This last weekend I had the great opportunity to watch some very fast swimming at the local 14 & Under LSC Championship. One of my girls, Cathryn was having a good meet, but by the third day she was getting tired. Her time in the 200 Back was 2:20 coming into the meet and in prelims she went 2:19, which was good enough for the consolation final heat. We talked after the race about being much faster in the evening and how it would happen. Her attitude at that point was great and I expected her to easily drop 1-3 seconds in finals. By the time finals arrived though everything had changed. Cathryn was completely exhausted and dreading the swim. I told her before the swim to just go out as fast as possible and then deal with the back half. This might not seem like great advice for a 200 Back, but I just thought that if she was going into the race conservative, then she would have time to think and talk herself out of a fully committed swim. At the end of a long meet I think athletes are more susceptible to mental issues that limit performance. I also told her that if she broke 2:10 she could throw a pie in my face...
I'm not sure if it was the pie factor or the fact that she just followed the plan, but she went out in 1:03 and ended up going 2:12. I was blown away by the result...it was amazing. After reflecting, I was amazed that a tired 14 year old put fear of pain aside and threw herself into the swim in the crazy way I recommended. Sometimes I think we need to challenge ourselves to swim our races with more commitment. Someone once pointed it out to me that professional water skiers don't cut across the wake with their shoulder skimming the water by trying to avoid falling.
Later in the meet I decided to push my luck with the pie motivator...I lost. Stay tuned for a video documentary of the results!
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