Personal Best
Comments: 4
The problem with swimming 1500m is that there’s too much time to think. You really need a plan and you need to stick to that plan as if your life depended on it. I had a plan – I did, really. But somewhere around the 600m mark I forgot it, completely and utterly, along with how many laps I’d already done and all I had in my head were the voices saying, “Why are you doing this? Just give up already. Who do you think you are? It’s starting to hurt, isn’t it. Can you feel that?”
This was unusual because I generally don’t fall apart until I’ve gone twice that distance.
My warm-up felt great; my right shoulder hurt but I knew it was going to be alright and I was kicking like a mule, a nice slow two-beat kick that sent a pulse of acceleration through my hips, along my spine and into the base of my skull. I was feeling good.
It was kind of disappointing then that in the actual race my arms seemed to start burning way earlier than usual and I just couldn’t seem to kick worth a damn. My turns were all fine and well-timed (all 29 of them – a first) but I felt like I had to wait for my legs to catch up after each one.
I didn’t hear my coach call the 500m mark or the 1000m mark, so I had no idea where I was in the race and it really started to bother me. “You idiot! You can’t even count!” is not something you want to be telling yourself somewhere in the middle of a mile-long race. So I resolved just to keep swimming until somebody stopped me.
Eventually I thought I’d better check on things and lifted my head as I came into a turn to see if I could get a visual signal from Saito-san. I looked up and saw the race official ringing the bell to tell me I was starting my last 100m – and it was as if I was deaf. Nothing but the rush of water in my ears. Talk about lucky timing: I would have completely blown my finish had I not looked up when I did.
I got confused because I thought it was too soon but I was hurting enough at that point that I wasn’t going to argue. I doubled my kick, dug in with my arms and before I knew it I was coming up to the wall. From the way I was feeling and how poorly I’d swum the race, I put my time around 25 minutes – a minute longer than the time I was trying to break.
Saito-san was waiting for me. “What!?” I snapped, I was pissed off with myself. Without a trace of a smile he told me my time: 22:36:42. I’d beaten my goal by almost a minute and a half and come out of it with a new personal best. Saito-san was pleased (I know this because he didn’t smile).
My first thought was that I will never ever know myself. I’ll always be looking in the wrong place, paying attention to the wrong clues. Then I realised that I’d done what I went there to do, and just a little bit better than I hoped I would. I could wait until tomorrow to get stroppy about my lack of self-knowledge. For the low, low price of a minute and twenty-four seconds, I’d given myself the rest of the evening off.
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Posted to General Rants • 2002.11.02 (Sat) • 21:53
Comments
Posted by James Spahr 2002.11.03, 06:52
Congratulations!
I can’t remember how many times I use to loss count of laps when I was running indoors. 22 laps for a 3000 meter race will do that! Man, you just brought back a rush of 10 year old memories - thanks.
Posted by dean 2002.11.03, 09:22
wow. excellent. congratulations!
Posted by Mary Beth 2002.11.07, 04:27
That’s an amazing time and accomplishment - enjoy completely!
Posted by jh 2002.11.07, 20:22
Well, it’s not such a great time, perhaps, but not bad for someone like me. A bit surprising condisering how badly I thought I swam the race.
The best thing was that my coach (who is a great coach) and the others in the club who’d given me so much encouragement were happy.
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