Wednesday was not a good training day. I had not slept well the night before, had an overbooked day with a very tight window of opportunity for my workout, and I was just not feeling right.
It was strength day on the weights, and I found myself struggling to hit the weight and rep schemes from the previous week. No gains this week. And then, with a negative, defeatist attitude, it was off to the pool.
70 laps were on the schedule today (3500 yards). After 10 laps into the warmup set, I was already ready to stop and wondering how I would make it through the workout. I only read my swim workouts one set at a time so that my head doesn't pop off at how much work has to be done in the pool. So when I saw that today called for a straight set of 1500 yards (30 laps without stopping), I seriously wanted to pack it in and go home.
So I implemented a little trick that I use sometimes. First, I broke up the set into 4 laps freestyle with 1 recovery kick set, which I would perform 6 times to equal the 30 laps (who cares what the workout says if I don't get through it). I told myself if, after each set of 5 laps, I really truly wanted to quit, I could go home without any guilt.
An interesting thing happened -- after each set of 5, I thought, "well, I think I can do just one more." This kept repeating over and over until, before I knew it, the whole workout was done and all I had to do was cool down for a few laps.
Did I set any speed records that day? No. But I trained my mental toughness and was very proud of myself. This kind of thing could happen at the Ironman. So I'll use this mental trick in the future and, if needed, on race day in order to power through the times when I just don't want to do it anymore.
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