Thought About Quitting...

I almost wanted to quit swimming and the 200 butterfly yesterday. I got a text from one of my swimming BFFs Gaby that Psych Sheets for the Montgomery Ancient Mariners Albatross Open were up and online. I scrolled through and was shocked when I saw that my other swimming BFF Sarah was also swimming the 200 Fly. First reaction was "what the hell is Sarah doing swimming my event". Second reaction was "maybe I just won't swim". I had some pretty intense conversations that afternoon with Gaby and Sarah. I also texted both Heather (the tri coach) and Stephen (the masters swim coach) to tell them I was nervous. Heather and I texted for a bit but I knew I wouldn't hear back from Stephen (in which I eventually talked to him at masters practice later). I was downright furious that my event wouldn't be my event anymore because Sarah was going to take "the event" and "the spotlight" away from me. I seriously didn't know what to do. When I went to masters later in the day; Sarah told me not to worry. The cool thing is Sarah and I came up with something real neat. She's seeded 6th and I'm seeded 8th; which should mean we are going to swim in the 2nd of 2 heats right next to each other. If that does in fact happen; we'll encourage each other as we swim the 8 lengths of the pool butterfly by talking in bubbles. Yes I know; but it really helped calm me down about the meet and the event.
I'm NOT a quitter but it's strange that sometimes I need to go into my "I'm gonna quit" mode to talk myself out of it. I'm feeling a bit more calm and ready for Saturday. Just a few more days until the 50 Breaststroke, 200 Butterfly, and 400 Free. Albatross... I'm coming for you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrating Myself

Image
Something Special Was Going To Happen I'm a little late to post (I was hoping to get it done over the weekend but life happened) this very exciting blog post but here it is. Sometime during my 2022 Season of Triathlon and Taking Running Seriously (Season 18) I started to think how amazing it was that through all the good and not so good seasons; I was still training for and completing races in the sport. There were so many moments in which I thought I'd take a break or even just completely leave the sport(s) all together BUT if you know me I don't give in or give up easily. I started thinking about how my 20th season in 2024 would come quickly and I wanted a way to celebrate such a massive and huge accomplishment of longevity in the sport. I started thinking about doing a custom design for a triathlon kit and possibly a run tank to wear proudly during my 2024 Season. Before the start of my 2023 Season (Season 19); I had picked which triathlon apparel company I was going to
Read more

Coming Up...

Image
In many ways oh so soon! First up USA Triathlon Nationals in Milwaukee WI. In T-Minus (gulp) 9 days I'll be swimming .9 miles aka 1500 meters aka 1.5km in a protected area of Lake Michigan. But for those who know me well; I'll be swimming more than a mile because LOL I can't swim straight and follow the buoys and to add to that I have to breathe to my right which NO WAY Jose isn't what I do best. After the swim portion; I'll take off my swim cap and goggles; put on my bike helmet, sunglasses, socks, bike shoes on before I un-rack Zoom 2.0 and we head out for a nice and (hopefully crossing your fingers) speedy and fast 25 miles aka 40km bike through the streets of Milwaukee. I've heard from those who've down Nationals in Milwaukee in past years that the course is fast (minus all the sharp u-turns for turnaround points) and it's mostly flat (minus this bridge we go over). After I get off Zoom 2.0; I'll head back to transition, take off my helmet and bi
Read more

My I Can Do Hard Things Swimming Edition

Image
I would have never imagined that the 200 butterfly would become my all time favorite go to masters swim meet event. As a young reluctant swimmer; joining a local summer league swim team in Maryland in 1993, I had the hardest time learning to swim breaststroke. Once my breaststroke was legal; I swam it at swim meets, it became my go to swim meet stroke. But  now the question was; how would I learn to swim butterfly? I loved how graceful butterfly was but didn't take the initiative to learn the stroke until my second or third summer swimming; which would have been 1994 or 1995. I learned how to swim the butterfly but was nervous to swim it; especially at swim meets of any kind whether on summer league (while still living in Maryland), at both year round club and high school swim meets (both when I was in Texas) so I never swam it. It wasn't until the mid 2000s when I was swimming on masters (age 18 and over) swim teams that I started to think about conquering my fear of swimming
Read more