I’ll get to the meaning of the title in a bit.
The real work for today began just as Paul Anka and Odia Coates were having a discussion on “Having my Baby” on the Mission Swimming Pool’s sound system. (my apologies to the tender ears of the lifeguards on deck, who undoubtedly, would have been the grandchildren of those heated loins of the summer of 1973, but hey, it was the THEM who control the music for the pool).
Buoyed, or perhaps that should be, tethered to the success of last week’s breakthrough session, I went to work on recapturing that control and balance that I achieved doing the alignment turnovers. “Damn near as good as Brent’s on the video,” I boasted to myself. Not one to totally delude myself (well, usually) I expected to have to start almost from scratch, to regain the form. I was right!
The next 15 minutes were spent patiently, methodically, trying to get the drill right, and maybe improve on it. Improvement, hell! A sense of humour goes a long way when you are trying to swim gracefully on your side, repeatedly hitting the lane rope, over and over and over. And over again, not only hitting it, but the body pushing into the lane rope and wanting to join my neighbour in the adjacent lane. For some reason things were just not going well.
As much as I tried to maintain a positive attitude, self-doubt crept in, like a raccoon into an attic. “What if last week was a fluke?” “What if you don’t swim that final 100 metres as quickly?”
I wasn’t super bummed out but last week’s successes had bred expectations and when expectations are not met…it’s hard to be in the moment. No stranger to disappointment, I gave myself a couple of minutes to refocus. It seemed to work. I got back to practice, and even though I don’t think I achieved the same flow as last week, I was satisfied.
With about 10 minutes left in the practice, I started working on the isolated 1/4 turns. Having never done these very well at all, I didn’t feel the pressure to “perform.” I just did the work. It wasn’t pretty and I really had to work on not dipping my head too far into the water because the snorkel top would submerge. I developed a bit of a flow with these, with my body almost wanting to swim on its side. Maybe this is a good thing?
By the time Andy Kim was singing “Rock Me Gently” I only had 3 minutes left in the session. Among the warm up, drills, self-loathing, Paul Anka, (not connected to the self-loathing), and my time outs, the 54 minutes of swim time evaporated.
Moment of truth. 100 metres easy. Will I still have it? Hit the start button on the watch. Off! For the 1st 2 lengths the ball bearing feeling was there. Maybe not quite as strong, but I was still rolling through the water. By the 3rd length it deteriorated. By the last length, I had to push it a lot. It was no longer easy swimming. My ego and the desire to achieve “the goal” had won over the objective of the test, of doing 100 metres EASY. I failed the BIGGER test. Good.
As much as failure sucks, sometimes success sucks too, but, in a different way. The expectations that success brings with it can be motivating but also stifling. Doing a personal best at anything is certainly a double-edged sword, whether that best is physical, financial, professional, whatever. If you get to live long enough, as I have, and you come to accept that reality, you can move on. And if you don’t, you’re gonna be a bitter old bastard.
Thanks for reading, see you next week.