Blog
Racing
Recently I was talking to Dan Wallace about the difference between swimming a race and racing a race. Often, there’s a swimmer who can race any event (within reason) and do a very good job, even beating people who train for that particular event or stroke. In their main events, they have a confidence about themselves winning that empowers them to keep pushing through the point of fatigue to get their hand on the wall first. So, what’s the difference?
Let me tell you a story.
When I was training at University, I was doing a lot of weekly volume for someone who was a sprint breaststroker. Typically, I would hit 60,000m across a week and whilst key sets were breaststroke, my main chunk of work was aerobic or anaerobic freestyle. This meant that at in-season competitions (those which were not focussed on performance outcome), I would race 100m & 200 freestyle as well as breaststroke and IM events. Now, I wouldn’t say I was particularly good at freestyle, and the feedback I always got was that my tempo was too slow, but I would always race the race against the heat or final I was in.
At one competition, we were in Edinburgh at our home pool. Because it was an in-season competition, the brief was to use it as a training session and race practice. The weekly/block volume was high, and the gym loads were heavy. I wasn’t feeling particularly fast or ready to race at all. We trained Friday night. We trained Saturday morning…
We actually trained 05:30-07:30, getting out as the competition warm-up started at 07:30. We did this for two reasons:
- It wasn’t a target meet. It was a training meet. Therefore, there was no reason to miss a session or have a lay-in.
- My competitors all saw me getting out the pool from training. They thought they could write me off because I’d be tired.
From getting out the warm-up, I changed and walked back to my apartment. Fortunately, I lived directly across the road from the pool at the time. I could literally see the scoreboard from my apartment window. Ate breakfast, changed into my race suit and then headed back to race a 200m free heat. I did 20 minutes of land activation and dived into the swim down pool for some priming 10 minutes before I raced. I went 2.10.1 (LC) which was only 0.2 off my PB at the time. Pretty good for a morning swim. Cooled down, then walked 20 minutes down to the gym for my regular Saturday gym session. This wasn’t fun! I walked back home, ate, had a quick nap, ate and then went back to the pool for finals.
Now remember, I’m not a freestyle swimmer. The final was for the fastest 8 freestylers in the competition. That was me. I was TIRED. I was VERY sore from gym. It was a Saturday afternoon after a long training week. There were no frills attached to the competition. It was an East of Scotland meet, so whilst there were fast people in the water, we were simply racing to race.
I warmed up. If I’m honest, I didn’t want to race the final however there was no way to not race it. The team rule was to swim your best effort in heats and if you make finals, you race the finals. I changed into my race suit, an old one as there was no point using a good suit on an in-season 200m freestyle, did my activation and went to the marshalling area.
This is where my mindset changed.
I was talking to a fellow finalist. She was a freestyler but more of a 400-800m swimmer. She asked me what I went in the heat. I told her my time. She said she saw I had training in the morning. I said I also had a gym session in between. “You must be tired”. “I am”
Then she said, “If you can go a 2.10 as a breaststroker, I can go a 2.08”.
Then and there my mindset flipped: Now I was ready for the race of my life. There was no-way this girl was beating me. I wouldn’t allow it. Writing me off because I’d trained and it wasn’t my event? Get ready, I’m racing!
We were side-by-side in the race. This race was 17 years ago, and I still remember how much it hurt. The last 50m was a mental battle to get through the physical pain. It was awful.
I went a 2.08.1. She went a 2.10.38.
Moral of the story: Racing is a state of mind. I’d done the work. Yes, I was a breaststroker, but I could race freestyle if I wanted to. In-season, after my 10th pool session and 5th land set of the week, I could still not only race a 200m freestyle but also swim a best time simply because I was not going to let her beat me.