Tag: positive thinking

Swim – Cruise Finder #1

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U R Here

The 1st step in any good planning is to figure out where you are.

My coach, being a really good planner, needs to know where I am with my swimming.  So today’s swim workout was geared to finding my baseline.  Kelsey tells me that this will be my “cruise time”.

Today’s cruise-finder workout:
  • warm-up (my choice – as long as it includes a include 4 x 25 build @ :15 rest (which means I start out easy and increase my speed so I’m sprinting by wall touch.)
  • Cruise-finder: 5 x 100 fast with 2 seconds rest after each 100.
  • cool down (my choice)

My cruise time is: my total time, minus 8 seconds, divided by 5.    8:35/5 = 01:43 /100y

The high school swim coach was nice enough to time me this morning.  He commented that I was exactly at 4:00 at 250y, then I slowed, and then picked my pace back up.  His observations coincided perfectly with how I was thinking.   Just after the half way point, I started to worry that I might not have enough in the tank to finish.  Then that thought led to a bunch of other concerning thoughts.  When I touched the wall with 75 yards to go, I noticed that I wasn’t focused and put my attention back to the task at hand.

My thoughts on today’s workout:
  1. I always feel like I’m swimming so much faster than I really am. 🙂
  2. I really don’t know what I am capable of for the swim.  I know what “all-out” is for running, but no idea for swimming.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone all-out.
  3. Focus and positive thinking is really important under water.
  4.  I wish I could do flip-turns.
  5. I wonder how fast I can get?

Up hill

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InspirationI have one rule for running up hill.

I never ask myself how I’m feeling when I am running up a hill.  My answer is never positive.  And worse – listening to my answer creates an opening for more negative thoughts and almost always spirals right down into ” I don’t think I can do this – maybe I should quit.”   It’s so much harder to run up a hill when I’m telling myself I can’t do it.

Running up hills, like the one on Green Street in Ashland’s Half Marathon, is just hard.  The energy requirement creates enormous physical stress on the body.  This physical stress triggers our hormones and becomes mental stress or a negative perspective.  The fact is that the hill will always be easier to climb if you tell yourself that you can do it.  (think little engine that could – “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”)  The second fact is that there will always be hills – so it’s best to have a strategy before you are halfway up and thinking about quitting.

Here’s some good news.  If you happen to find yourself without a strategy tomorrow, while running up Green Street – we have added affirmations on the course for you.  So one step at a time – you can conquer the Green Street Monster.  If you find yourself running next to a woman dressed as a fairy muttering “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” – say hi.  That’s me!

Good luck tomorrow to all the runners!