Set the scene
The best I can think of is when I was in 7th grade. At the time my best time at a meet in the 100 yard free was a 1:01.something...
Tell the tale
it was right before the high school boys left for their season. We were doing a set of 15 x 100's on 1:30 in the Pool (25 M). For most of the set I was holding around 1:15's(1:07Y), then with three to go the high school guy who was leading the lane next to me (they were going on an interval that lapped us), jumped into my lane (which I was leading at the time) after his was done, and said, "You're going first, and I better not catch you!" Being a wussy little 7th grader, I thought that if he caught me, he'd beat the crap out of me. "57, 58, 59, GO!!! I took off.
Tight streamline and relentless kicking. Needless to say, I swam that repeat with more furry than I have ever swam in practice before. I saw him right on my feet with each of the three turns I took. I hit the wall exhausted 100 meters later.
While immediately rejoicing he never caught me, I looked at the pace clock and realized I had just gone a 1:04 metric (58Y)!!! On that day, I changed my philosophy on how to swim a practice. Instead of swimming at a pace that let me survive each practice, I began swimming at a pace that let me fail each practice.
Advice
- I then found that by failing in practice, I began succeeding in competition.
