Mind Over Maddening Colds

A few months ago, Jason Lezak (Olympic Champion swimmer and owner of the fastest 100 M free of all time) told a group of us at SwimLabs that he had learned the power of positive self-talk.  In his last Olympics, as one of the oldest members of the team, he was tired and broken down on the day of the 400 freestyle relay. He woke up sore and tired, but told himself, "I feel great. It's a great day to swim, and I am going to rock this race."  Repeating that message over and over, through warm up, massage, hydration, more warm up, he gradually "tricked himself" into feeling good, and anchored the USA relay (against the dominant French) with the most amazing split of all time. 

At  Centennial A League championships, last Friday night, Aden still struggled with her cold.  She felt weepy, tired and sorry for herself on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, which made sense given her sore throat and red eyes. But Friday morning I told her to brainwash herself with this one thought, "It's a great day to swim."  That's all she was allowed to say to herself as I told her the Lezak story, because the problem with life is, you get what you get. If the meet is Friday, you have to swim Friday. No waiting until optimal conditions come together.

By remarkable coincidence, Arapahoe High School played the clip of the USA 400 free relay during warm ups at the meet, with Lezak's swim as amazing as ever. In similar form, Aden rallied for her 200 free, doing her best time by 1.5 seconds and placing 14th overall, then slumped a touch in her 100 free, going .22 over her best. But she drank some coconut water, ate some cookies, and rallied again to lead off her 400 free relay with a best time of 57.6. - about 1.5 second faster than she went at the same meet last year. 

After the last race Aden came up to the stands and we hugged as the tears leaked out.  Folks around us were a touch confused as to the emotion, since she hadn't made a State cut or broken a record of any kind, but we were just relieved and grateful that the self-talk worked. She turned a rough spot into a banner day for the last swims of her junior season, and learned a life lesson along the way.