Insight into an athlete's thought process

TYR PRO SERIES – Knoxville - Post Race Debrief What happened?

• I swam my first races in the Olympic year. After a brief vacation after Euros I started training again and went through 2 tough weeks in the US before racing at Knoxville. The results exceeded my expectations as I did not really know what to expect coming into this meet. Of course, I wanted to go fast, but knowing that I had not rested much, my mental state not being the best, and pulling my groin prior to the meet, I did not set any goals for this meet apart from just racing my best and accepting whatever the results would be. Despite these setbacks, I went in-season best times in both the 100 and 200, a huge confidence boost. I found it quite funny that my time in the 200 was faster than my prelim time from Rio.

What thoughts and emotions did you have?

• After a rough Tuesday workout, I left the pool extremely mad due to my lackluster performance at practice and groin issues. After chatting with a friend, I was able to calm down but still had some emotions lingering. On Wednesday and Thursday my mood was back to “normal” and tried to move the focus from results to enjoying being in the water and swimming with my friends.

Talking to Sergio helped tremendously and I asked him about the upcoming meet he said something along the lines of: “I wasn’t worried about you but now that your mental state is down, I’m a little concerned”. This was eye opening for me. Instead of commenting on my stroke or how I look in the water, all of his focus was on my mental state. Besides reinforcing that I’m at the right place to train to be the best version of myself, this also taught me that the mental state has priority over the physical/body state.

Having calmed down and collected my thoughts on Thursday I was in a good place mentally again and excited to race. However, during warmup in Knoxville that afternoon I pulled my groin again, which was quite annoying. With the help of Ibuprofen, stretching, ice and longer warmups, I was able to race without much pain, but I’ll have to admit that I was scared to go after it, knowing that I may hurt my groin more. While I don’t think I would’ve gone much faster with a healthy groin, I think I would’ve been in a calmer mood and more focused on racing rather than keeping my body healthy. This did, however, teach me that I don’t need to be 100% to go fast.

For the racing itself, I’m incredibly pleased with the results. I´ve never gone this fast in season and I’m excited to see how I’ll do in my next race.

What was positive and what was negative? Positive:

• Able to bounce back from mental slump

• Raced based off feel instead of limiting myself to a certain stroke count

• Strong turns

Negative:

• Rushed pullout on 4th 50 in the 200 breast

• Not enough acceleration into the walls

• Extra stroke into the finish during the 100 breast

What could you have done differently?

I could‘ve been more aggressive during 80-120m in the 200, putting myself in a strong position for the race

Slightly longer glide each stroke in the 100, use the kick instead of starting the next stroke prior to completing full extension.

What did you do well and want to continue doing?

Just race. Racing is what I love doing. Despite having groin and mindset issues I was always able to rise to the occasion and race my heart out.

Strong underwaters for the most part

What are the next steps you can take in order to become better?

Work on mental toughness and strength.

Work on racing hard in training, going after each set with 100% effort.

Work on counting strokes to the wall, hitting it perfectly

How is progress going on the items you identified from your last competition?

• I need to work on the mind more.

• I‘m figuring out how to control my caffeine intake.

• I need to sleep and recover more still....

• I try to focus on racing and having fun

• Fixed elbow issue in pullouts

• Need to figure out how to increase the speed in the 200, both euros and TPS I think I can do better in the 3rd 50.

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