"What do YOU need to do to have a major swimming breakthrough?"

Thanks, Ande, for bringing this back to topic. This weekend, I had a swimming breakthrough, and I'll briefly tell you how it happened. After Worlds, I was so elated about four of my five individual swims at Stanford that I wanted to "ride the wave" to the end of the year. But I definitely needed a break, as I had spent 18 months focused solely on worlds. I took six weeks off, trying to figure out what I wanted to do -- rest on my laurels or see if the work I'd done could continue to pay off. This summer, I made a choice to forgo a lot of my social life to swim doubles three days a week for two months. That increased my swim total to nearly 30,000 yards/meters a week, instead of 20,000 during my normal training. Lots and lots of sprint training, lots of fast 25s, 50s, 75s and 100s. Lots of swimming on the rack. Lots of work on starts. Lots of fine tuning technique, which mostly involved hand pitch on my left side in breaststroke. I got a world record and three wins at Stanford. I decided to train for the short course meters meet in Tempe, Ariz., which was two months from my return to the pool. Not much time to train, but I knew I had a good base. Spent the first month getting back into shape, then went back to my doubles plan, this time only twice a week, but I did keep my weekly totals above 25,000 yards. The tough part was making myself go to the second workout, given that the morning workout had been so tough and I was often doing a tough weight workout in between. But I drowned out the voices in my head and plowed through those evening workouts. I would come home exhausted and not up for any kind of social interaction. But everyone involved understood that it would only last a month. My only concern for the meet was that my races would be so close together that the rest time would be affected. All the meets I've shaved for in masters have given me at least an hour between events, some of which were even back-to-back. But this one was going to have low attendance, which meant the races I wanted to swim would not allow for ample recovery. One way I worked on this was by signing up for a couple of events at the one meet I was able to swim before my shave meet. I swam two events 20 minutes apart and did both of them well, mostly through positive self-talk. I took that positive feedback to this weekend's meet. After my world record in the 100 ***, I spent 30 minutes in the warm down pool to get ready for my 100 IM. Even after all that easy swimming, my body was still not ready. But 40 minutes after the ***, I got up and forced my body to swim through the pain and get a good time in the IM. I got a second record the next day and again, had to force myself to swim through the pain of going through a 200 IM alone, which I always have trouble doing. The time wasn't that great, but I felt proud in finishing. My breakthrough this weekend did come from physical growth (most of my times this weekend were faster than what I did three years ago), but mostly from mental growth. It takes a lot to stand up for two events ad swim them fast when they are 40 minutes apart. I have a deeper respect for Michael Phelps and what he has to go through with his multiple events. So ... if you know of any problems you will have in getting that breakthrough, train yourself, mind and body, to prepare for it BEFORE the event.

Thanks, Ande, for bringing this back to topic. This weekend, I had a swimming breakthrough, and I'll briefly tell you how it happened. After Worlds, I was so elated about four of my five individual swims at Stanford that I wanted to "ride the wave" to the end of the year. But I definitely needed a break, as I had spent 18 months focused solely on worlds. I took six weeks off, trying to figure out what I wanted to do -- rest on my laurels or see if the work I'd done could continue to pay off. This summer, I made a choice to forgo a lot of my social life to swim doubles three days a week for two months. That increased my swim total to nearly 30,000 yards/meters a week, instead of 20,000 during my normal training. Lots and lots of sprint training, lots of fast 25s, 50s, 75s and 100s. Lots of swimming on the rack. Lots of work on starts. Lots of fine tuning technique, which mostly involved hand pitch on my left side in breaststroke. I got a world record and three wins at Stanford. I decided to train for the short course meters meet in Tempe, Ariz., which was two months from my return to the pool. Not much time to train, but I knew I had a good base. Spent the first month getting back into shape, then went back to my doubles plan, this time only twice a week, but I did keep my weekly totals above 25,000 yards. The tough part was making myself go to the second workout, given that the morning workout had been so tough and I was often doing a tough weight workout in between. But I drowned out the voices in my head and plowed through those evening workouts. I would come home exhausted and not up for any kind of social interaction. But everyone involved understood that it would only last a month. My only concern for the meet was that my races would be so close together that the rest time would be affected. All the meets I've shaved for in masters have given me at least an hour between events, some of which were even back-to-back. But this one was going to have low attendance, which meant the races I wanted to swim would not allow for ample recovery. One way I worked on this was by signing up for a couple of events at the one meet I was able to swim before my shave meet. I swam two events 20 minutes apart and did both of them well, mostly through positive self-talk. I took that positive feedback to this weekend's meet. After my world record in the 100 ***, I spent 30 minutes in the warm down pool to get ready for my 100 IM. Even after all that easy swimming, my body was still not ready. But 40 minutes after the ***, I got up and forced my body to swim through the pain and get a good time in the IM. I got a second record the next day and again, had to force myself to swim through the pain of going through a 200 IM alone, which I always have trouble doing. The time wasn't that great, but I felt proud in finishing. My breakthrough this weekend did come from physical growth (most of my times this weekend were faster than what I did three years ago), but mostly from mental growth. It takes a lot to stand up for two events ad swim them fast when they are 40 minutes apart. I have a deeper respect for Michael Phelps and what he has to go through with his multiple events. So ... if you know of any problems you will have in getting that breakthrough, train yourself, mind and body, to prepare for it BEFORE the event.