Good Advice Is Where You Find It

John has been after me about changing something to do with my swimming. He is the one who does heads up backstroke and does 25 yards while I do 125. That's when he is racing me.

I am not that way. I understand, and have for a long time, that good advice is where you find it. One of the things that always frustrated me about my dad was he would not listen to me about training. I mean, he was faster so what could I know that he didn't? The fact is, I could have taught him a lot, I could have made him better, but he was unteachable. I don't want to be unteachable.

John has been telling me to stay underwater longer when I come off the wall. I really did not want to hear it. My swim coaches used to say the same thing. I didn't want to hear it then either. It was not that I did not think they were right, but there were no walls where I competed. I did triathlons and open water swims so why worry about walls? For me, the pool was for training. The open water was where I raced.

But things have changed a bit. Randy Beets and I are having our Virtual Swim Meets every week and he has beaten me more than I have beaten him. Plus, one of my students at MDCC has challenged me to a swim race. Not only that, but I swam the Mississippi State Senior Olympics last April and plan to compete each year from now on. So walls are important now.

I did not go back and look up my post, but after last year's Senior Olympics meet in Biloxi, I wrote a list of things to do to get better. One was to lose weight. I have. Another was to get in better running shape. I have. A third was to get stronger in the gym. I'm trying. A fourth was to be better streamlined coming off the wall. I was coming off a shoulder injury and could not fully extend my right arm above my head. This gave me a terrible streamline and I could feel the turbulence when I pushed off the wall after every flip. I knew I was losing speed.

I had not worked on streamlining until John began to pester me. I knew he was right, and it was important so I started trying to make his mark. He would stand there in the pool and say "Come up where I am." At first I could not do it. Then I could but I had to dolphin kick to make it. When I did start making it, I was out of breath when I came up and felt like I was swimming slower. Then Monday when I did the set of 200s, I noticed that I was faster when I came up at John's mark. Cha ching! I would look at my watch after each 200 and from the time I had left before the next 200, I knew exactly where I was, if I was faster or slower and by how much. 

But it hurt. I was out of breath. I did not enjoy it. Then I remembered something Cagri, my last swim coach, used to tell us. He would tell us to make it hurt and get comfortable at being uncomfortable. He would say, "If the way I write the practice doesn't hurt, make it hurt. Kick harder, or swim faster, or do a breathing pattern. Make it hard." That is the mindset of pool competitors. Always push, always hurt, always improve.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning. I am making the mark, and I am no longer out of breath when I come up. How about that. The old man helped me. He made me better. Now he wants to move the mark. The nerve of him. What does that old man know about swimming?