Flashes of Panic

Because of everything else, I haven’t been thinking too much about what I have to do tomorrow. Specifically, race twice as far as I’ve ever raced in a pool. I only think about it when I’m in the pool, and the (otherwise empty) College pool seems about as far from the organized chaos of the NEM-SCY meet as you can get. (Think Penn Relays, if you’ve ever been there.)

I should be anticipating a bit, maybe doing some positive visualization. I should at least be getting mentally ready—“morally ready,” as I once heard it expressed in Russian—to swim twenty laps. I know I can cover the distance; I did it this morning. But this morning it was broken up into segments. (Including four block-starts, just for confidence.) It’s what kind of pace I will set, whether I will settle into something I can maintain, if I’ll be able to maintain form to the end.

This should be like a conference meet, because it’s the big race at the end of my season. But I haven’t really been looking it in the face. It doesn’t feel like the end of a long training buildup, either because my training really hasn’t been all that good (though, I suppose, better than last year) or because I can’t get that motivated about training for swimming.

At least this year I have a team.

Now Playing: Diamond In Your Heart from Spirit Touches Ground by Josh Clayton-Felt