Throughout my stint with endurance sports there have been struggles. For marathon training it was my leg injury from building distance too fast. Now in triathlon training, my biggest hurdle has been swimming. I’ve tried just pushing through my workouts sometimes failing to complete them, I’ve gotten advice from Coach Jen, my Masters coaches and friends, who have all been helpful and at the same time really patient as I bitched and moaned about my aquatic performance.
Everyone says there is a point when you’ll have an “ah-ha” moment, it’s the moment when everything you’ve been told and everything you’re working on all pans out. For the marathon it was my 20-mile run. When I finished that run I knew that I’d be able to finish the marathon.
Yesterday while swimming with the Buehler Breakers Master’s team it happened… We had a 1000 warm-up and just the sight of it on the board made me uneasy. I hopped in my usual “slow” lane and started the swim. I started as the 3rd swimmer, and after the first 500 I was leading the lane… We finished the warm-up and listened to our Coach talk us through the main set. It was going to be a hard workout of descending 100’s with some drills mixed in.
Alright, lets see what happens, I started out as the 2nd swimmer and after a few 100’s was leading the lane again. After our 3rd or 4th set, the coach asked me if I wanted to move up a lane cause I had lapped some of the swimmers in my lane…
What? Really? But there’s “real swimmers” in that lane. Opted to stay where I was. I was comfortable. Maybe next week…
I felt great during every set… At one point I realized I wasn’t thinking about my stroke, kick or breathing… I was thinking about WORK!!! I was mentally producing a new show!!!
That was it, my Ah-ha moment!!!
My whole body felt in sync, I wasn’t struggling and I’m pretty sure I created a great show!
Towards the end workout Coach had everyone stop, I looked at the board and saw there were still 3 more sets, then I looked at the clock and saw that we only had about 5 minutes left.
I got a little mad, I hadn’t finished the workout… But wait, No one finished the workout! It wasn’t just my “slow lane” … NO ONE!
We all headed to the starting blocks and did a couple of relay’s just for fun. Which only added another 100 to my total….
After we finished I walked back over to board to see what I missed out on… I still had energy, I felt great, which lead me to believe that I fell way short of completing any worth while distance, so ah-ah moment or not I didn’t finish the workout.
As I was standing there adding up my distance I noticed there was a group of people forming to do the same thing…
I had to do the math twice (luckily I was on deck so m shoes were already off!).
Could it be possible that I just did a 3600 yard workout? Really? Nah… I added it up again…
I DID A 3600 YARD WORKOUT!!!
A new personal record!
I was pumped! I’m interested to see how my next few swim workouts go. But no matter what, this was a great swim!
Phil Castello 
YES! It is all about progress and timing of workouts and recovery, Phil….and you are seeing that – great job indeed! 🙂
Thanks Coach!
You are smooth and fluid in the water, like a fish. No, a dolphin! No a power boat! No a dolphin chasing a fish, driving a power boat! Yes! That’s it.
Great job dude. Can’t wait to kick you in the head.
Only David Wallach can tell you he can’t wait to kick you in the head and have it still come across as a compliment.
Congrats on the swimming, Phil! 🙂
FANTASTIC! Nice blog!