MUSC Update

My team has been traveling a lot this semester. Our latest meet was to the University of Indiana where it snowed. A lot. Seriously it snowed the whole time we were there.

Sidenote: IU looks like Hogwarts. It's beautiful.

Mizzou Swim Club ended up placing third in overall, men's and woman's. After a long hiatus, we finally have some new records! My teammate Carston broke the 25 breastroke record with a 13.11. 

I reset my 25 free record from last year to a 12.04!

Two weeks before, we had traveled to Northwestern and swam decently. I swam the fastest 50 free split of my career, a 24.9! The team finished fourth overall in one of our more competitive meets of the season. 

I hope those personal best times stick around by the time we go to nationals. It's a nice mental reset for me to see the fruit of my labor. Often in swimming, you train so hard and barely see results. I'm lucky in that I've never been a conventional athlete. 

I'm currently working on a spreadsheet of all my times from the last few years. I hope to use this data sheet to get me in the right mindset for practice leading up to nationals. I've been struggling to stay on track with my training schedule. 

 43 days until we're on the road to nationals! 

Yoga and swimming

This week the MU swim club has been prepping for one of our favorite travel meets, the Hoosier Invite at Indiana University. We're also less than 50 days (49 actually) from Nationals. Slowly but surely, we're embracing the grind.

Unfortunately my body has been struggling to embrace the amped up practices. I've been turning to yoga to relax my muscles. I highly recommend every swimmer incorporate yoga into their practice routine. Here's a bit of context for my experience (or lack thereof) with yoga. 

A timeline of Katie's history with yoga: 

- Fall of 2012: Katie goes to college and starts basic yoga classes. 

- Spring of 2013: Katie gets bored with yoga because it doesn't give her enough of a workout. 

-Spring of 2014: Katie discovers the wonder that is hot yoga.

I began hot yoga as a way to cross train outside the pool. Due to a series of old injuries, my body cannot handle the impact of most land sports. Shortly after, I discovered that hot yoga combined with swimming kills my shoulders. I took some time away from yoga to be in top condition for spring nationals. Unfortunately I suffered some undiagnosed back issues this summer that now prevent me from doing hot yoga. 

While doing research for Mind of a Swimmer, I came across quite a few recommendations for swimmers doing yoga. I find that yoga is most helpful for stretching swimmers' hips/legs. When we kick, we hold a straight leg position. There is a reason swimmers are notorious for having horrible hip flexors.

Rebecca Soni recently tweeted out a video she helped put together of a yoga sequence meant to target swimmers needs. SwimSwam also has ample literature on various yoga poses and sequences for swimmers. I highly recommend checking them out. 

I've been supplementing my swim practice with a basic sun salutation sequence and a few extra poses to stretch my hips. If you're considering making yoga a part of your routine, please listen to your body. It's not about being the most flexible or doing the coolest poses. It's about learning to turn off your mind and listen to your body. Yoga is a healing practice. 

Before yoga, I hit a figurative wall in my swimming. My body was in constant pain and I felt like I was fighting the water with every stroke. 

Now, I tackle practice with a renewed spirit. I no longer feel trapped in a chlorinated world of sore shoulders and hip flexors. I've even begun to up my mileage with morning practices. I haven't felt this good in water for a long time. That is why I think all swimmers should do yoga. 

Swimming Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day swimmers! Because we totally need an extra day to celebrate how much we love our teammates.

My team finally has the weekend off of traveling to recover at our home pool. I've been running practice all week which has resulted in a lot of fun get-out relays and starts.

I'll be spending my V-day telling my teammates how much I love them. The highlight of every swimmers Valentine's day is the USA Swimming valentines. My team has been sending them to each other via GroupMe all week. Here's a page to give you a preview of some quality swim humor: 

If that doesn't say swim love, I don't know what does.

SwimSwam has kindly drawn up a list of pick up lines exclusively for swimmers. Guaranteed to get you a date for Valentine's day, especially if you're planning on asking your date during morning practice.

I'll have more meet results to post in the future as we'll travel to Indiana next weekend. For now, happy Valentine's Day! Go tell your favorite swimmer that you love them more than food (just kidding we all know that's not possible.)

Swimming with injuries

This week I had the unfortunate pleasure of colliding with one of my teammates on an I.M. turn during practice. The end result was the top my teammate's head going full speed into my left shoulder. I spent the remainder of the week in pain and under ice.

The blessing and the curse of swimming is that there is always a way to practice even if you're hurt. If your shoulder hurts- you're having an all kick practice. Foot cramp? Not a problem! You can just pull till your foot feels better.

The swim culture allows little room for injury and recovery. As swimmers, our bodies are our greatest weapons. We constantly push ourselves to our limits, which means we will battle quite a few injuries throughout our swim careers.

Being injured this week was a huge struggle for me. Luckily it was just a bruise, but it slowed down my training while I lacked full mobility.

I discussed with my best friend, Sam, the way swimming as a whole responds to injuries. When you're younger, you're looked down upon for sitting out or stopping at practice. Sam recalled many times where she was told to swim through the pain. The punishment for stopping wasn't worth the 45 seconds of stretching. Sitting out was out of the question.

In the last year, Sam started CrossFit. Their injury culture seems to be the opposite of swimming. Sam says that they encourage modifying their activities, whether in weight or action, so they don't further injure themselves.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is that sometimes it's okay to stop. Healing is more important than going all out on a stroke set. Sometimes your body needs rest. An injury is an easy excuse to sit out, but not taking time to heal properly is the worst way to train. Even Michael Phelps has to take a rest day.