A relateable athlete

I went from just daily walks to training 15 hours every week to to be ready for 3km open-water swim

Earlier this year, I went from not knowing much about swimming to doing a 3km open-water swim challenge. For context, 3km swim = 120 x 25m pool. It was a personal challenge for many reasons, but mainly because I could barely float in water or complete one length in the pool without stopping and had only five months to train.

I thought people who work out regularly wake up every morning motivated to run out of their door to do a 10k every day. It might be true for many people. However, the general public does not wake up ready for a 10k run. I was general public, and I went from daily walks and occasional runs to training between 7-14 hours per week (I agree, it’s a bit crazy). 

Here are the most relatable lesson from my swim training journey:

Making space in my day for training: Training, like everything else, doesn’t just happen. The only way I can stay on track is by carving out space during my day for training sessions. That was a simple but effective mindset shift that I did not expect training sessions to happen unless I planned them. So every morning, I would look at my work calendar and evening schedules to find slots throughout the day for training. Sometimes I had to book my work calendar, and other times I had to cancel social invitations for training. Training sessions (or anything worthwhile) don’t just happen. You have to carve out space in your life, your week and your day for the training (the same applies to any other goal).

Mindset plays a huge part: This might be absurd but relatable. Here are some of the ridiculous mental blocks in my early days of training:

  • Even if I train every day, I won’t improve. 
  • I don’t have the right genes and body type for swimming. 
  • What if I get stuck in a weed underwater and drown? (I mean, is that even possible?)
  • Pool water will destroy my hair. (It’s true, but if I am already committed to the swim challenge, what does it matter?)
  • I don’t have the time. (I made time when I had to, even if it sometimes meant declining social invitations to complete my training).

However, I acknowledged every fear in my way, vocalised it and worked through it. I had a book on sports mindset (Inner Game of Tennis, highly recommended). 

Showing up & building momentum: Some weeks, I executed my training plan 100%, precisely as planned. In other weeks, I only managed 80% of my training plan. And there were a couple of weeks when I trained only 40% of my planned workouts due to covid. I am not the most disciplined person; I often miss sessions in my training plan. However, when I missed a session, I knew it was a momentum downwards; therefore, it was harder than usual to show up to the next session. And when I executed a session, it was a momentum upwards; therefore, it was easier to show up on the next session. 

I had the support system worth a village: At this point, you might think that one crazy day I woke up, did some internet search, signed up for the challenge, made myself a training plan, and followed it through. It’s not true. I had a lot of support, a lot. Someone inspired me to do the challenge and offered to help me with the training plan. I made a friend on my trips who was a sports mindset coach (and a sportswoman herself). She stayed in touch for weeks and helped me with amateur mindset questions like my hair and compromising social life issues. I had people I could ask questions like; is my exercise form correct? How do I recover fast? I missed a session, how do I make up for it? Find friends or a group to train with to give yourself a better chance of success.

Positive Feedback loop: 

Conclusion: