200 fly and ended up loving them. :banana: How would you like to trade in your 400 IM for 100 breaststroke? :D

Probably the best thing you can do is really to quit. Everybody is telling you the same story about how you can get over it and how you can get stronger and better and how you can focus on the next event and any sorts of things like that, but the true is: nobody is feeling like you and can really know how your soul suffers from bad results... So Everybody is lying to you because the mainstream opinion is always inaccurate and in relation to you own feelings in most case just false. So let my give you a wise advice: Dont think about to get quickly on track, with the same kind of mideset, just think more about the spititual way of life: for example why some results of a simply bodyaction in water affects your soul and mind. HUH? :confused:

I would never bet against Mr Unruh. He is an unbelievable racer. thanks Stewart. i know when i look you straight in the chest (yeah, he's only 8 inches taller than me) that a dogfight is about to start when we get on the blocks. and it doesnt matter if we go 5:30 or 4:45, its gonna be a crowd standing race.

exactly!!! in my 100, the 1st turn was so horrible that i went in 1/2 a body ahead of everybody but matt and came off 1/2 a body behind. when the first words out of one of your competitors (no names, but it was mark cox :D) says to you, "what happened on that 1st turn?" yeah, it *IS* that bad! those are easy to pick out.I watched that swim yesterday on youtube. It is hard to determine, but it looked like you were the first to flip your turn. Nevertheless, that was still an incredible race, not only Biondi's, but also between 2nd, 3rd and 4th .

Probably the best thing you can do is really to quit. Everybody is telling you the same story about how you can get over it and how you can get stronger and better and how you can focus on the next event and any sorts of things like that, but the true is: nobody is feeling like you and can really know how your soul suffers from bad results... So Everybody is lying to you because the mainstream opinion is always inaccurate and in relation to you own feelings in most case just false. So let my give you a wise advice: Dont think about to get quickly on track, with the same kind of mideset, just think more about the spititual way of life: for example why some results of a simply bodyaction in water affects your soul and mind.

The bad performance I had this year was narrowed down to the turn . In the 50, when you are caught and passed in that short portion of the race you know that is the problem

I was not good at handling bad swims as a kid. When I came back as an adult, one of the promises I made to myself (in addition to NO MORNING PRACTICES! and not to be yardage-driven), was to get over it before getting out of the pool. More concisely, Leave it in the pool. Admittedly, it's not always easy. Yea, you still don't do that too well as an adult :-)

I can't shake the feeling of being a failure We've all been there and have our own ways to get through it. I will spare you the psychological pep talk because they rarely help with coping for me. Its very easy to look at a time as a whole and feel that your training was for nothing. However, for all my failed races I found it a lot more revealing and comforting to hyper analyze not why I was swimming so slow, but where I wasted the time in my races. Every race starts off perfection, and then you make some mistakes or missteps. If you're realistic about what a perfect race is going to be on a given day, its usually pretty easy (and surprisingly accurate) to account for where the time went, and when you can lay the reasons out there its a little easier to cope with a failed performance. The hard part is probably being being realistic and estimating what that race picture looks like to get a base time goal that you are happy with. Ex: in my tapered LCM 50 last year I drifted over to the side of the lane and stupidly corrected back to middle. I actually did the trig to calculate an approximate length I swam further than 50m because of the deviation, and doing so had fully accounted for the missing tenths in my race. This actually did make me happier, because the speed and the race was still there beneath the mistake, the training hadn't failed after all. (I could then move on to beating myself up over the mistake and not on a failed season of training, lol ) It doesn't mean this method will always prove it was a race mistake, but it'd make sense to at least not feel bad about training if it didn't really contribute to the disappointing time you saw. I should also note, that after applying this to every important swim I can remember, I can only count on one hand the ones where I feel I did it all correctly and went my expected peak time... and they largely weren't even on my PB swims ;)

I was less than thrilled with how I raced in Santa Clara. It seems like many people were so I'm blaming the pool. It stole many seconds from me! In all seriousness, I swam slower than I have in years, but felt like my training was better. I left feeling incredibly positive for multiple reasons. One reason, was that I had a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the people - loved seeing old friends and had a great time meeting new friends. I enjoyed being at that pool complex and outside (Chicago has been insanely cold!). What I came to realize was that while my times were slower I'm on the right track. I have things to work on in all of my races - some bigger than others. Another thing I took away was that I am just lucky to be there and to be able bodied. There was a man there (I didn't catch his name) that was in a horrible accident in January, and lost 1/2 of his leg. He was still there and racing. That was a big inspiration! Another thing was that I was reminded that the sport isn't being canceled and there will be SO many more opportunities to swim nationals and other meets and go faster. I'm in my mid-thirties so by my calculations I could legitimately swim in a 100 more nationals (since there are two per year). I personally had an outstanding meet at both nationals in 2008. I haven't come close to those times again - but I did finally start teaching full time which has taken a lot of the old training time away. What I remember most about all those other "slow" nationals is that I had fun. I really don't remember the swims. So my VERY long winded advice is to focus on what did go well. Set a new goal and remember that you get to do this again next year!

I watched that swim yesterday on youtube. It is hard to determine, but it looked like you were the first to flip your turn. Hi Steve. Where is that video posted on Youtube?