I woke up Thursday morning  morning and found there was something wrong….My calves had turned from a functioning muscle, into a what I would like to describe as a rock….seriously it felt like I was walking with two big stones in my shoe, no flexion.  This was not what I was hoping since I still had two big workouts ahead of me.  I told myself to suck it up and as I made some breakfast I reviewed the swimming tips Simon had given me the day before. I would be 2 x as fast today, I mean how could I not be I had all the information I needed.

As I walked onto the pool deck I forced myself to walk properly, even though each step felt like I was tearing apart new calf muscles. After a congenial hello to the group, Brent asked me how I was feeling after the run yesterday….I put on a brave face and told him “pretty good”. Pretty good compared to having a vise clamped on your legs is what I really meant, but I wasn’t going to give that away so easily.  We stated with a similar warm-up to the previous day, and unfortunately that also meant the team was lapping me at regular intervals.  What I came to realize was that having the knowledge of how to perform the stroke and actually doing it are definitely two different things.

This is what I always found so enjoyable about training; narrowing the gap between the ideal and what you are actually doing.  For me that gap was getting wider at the moment, I was learning more than I could ever put into good use. Not a bad thing, but it can certainly feel overwhelming at times. Reach long, catch the water, pry by your hand, keep your elbow up, roll by your hand, continue to push through the finish, use your triceps, recover with high elbow, fingertips near the water, breath every 3, keep your head straight, KICK! Repeat.

Well after the warm up was done, I had almost gone cross-eyed trying to repeat these steps every stroke. It was kind of funny seeing how inept I was, however a lesson was clearly learned. Practice one thing at a time, no matter how athletic you may be or how much mind control you have over your muscles, it’s not worth doing everything marginally better.   Practice one thing at a time master it (to a certain degree) then move on.

For the rest of the workout I was still just trying to keep up anyway I could. I also narrowed my focus of the stroke to the front end grab. Results were similar, but I did feel a bit of an improvement, this was more water being put in my ears as the water was now rushing by my head a little quicker than normal.

For the last part of the workout there were a series of short sprints, 16X 25m. If I ever had a chance to beat them, here it was…the first 25 M set was building speed; I started off feeling excited that I may have the ability to claw into the water for 25m. Believe it or not I was with them off the start, then as they started to build speed I learned another part of swimming: wash. It’s kind of like rowing in what we describe as dirty water, wavy bumpy and making you slow down.  Well I had 16 to make up for my mistake of letting them get ahead of me and washing me down.

Again my thought process was ahead of what I was actually capable of doing.  With only a short rest in-between sets I was not getting fully recovered. And compounding that was the fact I was forgetting to breath, with the increased speed I found it increasingly difficult to get only air in my mouth. Frothy water was probably accounting for 30% of the intake! As the sets continued I fell further and further behind, this was starting to seriously affect my ego.  I had no game…however I had one last card to play: the last set! This card is usually pulled by the true amateurs of sport, the idea is to take it easy for the last couple of sets of  the workout saving yourself for the final set. By doing so the real athletes who understand training and who have given their all during the full workout are really empty by the last set allowing the armature to step up and in their minds win the most important one.

Well for me, and actually being an armature in swimming I figured I was allowed to play this card, although fully aware of its cowardness. I had only one problem though, I needed to win to have any sort of self worth.  As we lined up for the last set I powered on like I had never before, I was right with them, our arms were side by side, wash was being spread equally between us all. “Breath”, I told myself, and as I went up for a breath I was just slightly fallen behind and managed to catch a nice big gulp of pool water (wash) and only a tiny bit of air. This was not going to stop me this time, I was going to win this one, and it didn’t matter if my head popped off due to lack of air. I continued to drive my arms in the water like I was breaking out of a brick room, all technique was gone, and my sheer will was the only thing I had left. As I saw the black T pass under my face I made two more pulls, my eyeballs were nearly pressed against the goggles lens, water was flying around like a killer whale in full attack. As I touched the wall, “Casey had struck out” everyone was already there…but just barley, and although I had failed in the cheapest trick in the book, they were kind enough to throw me a bit of a bone saying they could feel my wake during that set…To be honest and I’m not proud, but I’m pretty sure everyone in the pool could feel the wake my flailing body was producing.

Struggling while training can happen at all levels I am finding out. That is what practice can do for you, it lessens the amount of struggles and self doubt and it allows you to focus on achieving a top performance. I’m sure with time this may happen for me with swimming, however I’m exactly sure how long ill be able to hold my breath.

Well one more workout in the series, a EASY bike ride…. in three hours. Ill report back soon.