Progress all around

I was browsing YouTube and came across a clip featuring the Ironman World Championship in Kona. Many of the athletes spoke about preparing your mind to take over your body when the pain becomes unbearable so you can keep moving forward. I've become more aware of the fact that I have to work harder on training my mind to do this, not only when I tackle marathons and triathlons, but in life in general.

On this particular day, I would mentally prepare myself for my 400 meter field test that I would be doing in my swim class. The first time I did this field test was back in March - it was probably about the 6th day I had ever done laps in my life - so needless to say, it was a little bit of a struggle to swim 16 laps nonstop while trying to record your best time doing so.

However, in the 4 months since then, I had become a bit more comfortable in the water and discovered I had a killer kick. In my mind this day, I kept telling myself it's only 16 laps - pace yourself but push yourself. You just completed 1500 meters in the race just last week so you're golden.

The field test in march I completed in 7:52. The first half of this second field test I felt pretty good - at a nice steady pace. When I tried to pick it up for a negative split on the last 200, my form started to go and my breath fell out of rhythm so I think I lost some momentum. But still, overall, I felt pretty good. I finish and look at my coach to find out the time. 7:47. What?? In 4 months I only improved by 5 seconds?? Are you kidding me? Wow, I really do need to start pushing myself more. In fear of burning out too early I give too conservative an effort - I need to find a way to push myself to the edge and sustain it.

So afterwards, I go up to my coach and say "Why haven't I improved at all?". He looked at me and said "You have - I was actually going to tell you how great you looked." Confused I said "But I was only 5 seconds faster". He replied "No, you were significantly faster - this is a meter pool - the last field test with in a yard pool." There isn't much difference between 1 meter and 1 yard - but when you get up into the several hundred range, the difference is quite apparent. I actually had shaved 5 seconds off my original time by swimming a lap and a half longer.

When I got home, I used a metric conversion calculator and all these formulas to try to compare apples to apples. In the end, I discovered that I had actually shaved 50 seconds off my time in 4 months. That made me feel so much better. I was indeed making progress. Our next field test is at the end of August - we'll see how much more time I can shave off!