Turning Things Around

If you pay attention, you can actually learn a lot from your kids.  This weekend we went to Sulphur for the High School State Swimming Championship.  Because of the size of the high school Mason goes to, he is in the toughest division there is and has to compete against the big boys.  And when I say big boys, some of them are men.  He went into the meet seeded pretty high in both the 200 Individual Medley and the 100 butterfly.  That would appear to be a good thing, but it worked against him because he was stressed.

He was not his happy go lucky self.  He was terrified.  And when he dove into the water for the 200 IM, it showed.  Before I continue, he did not swim bad during prelims.  He only swam one second slower than his best in the 200 IM and actually got faster in the 100 fly.  The problem was that everyone else got much faster.  He dropped from being seeded 5th in the 200 IM to 14th in the preliminaries.  He dropped from 8th in the 100 fly to 13th.  He was not a happy camper and was mad at himself.

After the 100 fly, he only had two relay prelims left to swim.  With the swim team at EA, Mason is the only boy who qualified for an individual event.  All the other boys that made the trip are seniors and were swimming relays.  This was it for them.  I told him to blow off what had been done and give everything he had for his team.  And he didn’t disappoint.  He lead off for the 200 free relay and set a best time for himself.  That relay made it back.  He did the same for the 400 free relay and they made it back.

On Saturday, he was a much different person.  He was still a little nervous, but in a much better mood.

By the time he swam the 200 IM, he was ready.  It was a fast heat for a consolation heat!  By the time he got to the breast stroke, he was firmly in 5th place.  He started his move during the last 25 yards of the breast stroke and then had the fastest 50 free split of his heat pulling into second place at the end!  He ended up 10th place overall in the state and swam a personal best!

The 100 fly was a different story.  He went out with Brady Grenfell (great swimmer from Catholic High) and wasn’t going to wait until the last 25 yards.  Brady ended up first with Mason second.  That gave him 10th place in the fly and it was another personal best!

After the fly, all he had left were the two relays with his team.  And they gave it everything they had!  The 200 free relay ended up 11th and the 400 free relay ended up 12th.  That may not seem like much, but considering Mason is the only boy who swims year round on the team, it is impressive.  Those seniors ended their swimming careers on a high note!

To say that Christine and I are proud of the way Mason swam would be an understatement.  But it was not his 10th place finish in the IM and the fly that impressed me.  It was not how hard he swam for his team on the relays that impressed me.  It was the fact that he had a very rough start and did not give up.  He was able to turn things around and ended up with a great state meet!

As I was laying in bed at 3:30 this morning, things were not going well.  I was trying to be a nurse to Christine who caught a stomach bug and was not having a good night.  In between her stomach purgings, I would lay there and think about my plans and my current dilemma: my leg.  It still bothers me.

After running 70+ miles a week ago, I have only managed 10 this week.  And all 10 of them hurt.  I skipped my run on Thursday and had planned to be off Friday & Saturday for the swim meet.  Today I am supposed to run 20 miles, but I don’t see that happening.  If my leg hurts while laying in bed at 3:30 in the morning, then how is it going to feel when I start running down the road?

And that is when I thought of what Mason just went through.  He had a rough start.  He had the choice of giving in and having a crappy swim meet or turning things around and giving it his best.  He chose the latter and it paid off for him.

I need to turn things around.  People ask my advice all the time about running and training.  And I always tell them that if you are off for a week, it will not hurt you.  I need to follow my own advice.  I will take off today too and start back up tomorrow.  I will ease back into it this week and see how things go each day.  I will turn things around and get back on track.

I am training to run 100 miles not a 5K.  This is a long process so I need to expect their will be some bumps in the road.  This is a bump and not a cliff.  I will get past it.

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