August 2012

I've really enjoyed that line: "Elevate your heart rate once a day".  It really simplifies general health to me.  With people who don't know how to lose weight, I would recommend simply doing something that makes your heart beat faster than it is right now.  Yesterday I chose to rollerblade 4 miles.  Today I will swim and do some light dryland in the form of abs and bodyweight exercises.  I feel happy to have the freedom back in my schedule yet after hearing that U of M was back in the water at Canham, I also felt sad that I'm missing out on great team training.  Although my choices for pool time seem limited, I am making the choice to mix up my training till I enumerate my swimming options.

Today I helped coach a Masters Swimming Clinic at Fuller Pool in Ann Arbor.  Leading up to the clinic, I had no intention to help out simply because I don't normally coach.  As the event grew closer, I heard about numerous requests from the attendees to join the coaching staff.  Last week I broke down and agreed to help out.  I've largely avoided coaching in my life.  I've often said "I want to coach later in life".  I feel like I have some other things to accomplish in my personal and professional life before I become surgically attached to the pool deck (rather than the water).  I've feared coaching in a sense as well.  With how passionate I am about swimming, and my comfort with public speaking, I had a feeling as soon as I did it, I would be hooked forever.  My worst fears were realized today.  I absolutely LOVED my experience coaching today.  I really enjoy leveraging my 22 years of competitive swimming plus my year training with Olympians to help other swimmers.  It was a really positive experience.

The 2 hour clinic turned into about 3.5 hours once we helped everybody in attendance.  The first 1.5 hours was focusing on a specific freestyle drill.  The remainder of the time was really well spent critiquing strokes and offering feedback on how to improve.  The staff was also videotaping swimmers and will offer voiceovers to provide the swimmers a video to refernce later.  I spent most of my time on the techy side of the clinic.  I brought speakers and wireless microphone to ensure everybody could hear what was going on, especially those with hearing problems.  When most coaches just yell, I thought this was a much better solution.  I moved on to event video and photos afterward.  I got some great shots of the coaches and swimmers in action.  I'm told one of them will end up on the USMS homepage in an article about the event.  When it was time to split up into each stroke, I was assigned backstroke (big surprise).  I worked with about 25 different swimmers in total.  Each one would start at the 15 meter mark and swim towards the wall.  When they touched I would provide them a critique of their stroke.  It felt good to take all the knowledge I've learned from the great coaches in my life, and organize it all into helpful comments to share with others.

In total we had 67 swimmers in attendance.  I probably knew half of them at least.  It was nice to catch up with those I knew and meet a few new ones.  I've been asked to travel to a few of the Masters practices and coach a bit so I'll probably add a few of those in my schedule.  Today was a great experience and reinforced that I do indeed want to coach someday.  Great job today everyone!

Today was another learning experience.  I learned that I don't enjoy swimming poorly.  That seems like an obvious statement but it was a moment of clarity for me.  I really seemed like I could not care how I did at this meet and be ok with it.  I was wrong.  I swam poorly and I'm embarassed.  I came to swim at the U.S. Open to have fun and see some friends.  I accomplished those two tasks before I even swam Thursday morning.  I saw some teammates and some EMU people, laughed and smiled.  I got to catch up with the CW coaches that just returned from the London Olympics.  Afterward I swam the 100m Butterfly in the preliminary heats. I was in heat 2 lane 5.  A good position for racing.  I took it out fairly well at 25.51, just two tenths slower than my best race ever a month ago when I finished in 54.83 seconds.  The second half of my race felt ok but was VERY slow.  I fell apart bigtime.  I finished in 31.2 seconds, the only time I finished worse was my first 100 fly ever a few years ago.  I touched the wall in 56.82 seconds, literally 1.99 seconds slower than I was a month ago in Omaha.  I was leading my 5 competitors at the wall and finished 6th in my heat.  I stayed on deck to support a few other swimmers, packed up my things, checked out of my hotel and headed home.  I contacted the coaches on my way back to Michigan and requested that they scratch me out of the 100m backstroke tomorrow.

Later in the day I would check results online to see that I finished DEAD LAST in the event with a 33rd place.  I find that embarassing for two reasons:

1. I didn't even come close to swimming as fast as the meet entry cutoff of 55.29.  I view the meet cutoff as a "you deserve to be here" time.  When I don't achieve the time it required to enter the meet, I don't feel as though I performed well.  My time was 2 seconds slower than I swam the event a month ago
2. This is the second time I've gone to the U.S. Open and finished dead last in the only event I swam.

I pride myself in understanding and embracing where I stand in the swimming world.  My swims today were far below my potential.  I'm a little embarassed of my swim.  I was 2 tenths slower than the second slowest person in the event.  Since I finished dead last in two U.S. Open meets I have to examine WHY I swim so poorly at this meet.  It didn't take more than a few seconds to figure it out.  These meets fall 1 month after the Olympic Trials.  A meet in which I train hard, taper and shave.  I prepare for months, in the case of the 2012 trials, I trained for over a year.  I think I'm just ready for a break after the trials, yet I keep training, admittedly not fully motivated, and try to squeak a few more races out of my training.  This might work for some people but not for me.  My swim today was a pathetic effort and I won't let it happen again.  I will either prepare for a meet and attend, or not attend at all.  Lesson learned.

On the lighter side of things. A special congratulations To Nickolaus Orf, the 17 year old from Parkway Swim Club who took 32nd place (second to last), YOU'RE WELCOME!  I took DEAD LAST so you wouldn't have to!

Today, just like my 2008 performance taught me that somebody has to take last place.  You never want it to be you, but it's bound to happen someday.  Accept it, learn from it, and be better next time.