A Day in the Life: Kalyn Keller

LOS ANGELES, California, November 9. ON the hump day of Kalyn Keller’s “A Day in the Life” series, the University of Southern California gave some advice on how to breakthrough tough training days.

Wednesday, November 8
I love Wednesdays. Thirty glorious extra minutes to sleep and only one workout! It’s like a mid-week treat. I usually try to catch up on sleep and/or homework, and if my car isn’t in the hospital like she is today perhaps a bit of shopping? Although I do have class from 5-10 p.m., so it actually ends up being a pretty long day.

Wednesday mornings at practice, I can usually count on doing parachutes or some form of resistance work followed by a few strong pace 50’s or 100’s. This morning was a little different, and instead we did some long course pulling, emphasizing different parts of the straight swim. Part of our pulling set was:

900 (100 smooth, 50 strong, 50 smooth, 25 strong)
800 (100 smooth, 100 strong)
600 (300 smooth, 300 strong)

It was a nice change of pace and gave me a chance to work on my singing – It’s amazing how good I sound in my own head!

Being a distance swimmer, I naturally enjoy long swims focusing on stroke, but it is also good to break it up with some stronger pace so you don’t get too comfortable. As Coach [Dave] Salo says, “We need to be COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE”! I have to admit that this sounds a little crazy, but if you really think about it, it’s what sets the best apart from the rest.

I keep that in mind when I’m not feeling too hot in workout, and remind myself that it should be hard. I am a firm believer that the days in which you are tired and sore are the ones that will pay off the most. It’s easy to swim fast when you feel fast. But swimming fast when you feel badly is an entirely different ball game – it requires mental toughness. Learning how to use your disappointment is crucial.

I learned at an early age that crying won’t get you anywhere. It shows weakness and accomplishes nothing. (Hey, being the youngest of three comes in handy sometimes). Instead, I learned to use that anger to my advantage. Now, I focus that anger on what I did wrong and I work that much harder to fix it. Not every workout I have is “A Day in the Life” blogworthy, and now when I am having a frustrating workout I consciously force myself focus on one specific aspect of the workout or my stroke. Sometimes, this means emphasizing the back half of each effort, working on my kicking or simply breathing. One of my favorite ways of taking my mind off being uncomfortable or sore is to pick someone out to beat, and for me it is usually a guy. (Girls – do this! Guys – don’t let girls beat you!) I could go on writing about what goes through my head when I’m swimming… but I don’t want to sound too crazy!

Now if only I could apply this intense focus to my paper that’s due today…

Tomorrow’s blog will be dedicated to the best Dad in the world, because it is his birthday!

Fight On!
Kalyn Keller

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