Hello Everyone,
I have been back in the pool for about a year now and am enjoying myself. With a busy schedule and two young swimmers, I rarely have time to swim Masters meets. But when the opportunity presents itself, I dodge the meet quite effectively.
Here is the reason. I have absolutely no confidence in my racing ability. In my workouts, I can lead the lane for the intermediate swiimmers and easily make 100 frees LCM on the 1:35 but many of those behind me can blow me away on sprint day when we do 50s and 100s.
I had my strokes taped and have been able to make a few nice adjustments to my freestyle that allows me to swim with much less tension in my arms and provides a greater catch with a higher elbow. I notice that I am able to go faster with much less effort now. Thus, when we do 200s and longer, I can hang with the faster swimmers. It seems the longer we go, the better I do. I am 5' 7" and about 160 pounds so I am not tall but have a pretty solid chest and shoulders.
I find that if I tell myself to go 80% during a sprint, my time is perhaps only a few seconds slower than if I tell myself to go 100%. My stroke is much stronger if I go slower and thus more efficient. But I am still stuck in the mindset that unless I go all out, I will not achieve max speed.
I realize that I am talking about pacing and my own mental block but I was wondering if anyone has had the same problem with acheiving their potential when there is a disparity between workout speed and race results.
My coach keeps prodding me to enter meets but I resist. But I am tired of being a "workout warrior".
Any input would be appreciated.
Rob
Find a meet with a distance event as the first event of the day. Sign up for that event, and tell yourself that is the only event you care about at the meet.
Then sign up for 3 or 4 more events at the same meet, and tell yourself that those are for fun, or are a lark, and that you won't worry about the results.
If you don't feel like a sprinter, don't sprint. You will find much less competition (at least in terms of number of entrants) in the 200's of stroke and the distance free events. If you don't have confidence in your racing ability, build into your speed on the longer events. Don't hold back; just go out thinking easy speed and try and negative split the back half of the race.
Learning how to race is a skill like any other -- it takes practice. I learn something new at every meet I swim. Masters meets are a whole lot of fun, are generally low key, and the people are almost universally helpful and supportive.
Give a meet a try, I bet you like it.
Find a meet with a distance event as the first event of the day. Sign up for that event, and tell yourself that is the only event you care about at the meet.
Then sign up for 3 or 4 more events at the same meet, and tell yourself that those are for fun, or are a lark, and that you won't worry about the results.
If you don't feel like a sprinter, don't sprint. You will find much less competition (at least in terms of number of entrants) in the 200's of stroke and the distance free events. If you don't have confidence in your racing ability, build into your speed on the longer events. Don't hold back; just go out thinking easy speed and try and negative split the back half of the race.
Learning how to race is a skill like any other -- it takes practice. I learn something new at every meet I swim. Masters meets are a whole lot of fun, are generally low key, and the people are almost universally helpful and supportive.
Give a meet a try, I bet you like it.
