and I wanted to ask a few questions.
I got into this in September (yep, three months ago) because I was interested in losing weight as well as learning a bit of what my son (who is on a club team) goes through. I've always loved swimming. I honestly had no intention of competing and I still feel kind of... unsure about it. I'm not the fastest, I certainly don't have a ton of endurance.
So, I guess I'm asking, if you started late (and judging from what I've read here, I am) when do you break through? During practice, quite often, I feel as though if I'm asked to swim another lap, I might go crazy. And I feel like I don't belong there. There are other people on the team that I just :notworthy: to because they rock.
I've been telling myself that even if I feel like I can't go another yard, push myself to keep going. But the other part of me just says, heck no! I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. It's like the good angel, bad angel. Although, the good angel is winning lately.
Suggestions to get past that mental block I seem to have? It would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Lisa
Parents
Former Member
I don't know about breakthroughs in terms of competition, but in terms of conditioning I have experienced a breakthrough of sorts. Back in the early 90s when I was in college, I picked swimming back up again for health and got really serious about it, almost militant. One day, I was in the middle of a 600 warm-up and around the 400 yard mark I felt my body tiring out, but then something happened. I got some sort of second wind during the next 200 yards... I could stare down the next 25 and not even need many breaths. This strength came out of nowhere. I decided to just keep going to see how long I could go. I ended up doing a 1500 yards at a good clip. I likened the experience to what runners call "the zone" where pain and fatigue seem to just go away and you feel like you could just run forever. I didn't know it existed in the pool. It took me about 3 months of 3x per week of swimming to experience it. I'm looking to find it again....
I don't know about breakthroughs in terms of competition, but in terms of conditioning I have experienced a breakthrough of sorts. Back in the early 90s when I was in college, I picked swimming back up again for health and got really serious about it, almost militant. One day, I was in the middle of a 600 warm-up and around the 400 yard mark I felt my body tiring out, but then something happened. I got some sort of second wind during the next 200 yards... I could stare down the next 25 and not even need many breaths. This strength came out of nowhere. I decided to just keep going to see how long I could go. I ended up doing a 1500 yards at a good clip. I likened the experience to what runners call "the zone" where pain and fatigue seem to just go away and you feel like you could just run forever. I didn't know it existed in the pool. It took me about 3 months of 3x per week of swimming to experience it. I'm looking to find it again....
