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:-/
Interesting...during the last couple of seasons, I have made an increased effort to become a "practice swimmer". The satisfaction of hitting practice goals and challanges throughout the year seems to me to far outweigh the "taper for the big one" goal. (I still don't believe that I've ever hit my taper just right). The potential to miss peak performance on the big one (for any number of reasons) is great, and to have all ones eggs in that one basket.....
I don't like having to wait a whole year for another basket of eggs.:2cents:
Would I prefer to hit better times through out the season and in practice? Of course. This isn't to say I don't go PBs during inseason meets either, I do. I just usually drop huge at our taper meet. My old head coach was a taper expert. That was his niche. So I feel like I always hit my taper really well.
I also have only had two taper meets as a masters swimmer. I beat my taper times from 05 in almost every event in the 06 season untapered, but then dropped a lot more tapered. Now I'm trying to beat all of my 06 tapered times this season and hoping to drop a lot in taper again. In practice though I try so hard, am gasping for air and am still not within a 1-3 seconds of my 100 time in a meet .... we also have a shallow pool and no blocks, but ...
I always work my butt off in practice and aim for best times, whether it be practice bests, inseason bests, or tapered bests. Sometimes if it's an event I haven't swum in awhile I do a full out PB in practice. I'm still somewhat new to masters so that does happen. In fact I went a best time in a timed 500 a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't swum it in a meet in almost two years ...
Interesting...during the last couple of seasons, I have made an increased effort to become a "practice swimmer". The satisfaction of hitting practice goals and challanges throughout the year seems to me to far outweigh the "taper for the big one" goal. (I still don't believe that I've ever hit my taper just right). The potential to miss peak performance on the big one (for any number of reasons) is great, and to have all ones eggs in that one basket.....
I don't like having to wait a whole year for another basket of eggs.:2cents:
Would I prefer to hit better times through out the season and in practice? Of course. This isn't to say I don't go PBs during inseason meets either, I do. I just usually drop huge at our taper meet. My old head coach was a taper expert. That was his niche. So I feel like I always hit my taper really well.
I also have only had two taper meets as a masters swimmer. I beat my taper times from 05 in almost every event in the 06 season untapered, but then dropped a lot more tapered. Now I'm trying to beat all of my 06 tapered times this season and hoping to drop a lot in taper again. In practice though I try so hard, am gasping for air and am still not within a 1-3 seconds of my 100 time in a meet .... we also have a shallow pool and no blocks, but ...
I always work my butt off in practice and aim for best times, whether it be practice bests, inseason bests, or tapered bests. Sometimes if it's an event I haven't swum in awhile I do a full out PB in practice. I'm still somewhat new to masters so that does happen. In fact I went a best time in a timed 500 a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't swum it in a meet in almost two years ...
