Ten Thoughts Before Diving In
Ten Thoughts Before Diving In
By Mike Gustafson//Contributor
Standing on the blocks is an exercise in Zen: You try, desperately, to shut the non-stop waterfall of thoughts off, and turn off your racing, whirling mind. You try to focus. To push back all the thoughts about eternal glory and victory and expectations and pressure, and instead, stay in the moment.
Easier said than done.
Swimming is a tricky sport: For entire seasons—months and months of training—the mind is numb during long, monotonous freestyle sets. I remember pretty much blacking out during entire morning practices, finishing up at 7:30am and thinking, “What just happened?” I remember entire practices when my mind was thinking virtually nothing else besides, “stroke stroke stroke breath flip stroke stroke.”
Yet, on the blocks, it’s like the mind has a sudden realization: “AHHHHHH!TIMETORACEAHHHHHH!” Perhaps it’s because we spend so long just thinking of one moment, one minute of racing, that once we arrive at that moment, we almost can’t even process it.
Here are typical thoughts swimmers experience on the blocks, and what to do when you think them:
