The Full Measure: Pushing Past The Pain

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Photo Courtesy: Annie Grevers

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Commentary by Michael J. Stott

There have been fast swims here in Omaha – a lot of them in fact. Virtually all of them have been done with heart, producing near world bests to less than hoped for results. “The ability to manage swims in this environment is an art,” says Doak Finch, once himself an Olympic Trials qualifier and now and assistant coach at Penn State.

National Team Director Frank Busch takes it one step further. “Most swimmers don’t improve their times here,” he says citing pressure, nerves and a host of other emotions. In truth the percentage of swimmers posting lifetime bests is under 25 percent with the men’s 100-meter breast seeming to have the most through Tuesday night.

Two-time Olympian and defending 100 back champ Matt Grevers entered the 2016 Trials with a second ranked 52.54. He advanced to finals with a 52.64 semis swim that he acknowledged could stand some improvement before recording a 52.76 to finish a disappointing third. That left leaving Wednesday’s 100 free as his last chance to compete in his third Olympics.

This morning saw him post a 49.55, good for 16^th heading into the semis. Grevers best is a 48.27, better by .16 than Nathan Adrian’s top swim from this morning. “I know I have more in me,” he said after the swim. He’ll have to call on all of his physical powers and ignore the accompanying pain to snare one of six spots on the team.

Someone not worried about a place on the team is Texas star Townley Haas. After finishing third in the 400 free earlier he commented that he gave it all he had in posting a personal best, “so I wasn’t disappointed. I tried my best and put it all in the pool. For the 200 I put it all in the pool again.” That time “all in the pool” was good enough for a .01 win over Conor Dwyer and an Olympic berth. Does Haas hurt when he goes 1:46.66 to win the 200 meter free or swim an American record 1:30.46 200 yard free to win NCAAs? A reticent young man with a high pain threshold, sometimes it is hard to tell.

It is not hard to tell if an athlete tells a coach when it hurts. Several years ago one Mid-Atlantic coach recalls his swimmer saying “that really hurt” following a six second drop in the 500 free at the NCSA championships to snare top seed for the final. The coach, understanding that not all athletes embrace pain, took that as an ominous sign. In the evening his swimmer led at the 50 and then shut it down finishing a full ten seconds behind the winner.

Matt Wren is a physical therapist in Richmond, Virginia. Dealing with pain is part and parcel of his business. In a discussion regarding the 200 back and the 200 free he observes that a winning strategy can be to build the middle 100. “The last 50 hurts no matter what you do. You try to breathe as much as possible and get as much air in your lungs in the third 50 for that final push. The winner is whomever gets tired last,” he says.

A University of Virginia swimmer Wren qualified for the 1984 Olympic Trials in the butterfly. His brother Andy finished fifth that year in the 400 IM. In the warmdown pool Matt Wren overheard an exchange between America’s best breaststroker at the time Steve Lundquist and backstroker Rick Carey. As it happened Carey had just set an American record in the 100 back in prelims.

“Good swim,” suggested Lundquist.

“I thought I was going to puke at the 75,” responded Carey.

“It was at that moment that it dawned on me,” says Wren, “that I had never pushed myself that hard and experienced that level of discomfort. And I thought, ‘maybe that is the difference, how willing you are to hurt yourself in a race – and maybe that is the difference.’ If you are willing to do that in a race you have to be accustomed to doing that in practice. And if you are not, then it is very difficult to summon that drive when the need arises.”

This afternoon an asthma-prone Amalie Frackenthal time-trialed 100-meter butterfly. The 16-year-old represents Davis Arden Racing Team (DART) out of Davis, California and was trying to achieve her Olympic Trial cut of 1:01.19. Her entry time was 1:02.35. Seeded sixth the sea nymph blasted a 1:01.09 to win the heat and attain her cut.

That was the good news. The bad was what she had to endure to get it. “My arms seized up. My body felt numb and I couldn’t breathe,” she said. Was she happy? “Yes.” Was her coach happy? “Yes.”

Seems like a small price to pay to accomplish a big goal.

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