Feel more, think less, repeat

Today we had an "easy" class that put me quite out of breath. I guess what Mandy considers an easy swim is still above my level, but that's okay.

I asked her today if she would watch my swim to see if I'm doing anything wrong with my breathing, and her response was basically that this is not the week to be thinking of that. This is the week to just swim. She said I'd come a really long way in 8 weeks. I said okay, and that I'd just focus on "making it." She said I would definitely make it.

Yet another reminder than it doesn't help me to approach "doing" things with the analytical mind (especially not a few days before the race. This is the time to accept my current level, because this is the level at which I'll perform during the race). If I'm still thinking the whole time I'm swimming, then it's going to get in the way of my body's (and even other parts of my brain's) natural intelligence. If I relax and think nothing more than "one, two, three, breathe, one two three four, breathe" and truly pay attention to the way my arms and legs feel and what they are doing, I will of course be okay and swim a more fluid and enjoyable stroke than if I'm overthinking my technique. In fact, when I'm trying to do the stroke the "right" way, I sometimes forget to kick! Or I am doing such a tiny kick that my bottom half starts sinking. Not helpful--a waste of mental and physical energy.

Basically, the challenge for me right now is accepting that the level where I am is "good enough." It's good enough because I've worked hard, but it's also good enough because it's where I am, and it is the best I can do right now. My usual tendency is to judge myself again and again by analyzing (though I could also call it worrying and obsessing) whether what I am doing is good enough compared to what I think I should be doing. Wherever I thought I was going to be by this point is an irrelevant and imaginary idea. Especially since I didn't know anything about physical training at the time I imagined my fitness level at race time. It's in the past, so, poof. Irrelevant.

We did 100 m swim, then another 100, and then I can't remember, because I fell behind the rest of the class. I think it was 3 sets of 50 and I maybe did one or two. Then it was a 100 and a get out and bike, or something like that. I pulled on my maxi-pad bike shorts, socks, shoes, helmet, and rode a quick loop around the Advocate building. Parked bike, removed helmet, jogged around the pool and looped the Exerfit parking lot. Then repeated: 100 m swim, bike loop, jog loop. Heart pounding. But no feelings of vomit--maybe that's what having endurance means. Still feeling like you're about to die, but coming down from it a little faster and with fewer symptoms. Oh, and with the knowledge that you aren't actually going to die because you've done the drill before and managed not to die.

I could, right now, choose to focus on the fact that I swam only breaststroke the second round, or how I was so far behind everyone else during the entire drill, and though it would easy to fall back on that mental habit, that would be a silly decision on my part. I'm not 12 years old and I'm not in PE class. I'm not getting a grade, and my teacher is just a teacher and not an authority figure. I choose now to feel proud that I got a great workout today, and I'm looking forward to having a good time feeling free and healthy at the race and appreciating the fact that I trained for 8 weeks. It will soon be over, and I may never do it again. If I don't enjoy the thing I'm doing now, then I'm missing my chance, because the thing that's passing is my life. Here's to enjoyment (*Raises plastic squirt bottle*).