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.

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! 

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.

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.

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!