The first half of my college season this year has been some what disappointing. I would do a bad time, or just have an overall bad swim, and then I think what furthered that trend was my mentality...that there must be something seriously wrong with my stroke, turn, start, anything really, that was going to prevent me from getting faster until I fixed it. Plus, after having a really bad meet, I have a hard time in general, getting back up the next day, next weekend, which ever and not thinking about that previous meet.
My coach says that sprinters tend to have that mentality a lot more than a distance swimmer, just because in a longer race, theres so much time to make a mistake, or get off pace. While, in the 50 or 100free, if your adding 2seconds onto your time thats huge, because you get to thinking "how could I have possibly swam that horribly, that I added 2 seconds to my 50 time!?"
But most significantly, I feel like lactic acid sets, where we go from the blocks at the end of practice and do a bunch of 200s or 100s depending on our coaches mood, for time, are the most detrimental to my mentality. I have never been much of a practicer, in the sense, that I can't hold my best times/race pace times in practice, no matter how hard I try. Even in sets during practice this discourages me, because while I know I am the fastest sprinter on my team, and in the top 10 in my conference, everyone is able to hold 100s and even 50s on a faster time than I. No coach has ever been able to provide me insight to why that is the case...maybe someone here has an idea on that issue? But, yeah, lactic sets, I regularly do 10-15seconds slower than my best time on my 200s, and 5 or so on my 100s...while most of my teammates are able to hold within 0-3 seconds of their best times a lot of the times...
So, the moral of my rant here is that tomorrow I have my first dual meet since early December. We've been doing doubles; working our butts off, and I am praying that tomorrow my season makes a full 180... I think I have brushed off any negative thinking I had had...so hopefully I will be able to swim my events tomorrow with confidence and ...speed?
Morgan:-D
sorry for boring you all with my super long, nearly pointless post:-/
I don't think it is your mind as much as your body. I suspect that you are more of a natural sprinter than your teammates. You probably have a higher % of fast twitch fibers than they do. Early in the season is going to be harder on you. Your muscles will generate more lactic acid than theirs and it will take you longer to recover. Your first few meets may be tough. Use them to get menally strong. You will need a longer taper than your teammates,but you will drop your time MUCH more than they will. The taper meet is what is important anyway IMHO(and probably your coach's.) Persevere and crush them at the end of the year!!
I don't think it is your mind as much as your body. I suspect that you are more of a natural sprinter than your teammates. You probably have a higher % of fast twitch fibers than they do. Early in the season is going to be harder on you. Your muscles will generate more lactic acid than theirs and it will take you longer to recover. Your first few meets may be tough. Use them to get menally strong. You will need a longer taper than your teammates,but you will drop your time MUCH more than they will. The taper meet is what is important anyway IMHO(and probably your coach's.) Persevere and crush them at the end of the year!!
