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.

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. 

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!