I have many targets for my training and race performance; some short, some medium and some long term goals. One of the big ones that I've put down at the start of each year since 2004 has been "swim an open water sub 20 min 1500m". In elite races the best in the world do it in about 18 ish mins... I've been used to coming out in about 22-23mins, effectively making my race over before it’s begun. So my short to medium term, realistic (I felt) goal was to get this down to 20 mins. Many people felt it was a waste of time and that quite frankly, with swimming being such a "feel" and "skill" based sport, out of my "late starting" reach. I however have always believed that I could. If I'm ever going to be truly competitive with the best in the world, it HAD to happen simple as that.
Now I've been working very hard to achieve this over the last 3 years. I've seen some improvement for sure, with my time dropping to the high 21min region but it’s been slow progress. Its taken days and days, hours and hours of work....10's of THOUSANDS of lengths in pools. Still though it wasn't happening as quickly as I wanted or needed if I was going to get to the level I believed was possible, any time soon. However despite all the evidence suggesting it really wasn't possible and that I should settle for mediocrity I've persisted and truly believed that I COULD do it and more importantly WOULD do it. Most importantly, I've spent hours praying about. I know that god hears these prayers and I believe that he answers ALL our prayers though maybe not in quite the way we expect, or quite when we'd like it either. But I trust that he knows only the best and isn’t limited by my small thinking. If I'd not done the training then I don't for one second believe it would have "magically" happened, but God doesn't always work like that. Often the answers to prayer come slowly and require us to do stuff (which undoubtedly God helps us to do as well).
In this case I've been hugely blessed in the last 3 months to hook up with Alex, my new swim coach. He is doing a masters under my coach (Bridgette Swales) at Roehampton Uni. and it turns out that Alex is a Greek Olympic swim coach :-)) Completely for free he's worked with me on my swimming every week for this time. Despite the mountain he no doubt felt we had to climb when we first started working together he's helped me move from "drowning rat" impersonator to "looking like a proper swimmer" and actually feeling like I was too. However u choose to look at it, he's had to help me and I've had to do the hard graft to make the improvements but I truly believe that this has been an answer to prayer.... Heck how many people have you heard of who just happened to get an Olympic level coach devote their time and energy to them, for free! If I was a rower, it would be like getting Sir Stephen Redgrave’s coach to help me out!
Last Sunday I did a 1500m (just under a mile, or 60 lengths in your local pool) open water swim race. For those who don't know, open water means outside but not in a pool. In this case it was Eaton colleges rowing lake. There are no lines at the bottom of the lake to follow (like in a pool). The water isn’t crystal clear, yes there are fish and probably duck pooh in there somewhere but what you gona do ;-) I've got a big race coming up this weekend where many of the best guys in the world will be racing and it’s been pointless for me to do it for the last 2 years simply because my swim was too bad to make it worth my while. Last Sunday I swam a time of 20.15 mins! Not only was this a HUGE new PB for me, it was also well within my limits (i.e. I feel I could have definitely gone faster). I can't begin to tell you how satisfying this is and also what I means potentially. For the first time I can look at the best in the world and believe that one day soon I’ll be able to compete properly with them. It also gives me great encouragement that all this time working towards the goals I have hasn't been wasted and delusional dream chasing.... I can now see, not just believe, the reality of my goals.
Whilst I'm not some religious nut who wants to bash a bible round people’s head (I’ll leave that to those dodgy satellite channels ha) I know that none of this has happened or will continue to happen without my faith, dependence and trust in God. It will continue to take more work, more time, more focus to reach my next target (19 mins) but I know that through God all things are possible and that someday soon I’ll be writing another entry into this blog describing achieving that goals too. When this happens, the Olympic dreams suddenly start to become VERY VERY realistic!
