You Can Do More Than You Think
We had a really hard swim practice on Wednesday.
Thursday morning called for a hard bike-run brick effort.
Driving to swim practice on Friday morning, I was tired and trying to find the enthusiasm for a 90-minute practice.
When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw that everyone was congregated at one end of the pool, “huh, I wonder what’s going on?”
Our masters swim group is usually spread along the length of the pool where we individually select one of 25 lanes that we will swim in for the morning.
As I walked up, I saw why everyone was gathered in a different location: the pool had been converted to long course (LCM).
Like I do every time I see a pool set up for LCM for the first time: “shoot, I’m not ready for this.”
Going from short course (SCY) to LCM is a weird transition: for each 50, a wall is lost for a flip turn (free speed), the length of a 50 gets longer (yards to meters), and, as a result, times get slower. In the 30 years of my swimming career, I’ve never put a ton of time into long course. SCY is my comfort zone while LCM always seems to put me into new territory regardless of my swimming fitness.
I joked with the coach as I walked up, “Hey, Kim, can I get a refund?”
With a smile, Kim looked at me confused.
“I didn’t sign up for long course.”
We had a good laugh.
I think a lot of swimmers share the same feelings that I do about long course: it’s just a different monster.
Despite all that, though, at 5:30am we all jumped in for a warm up and then we set off to help celebrate one of our teammate’s 75th birthday: 75 X 100 on 1:00.
Swimmers have an odd sense of a good celebration.
Photography by Julie Anne Photography
The energy within the group was pretty low, and there were a lot of comments about Wednesday’s workout. I think we were all still pretty beat down from it. But, no matter how we were feeling, we kept pushing off for another 50 every minute.
For 75 minutes straight.
As usually happens with a masters swim group, life calls and people start to trickle out of the pool starting around 6:30am to start the other part of their day. Today, I looked on enviously and contemplatively: “I could hop out, too, because I don’t really feel like I’m getting a ton out of this workout.”
But, I kept repeating to myself: “No, it’s important to see things through to the finish.”
As we were approaching the final 15, most swimmers were out of the pool.
Kim, our coach, had jumped in and we were both swimming with the birthday boy. My proclivity to feel guilt—I don’t like to leave others hanging and have to fend for themselves—often keeps my pushing around a workout with others despite how I’m feeling. It just didn’t feel right to leave the birthday boy to finish the workout by himself: “No, it’s important to see things through to the finish.”
And, lucky for us—and unbeknownst to me—he had hopped out at some point for three of the 50s. So, we had a few extra 50s to tack on to the end.
Swimmers can be a stubborn bunch and I’m no exception.
The three of us saw it through to the end.
For me: 78 X 100 at 1:00.
In a strange way, I got out of the pool feeling a mix of super accomplished and exhausted. I couldn’t figure out why. It didn’t seem too out of the ordinary for what we do regularly as a swim group.
As I was logging my workout on Training Peaks later that morning, I started entering the data:
Warm up: 400 choice
Main Set: 78 X 50 @ 1:00
I added up the distance: 4300.
Anytime I swim over 4000, I’m quite pleased with the endeavor.
Then it hit me: “Wait…today was LCM. So that’s 4300 meters. How many yards is that?!?”
Perhaps this is only exciting to a swimmer, but the one thing that I do love about LCM is the conversion from meters to yards. I track all my swim workouts in yards as I like the consistency and, when it comes to long course, I love the surprise of, “oh, actually you swam this much.”
4300 meters comes out to 4700 yards.
“Whoa…no wonder why I was feeling a little different.”
4700 yards was a lot for a Friday morning, especially given how I was feeling going in to the workout. I kept wondering throughout the workout why I seemed more tired than usual. I wasn’t thrilled to be there and it seemed as if the set was just kind of dragging on. But, no matter what, I just kept pushing off—all the way to the end—and I was left sitting at my computer as I was entering the data with a little nugget of wisdom that can help me move forward as I pursue my goals:
“I can do more than I think I can.”
Photography by Julie Anne Photography
There are going to be other days like today when I want to get out.
There are going to be days when I search for justifications and excuses why I don’t need to see the workout through to the end.
There are going to be days when I want to back off.
And, indeed, some days we should.
However, more often than not, it’s important to push through those scenarios because that’s how we stretch our comfort zones and grow.
The body is pretty incredible. It can do a lot. And, if we shut out minds off, it can do things for us that we didn’t really think that we were capable of.
Even if we feel, in the moment, that we are just going through the motions and not getting a lot out of a workout, we can glean valuable lessons from each workout.
It’s important to see things through to the end because you, too, can do more than you think that you can.