The Good Days & The Bad Days
Most people who know me are probably sick and tired of hearing me talk about swimming…it’s become a bit of an obsession (understatement alert !!). That being said, there are days when it’s just not quite right and the swim is very..MEH!
Now without a doubt, the good days far outweigh the bad days…On the good days, you hit the pool and your body flows as though it’s part of the water. Every stroke feels perfect, every breath is easy and your arms and legs move in a natural rhythm. It doesn’t matter whether it’s leisurely swim, or an intense workout filled with drills, switching strokes and crazy intervals…everything just hits its mark. You get out of the pool at the end of the session and you feel equal parts relaxed and energised !!!
Then you have one of those bad days and everything just falls apart and the whole session just feels ‘Aarrgghhhhh !!! Your body feels like it weighs 14 tons, your arms go one way and your legs are about 30ft behind you doing their own thing. You almost drain the pool with the amount of water you swallow, your breathing goes to pot and you pretty much drown on every length….then if that’s not bad enough you feel some random hair get caught in your fingers, your arm or (god forbid) your face (Eurgh !!). When that happens you flail about like you are being attacked by a Kraken that’s trying to drag you down into the depths….all 1.2 metres of it……
You can’t stop it and you can’t avoid it so the only thing you can do is accept that bad swims happen. Does that help ?…..To be honest….Nope, NOT AT ALL…Not when it’s one of those days…So what can you do ?
Recently I had a pretty poor session, where nothing seemed to go right. I’ve been making regular improvements in my pace and continuous distances, but this day I might as well have been swimming in quicksand. I couldn’t put together more than a few lengths and my pace was horrendous. From the first couple of lengths every muscle seemed to ache, my shoulders, legs, back and even my fingers. So by the time the session ended, I was frustrated as hell and glad to get out of the pool.
On days like this I try to find a positive, whatever it may be….. something…..even the smallest thing…..just anything to take the sting out of a bad swim
.
I use an Apple Watch & Swimtag to track my swims, so my first job when I get home is to start checking my stats. When I look it’s no great surprise, my pace was shocking, the longest continuous swim was only 250m, no PB’s on the short sprints and so it was looking a bit bleak. At this point my mind flashes back to a time not long after I started back swimming. I’d been gradually improving and had started training for my first 2.5k Swimathon.
On the run up to the event I’d been getting pain in my leg which over time got worse. It reached the stage where I couldn’t swim, I was hobbling around and ended up being out of the pool for nearly two months. I had to reduce the Swimathon distance to 400m and only just managed to finish the swim.
Back to my current swim and looking through the stats I see the overall swim distance. So there it is, I’ve found my positive!!! It wasn’t my best swim, it wasn’t my fastest, it wasn’t even my longest….what it was though, was a ‘SWIM’. If being away from swimming for nearly two months has taught me anything….its value every swim !!
Very true. x