Drawing motivation in the pool from the pros

I've been a lazy swimmer. Two months into the season it still feels like my first week back. I'm not entirely sure what I've been doing wrong but I know I'm not doing everything right.

I'm a senior, but I've never gotten senioritis from swimming. My fall season so far has consisted of my search for the motivation I didn't know I lost until I got back in the pool.

I'm a board member for the second year in a row. If you've read anything else I've written, you know my team is my family. Well people graduate and team dynamics change. I've lost my practice lane which has proven to be a huge blow to my training.

Now I haven't fallen out of love with swimming. It feels more like a long-distance relationship. I spent my whole summer away from swimming without pool access, and now I can't quite figure out how to be in love with my training again. Motivation is fleeting to say the least.

I'm fighting the water and the water is winning. It's not a good feeling. I stumbled upon this piece written about Michael Phelps in SI. I recommend reading the whole thing online (the full piece isn't in the print version.)

As I read, I realized Michael Phelps has struggled probably more than me with his love of swimming. Leading up to London, his coach Bob Bowman said he had to seclude him in altitude just to get him to train. Phelps swam the 400 IM in London as a partial punishment from Bowman. It was humbling to read the words of Phelps, his coach and his family about how difficult his training has been these past few years. I can identify more than I'd like to admit.

But there's a silver lining here. Phelps is out of retirement and training like he never has before. Bowman and Phelps think this could be his best Olympics yet. I look at Phelps and I say, why not me too? Why does my senior year have to be my peak year? Who says I have to train like I'm retiring?

My new attitude starts today. And that's a promise I intend to keep.

Post-Nationals Workouts

Since Nationals is over, I've been able to have a normal sleeping and eating schedule again. I've been in the pool significantly less however, which has definitely had an effect on me mentally and physically.

This week I started running and swimming because I needed to be working out again. I have this mantra in my head on repeat that says "You're a national qualifier. You need to start training like one." Truth is, I don't want to get out of shape, but being out of season allows me to shift my priorities to exams and newsroom work rather than pool time. I love training, but it tends to take over my whole life. There's a reason you don't find too many swimmers working full time in a newsroom. It's hard work to balance.

So as I began my rude awakening back into semi-regular workouts, I turned to this SwimSwam article for guidance. I'm a retired runner so my go-to dryland is to run. Even though I've suffered multiple injuries from running, it's still built into my muscle memory after years on the soccer field/track.

I cap my running for now between 1.5-2.5 miles.  It's not a lot, but I don't want to risk injuring myself. Dry land is a tough battle for me, but I look forward to finding new ways to work out outside of the pool.

Swim Club Alliances

One of the highlights of the Mizzou Swim Club season has been the creation of our alliance with Northeastern Swim Club. Our interactions first began with a few tweets on the way to our meet at Northwestern and NUSC's at Penn State.

The two clubs quickly formed a bond and created a mega swim club called NUMUSC. I compiled the twitter interactions into a storify to catalogue the formation of the alliance to our meet up at ECC Nationals.

Enjoy!

Goal Setting

I start out every year writing my goal time for my favorite event, the 50 free. I put it somewhere that I can see it every day. In high school, I used to craft a cheesy college of pictures of some of my favorite professional swimmers, put the my goal time in the middle and make it my computer background. It was my little reminder of what I was working for the whole season.

Now I have white boards all around my desk in my apartment. I have one where I write my swim goal for Nationals every year. I leave it there till it's achieved and then I reset it.

Here is my white board with my goal times for the 2014-2015 season. It's gotten a bit beat up as it moves between apartments with me. 

I honestly forgot that I reset the times the week I got home from Nationals last year to be a 25.1 in my individual and to make the top 10. I looked it this week and had a bit of a surreal moment when I realized that I beat that time and goal this year.

I remember sitting down to write it thinking how lofty it was, but that it never hurts to dream big. I was a little afraid to write it because part of me didn't think I could do it. Now I look at it with immense pride in my achievements. I do plan to change it soon, but for now I like being able to look back and smile. All of my hard work and discipline paid off and I was able to do something that sophomore-year me thought was impossible.

In one of my lower level journalism classes, we watched this ad from the London Olympics. It features Rebecca Soni breaking her breaststroke record and a young swimmer reacting by lowering her written goal time. During the class discussion, we talked about what made this ad special. I said it really hit home for me because this is something myself and many other swimmers actually do as a motivational technique. AT&T explains the making of the commercial here.

Nationals Recap

I'm still on cloud 9 from Nationals. I ended up swimming 12 races total in the 3-day-long meet. You know it's going to be an exciting meet weekend when you swim more than you sleep. Enjoy this extensive recap of my meet complete with times and links the videos. This is lengthy so as to not leave out any details of one of my favorite weekends this semester. 

I swam the 100 freestyle in B heat of finals at ECC Nationals at Georgia Tech University on Sunday April 12, 2015.  

I had my best ECC Nationals meet of my career this year. I ended up swimming finals for 3 out of my 4 individual events this past weekend. I reset my personal bests in everything. Thankfully, ECCs puts all of our finals swims on YouTube so I can go back and critique them. All my individuals races are linked in my recaps below. 

I got 4th in my 50 free.  I'm swimming in lane 3 in this video. Last year I got 12th overall with a 25.65. This year, I missed the podium by a few tenths of a second with a 25.08 and finished fourth. I'm extremely proud of this swim. I intend to be on the podium next year come hell or high (chlorinated) water. 

I placed 15th in my 200 free with my fastest time of a 2:03.08 in prelims. I'm in lane 8 in this video of finals. Honestly, the last thing I wanted to do was swim the 200 free twice in one day. I am terrible at pacing myself in anything more than a 50. 

I owe it to the girl next to me in prelims for my PR time. I may not know how to pace myself, but I do know how to race. Regardless of how tired I am, I hate being out-touched on the last 50. 

My last final was the 100 free. I swam a 55.35 and placed 12th. I'm in lane 4 for this one too. I owe it to my best friend for getting me through this race. Sam constantly reminded me to get out of my head and swim my race. She knows I'm a mental nightmare when it comes to finals races. Her pep talks were a godsend this entire meet. 

Full Nationals time sheets can be found here by events (both prelims and finals). Splits are included as well. 

I moved up places in all my events from prelims to finals which was better than I could have asked for. I'm really pleased with the way I swam during the meet! I was the only female to score points for my team. I also made it onto our team record board in the 200, 100 and 50 freestyles. 

Pictures from each session are on the ECCs facebook page. I'm only in 15 or so photos, but some of them are really cool. I have very few pictures of me actually swimming so I treasure these photos. 

I also had one of my photos posted on a SwimSwam article about the meet which is a huge deal! I'm the 3rd photo down touching the wall after my 100 freestyle final. 

I can't stress enough how proud I am of the way my team and myself swam in this meet. Going back every year with my team renews how much I love to swim. Each year is a fantastic experience and I'm so grateful to be a part of the MUSC national team. 

Day 9: My Magic Words

9 Days until Nationals! 

I've flip-flopped a lot this season with motivation. I had a really rough first semester and was often forced to put swimming low on my priority list. That was a huge struggle for me because swimming is my exercise outlet, my escape, and a huge part of my world. 

As I've fought to clear my head before Nationals, I drew inspiration from a few SwimSwam articles. One of my favorites details the truths of being a fast swimmer. This article was a huge mental re-adjustment for me.  

It talks about how each swimmer will get different results from the exact same training. I've been really anxious about being properly tapered for Nationals so this one really hit home. Some of my teammates have their taper down to a science over the years. Honestly, I don't know if I've ever properly tapered in my swim career. Reading this helped me understand that the perfect taper doesn't work for everyone. What is a foolproof method for one of my teammates might have the opposite effect on my races and that's okay. 

The article goes onto to talk about how the fastest swimmers are the ones who consistently work and never give up on their training. I think swimming is unique in the intensity of training required for success. I often get frazzled when I have an off-day at practice. Whether it's something about my stroke that doesn't feel quite right or I'm just plain exhausted, I easily get worked up that I'm doing something wrong. 

From this article, I developed a motto with two magic words: Consistency, Resilience. 

I've actually written these words out to hang them over my door. They serve as a constant reminder that a bad practice doesn't mean I'm destined for a bad season. They encourage me to push forward with my training even when I'm starting to lose sight of my goals. The best swimmers are the ones that are always show up for practice and work. 

I've been saying those words to myself quite often in the days leading up to Nationals and it's been working. I'm keeping my focus on my goal of a top 3 finish, and I've been doing what's necessary to get there even if it means early practice or extra stretching to take care of my body. I'm staying resilient with my training despite my still-sprained ankle. I'm consistently working in and outside of the pool to prepare for Nationals. My motto is working and I feel better about competing each day. 

Count down to Nationals: 10 Days

We leave for Nationals in 10 days! 

I've decided to celebrate the 10 day countdown by posting something to help me get pumped up for ECCs each day. It'll vary between topics like taper strategies, getting psyched, goal setting, tech suits, etc. I also plan on having my teammate and absolute favorite freshman Josh help me with the countdown. He may be one of the only humans I've met who loves swimming as much as I do. 

Day 10: Pump up Playlist

I am a huge mental swimmer. Forgetting headphones at a meet is a death wish for me. Music helps me focus and psych up for sprint races. 

I typically make a new playlist for all my big meets i.e. the MUSC home invitational and ECC Nationals. I prefer loud music with a fast pace. I go through phases with artists, and right now I'm on a Kanye West/Jay Z/Childish Gambino kick. 

Ultimately my meet playlists are a huge jumble of music. I've got anything between 90s rap, Latin pop and top 40 jams. At the end of the day, I'll listen to whatever gets me psyched the most. 

So here's a rough draft of my ECC Nationals Playlist for 2015. The songs are in no particular order because I'll listen to them on Spotify which makes me shuffle them anyways. I'm also a huge swimming geek and name each of my meet playlists after a goal time I want for the meet/season. It's an extra reminder to keep me focused on my goals. 

******warning there are probably bad words/strong language in almost all of these songs. Listen at your own risk. If you can't handle a few four letter words, you probably shouldn't click on any of the songs**********

ECCs Playlist 2015: 24.8

I'm sure I'll add more in the next few days. You can follow along with my musical journey on Spotify as I add more and more pump up jams.

Have a suggestion for my pump-up playlist? Tweet me @katiegrunik and I'll add it to my playlist! 

Nationals Preparations

We're officially less than two weeks away from ECC Nationals! I am BEYOND excited to compete this year.

Here's my checklist of things I've done so far to help me prep my mind/body for competition:

• I ordered my tech suit. Mine is black/sapphire. My teammate Josh, or as we call him Shoes, works at a swim store and is bringing it back for me from spring break. It's bad ass and beautiful and I cannot wait to compete in it. 
• I made a master spreadsheet of my times so far this season. I broke most of my races down by 25 times. I've been able to analyze my splits and fine-tune my sprinting. 10/10 would recommend. 
• I had a fantastic last meet of the season at the University of Illinois. While I didn't PR, I held some times that I haven't been able to be consistent with all season. It went exactly how I wanted my last meet before ECCs to go. 
• I changed my laptop background to a celebratory photo of the women's medley from the 2012 London Olympics. Nothing is more motivating than the look of pure joy on a swimmer's face after a race. 

Things I didn't plan to do before ECCs, but they happened anyways: I sprained my right ankle. 

I am so unsuited for land that walking is what took out my ankle. Instead of focused training over spring break, I spent my time icing my ankle and pulling. I'm still recovering, but I did finally swim a full practice yesterday. 

Unfortunately, I am too competitive to stop swimming, especially this close to nationals. Swollen ankle or not, I will be on that block in my tech suit, ready to take on my races. I'm out for an individual medal this time around, and I will not be stopped on my quest to the podium. 

Here's a throwback to our 4x200 free relay (I'm the one actually swimming in this)

And here's our 4x50 free relay standing on the podium with our second place medals.

U of I meet

On the way to our last meet before nationals! We're heading to University of Illinois this weekend.

This is my last meet to gage where I'm at before heading to Atlanta. We have a really big group traveling this weekend so it should be a lot of fun. I'll post some meet results when I get back. 

Required car selfie to start off the adventure:

Loving my sport

This week, my friend Bia made a microdocumetary about me as a swimmer. It was so much fun to make, and she did a fantastic job! You can view it here: https://vimeo.com/121246230

While interviewing me for the micro doc, Bia simply asked me to talk about swimming. I started to share with her how important my team is to me, but she stopped me. She asked me to talk about the sport--about racing and practice and how it feels to be underwater. I then realized that I've been forgetting about why I love the actual sport of swimming.

If you sit down and explain a swim practice to someone, they'll think you're crazy. Why would a team of 30 or so college kids want to stare at a black line for a hour every day? They will all say more or less the same thing: it's impossible to quit. Despite how mental my sport is, I would be lost without it.

Swimming is all about goal-oriented discipline. You train the same four strokes for the whole season (Or in my case just one because I'm a specializer) in order to drop a fraction of a second. Whether your goals are Olympic trials or being able to complete a hard set at practice, it's important to keep them at the forefront of your training. If you train without your goals in mind, this sport can be miserable.

While talking to Bia, she asked me specifically what it feels like to get in the water for practice. I don't think I've ever stopped to think about that feeling. It's the feeling of everything from your day being washed away. I love those few seconds when I'm underwater. No sounds. No worries. Just me suspended in the cool chlorine.

And then the hard work starts. Your heart pounds while you try to make the interval. Since I've been a part of MUSC, I've taken to training next to the boys, which means I'm pushing myself even more. By no means am I fast enough to keep up with them. They hold a faster pace than me, but it motivates me to work harder.

Nothing compares to the feeling of getting out after a hard practice. Your body aches but in a good way. And of course, you can go home and eat to replenish all the calories you just lost.

I love swimming. I love everything about this sport. It's my escape from the world on a bad day. It's my workout to stay in shape. It's my competitive outlet. It's how I met my best friend. It's where I go to see my swamily (swim+family) at every practice. It makes me smile from ear-to-ear to think about how blessed I am to be a swimmer.

So now I have Bia's video bookmarked, along with many other inspiring swim videos, to help me when I'm out of motivation. I listen to my own words in that video and know that no matter what, the pool will always be there for me whenever I need it.

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. 

Pre-meet rituals

This week is the first travel meet of the spring season for Mizzou Swim Club. Fourteen of us are traveling to Kansas State University. As we trek down I-70, I spoke to my teammates Leann, Paul and Jack about what gets them ready to compete in a meet.

Paul and myself agreed that music is a must-have before a swim meet. Topping Paul's get-psyched mix are selections from the techno and rap persuasion. My favorite pump-up song so far this season is "Till I Collapse" by Eminem. It's a classic.

Jack, on the other hand, chooses to prepare for the meet from the inside-out. He tries to eat as little as possible on the day of the meet. While this may work for Jack, not every person's body works the same way. I prefer to eat consistently throughout a meet. Food and I are very good friends.

We closed the conversation talking about our excitement for the weekend. Leann is excited just to be back in the pool with the team. We all agreed because this team is like our family, and there's nothing we would rather do than spend every waking moment together. For more about the team culture of swimming, check out my post from last week.

I'll post results and pictures from the weekend as we head to the pool tomorrow. For now, the road to Manhattan, Kansas, is long and flat, and we're getting hungry!

Swimming is a team sport

Often I hear people label competitive swimming as an individual sport. This could not be farther from the truth. I can't speak for every swimmer, but I know that I would not accomplish anything at practice without the support of my teammates.

My teammates are my family. We spend as much time together in the pool as we do outside of it. There's something about being submerged in chlorine and staring at a black line for hours on end that bonds a group of people together. We rely on each other for support when doing a hard workout. There's also a healthy level of competition amongst my teammates and I that pushes us to make each set our best.

Here's a little scenario to help you understand the importance of a team mentality in swimming:
Imagine you're standing at the bottom of a hill trying to push a huge boulder all the way to the top. (Bear with me, this metaphor gets better.)

This boulder is heavy and it's a hot day outside. You know you can push it, but it's going to take a few hours. You start thinking about all the things you'd rather be doing than pushing this giant rock. You could be sleeping or watching Netflix. The more you think about it, you'd probably prefer doing homework to moving this boulder. Deep down you know that it'll make you stronger to accomplish this task, but you're having a hard time convincing yourself to do it.

Now imagine 6 or 7 of your friends join you at the bottom of the hill. You all look at that rock and talk about how much you don't want to move it. Somebody cracks a few jokes while you take a sip of water and talk about how you all can move this together. You start pushing the boulder together. It's just as difficult as you expected. You and your friends are sweating as you work together. You're chatting about your plans later tonight and suddenly that huge boulder doesn't seem so heavy. Your feet are slipping as the hill gets steeper, but your friends are telling you that they know you can do it. You all reach the top and feel like you could push ten more boulders together.

This is what swimming with a team is like. You all look at your practice and know that it's going to be difficult. You know that it's going to be hard work. Sometimes you don't even want to be there. Your teammates motivate you and push you. They know what you're capable of. They want you to succeed. They believe in you and you believe in them.

One of the core values at the heart of swimming is a team mentality. USA Swimming has an excellent article that talks about the importance of a team in swimming as well as some tips to maintain a team environment.

Here's a picture of some of my teammates and I at our first meet this season. It's a tradition for us to take a travel team photo at every meet. We decided to take an Oscar-style selfie at Ohio State.