Bettering Your Best: 4 Ways to Drop Time at Finals

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

By Michaela Morrison, Swimming World College Intern.

The long course championship season is upon us! Whether you’re competing or watching any end of season meets, you might be looking forward to lots of time drops. Does it ever amaze you how some swimmers are able to post great times during prelims and come back a few hours later only to best their personal records at finals as well?

Perhaps you have earned a spot in finals, but your prelim swim was your best time ever! How do you plan to drop even more time? After all, your performance at finals determines the outcome. You could win prelims and still finish in eighth overall at night.

The paralyzing realization that the window of time to prepare for this race has gone from months to just a few hours before finals. What can you do in those hours to better your current personal best? Here are four ways to drop time at finals.

1. Recover harder than you swam.

Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr / Swimming Australia Ltd.

The clock is ticking until your final heat, which makes what you do in those hours crucial. Cooling down after your race is the first step to ensuring your success later in the evening.

Aim to cool down enough so that if you had to swim another event, you’d be race-ready. Swimming-down is also a great opportunity to rerun the race in your mind, what areas did you excel in? What aspects of the race could be improved?

2. Learn to engage and disengage.

Photo Courtesy: Kelly Lennon

Swimming is mentally taxing. When tackling long meets, it’s important to stay engaged and focused when you need to be and disengaged when you don’t. Those hours between prelims and finals are yours. Do whatever it is you need to do for you, and trust that your decisions are both effective and taking your mind and body away from the pool for a while.

Being disengaged also means not concerning yourself about the results. Worrying about how you are going to swim will only drain your energy and prevent you from reaching that next level in your swimming.

3. Every race is different.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Accept that this one race may not go the way you want it to. You could unexpectedly slip on a turn or take your race out slower. Embracing that the entire race may not go exactly according to plan (without focusing on those things) will lift pressure off your shoulders.

With that being said, you always want to give every race your best effort. Strive for a balance between accepting the things that may go wrong while knowing how to best respond in those situations – push the limits of what you think you are capable of.

Let the race be what it is instead of slapping endless expectations of what you hope it will be. Go for it and race!

4. Get out of your mind.

eric-culver-splash-before-race-2016-cerave-invite

Photo Courtesy: Taylor Brien

Both figuratively and literally. You’ve set your new personal record, and that’s the fastest you can go. At least, right now. You know you can go faster, but that would take five more months of training, right?

Maybe you don’t want to ruin your streak of best times, so it’s better to not try as hard, defaulting to the excuse of “I could’ve gone faster if I had tried.” We tend to rank ourselves by thinking we are only as good as our last race. How many so-so races did you have before that one breakthrough race?

Get excited, psych yourself up! Take in the sights and sounds of being in a final heat. By earning another chance to race, you have moved yourself closer to your goal. You might end up surprising yourself when you allow your mind to go blank and let the work you’ve done take over. Limitations lodge themselves in athletes’ minds and can inhibit them from taking a chance. Don’t let this be you!

Every time you step up onto the blocks, you take a chance. When you break through those fears that have crept up into your mind, you can race freely with full commitment to your goals. Swim like the champion you are!

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Lisa Hanf

5 years ago

Kate Hanf

Christy Maycock

5 years ago

Megan Maycock – might be an interesting read?!? ?

Oren Malka

5 years ago

Gil Kiesler
הוא מעשן הרבה ?

Gil Kiesler

5 years ago

Reply to Oren Malka

אחלה גבר שבעולם