What is swimming?

Psychology during workouts has not presented itself to me since I swam in undergrad at The University at Buffalo. We were challenged by the mental stimulation of thinking about our swims, our practices, technique, speed, challenged to overcome what we thought was defeat and failure as we were pushing through hard sets. Working with my teammates or making myself complete those sets was because of the psychological aspect of mind over matter, pushing to do what my body didn't want to do.

The other day at my first practice in Virginia, I was presented with the question of, "What is swimming?" This was in the middle of an IM set. So I thought it over during my set and came up with a response that was the most accurate I could think of and one of which I thought may have been what the coach was looking for. I said, "It's the art of moving on top of the water." It was as close to 'correct' as I could have gotten. The answer included floating. Yeah, you technically are on top of the water, or you should be. Then I thought about it, well he's probably going to tell me that my body's too low or something, and soon enough he did. Coaches haven't been truly assessing or citiquing my stroke since college.

Since my training has differed because of the events and sports I have become involved with, naturally my stroke and technique haven't been as much of a focus as they used to be when I only swam. However, three out of four of my most recent master's swim coaches have identified my stroke as needing work. My stroke is that of a sprinter's, and it's time to turn into an open water distance swimmer. One more olympic distance tri for the race season down in D.C. next weekend, then training season begins. Ready to get back into lifting, doing some running races and swim meets, and getting at my trainer workouts for the winter months.

Nations Tri Results 9.8.13