Fluke Or Not A Fluke?

Okay, let me share a little athletic story from my teens. I think at one point, I mentioned that I was into gymnastics from age 7 to around age 17. I started out being fairly good, but around age 13 or so, my progress was stalling and I never really gotten into heavy competitions after that.

There was this one stellar moment late into one practice afternoon when I tried a back hand spring all on my own. No coach close by to help... Nothing. And I did it... I was the buzz of the locker room that afternoon. But as it turned out, the perfect back hand spring from that afternoon was just a FLUKE. I was never able to reproduce it.

So a couple of swim practices ago, I was gushing about my breakthrough only to learn that the actual breakthrough didn't happen until the very next swim practice. But I guess I just noticed that something clicked that day and when I got into the pool the next time it was like magic. We had 2x 400 yard time trials on tap and I did the first one in 6:40 minutes. Normally I need around 8 minutes for this distance. I thought I counted the laps wrong. The second 400 I did in 6:30 minutes, so I guess I have counted correctly... And the funny thing was, I could have kept on going. That whole thing felt effortless. I was able to maintain bi-lateral breathing, when normally, I start breathing to one side once I swim faster. Not this time, I was cruising through this whole set. My lane partner noticed it, the coach noticed it... IT FELT GREAT!!

Once I was out of the pool, I started worrying, if I would be able to hold on to this or if the next time, my form would just collapse to my old air-sucking self.

A week after those two time trials, we did a 400 yard race simulation in the pool. I swam the whole thing in 6:20 minutes! I was ecstatic... I still am... I start to believe that this time it isn't a fluke... This time, I can hold on to this progress.

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This morning, I did the Reedy River Run 10K. I had to expectation on this race, I didn't even feel like racing.... Well and now I have a new PR. According to my Garmin, my time was 56:57 minutes... That's almost two minutes under my PR time at this race last year!