By Julia Wilkinson-Minks
Imagine this: you’ve trained hard all year. You feel confident and fast when you arrive at your championship meet. You hit the wall after your first race, look up at the clock, and what you see only shocks and confuses you. There are times when you know what you did wrong, but this is not one of them. If you are a swimmer, chances are you don’t have to imagine this situation, because you’ve lived it.
One question is permeating throughout the IUPUI Natatorium: why aren’t people swimming fast this weekend? Now, that is simply a generalization, for two main reasons: first of all, the winning times only seem sub-par because of the standard that was set over the last two seasons. After the polyurethane suits were banned, the general consensus was that the records would not fall for a long, long time. Well, we were wrong, and the likes of Ariana Vanderpool-Wallace, Katinka Hosszu and Megan Romano continued to lower NCAA records and increase our standards for fast swimming. Secondly, there are still some teams swimming very fast: North Carolina and Arizona have had swimmers throw down some relatively great swims. Tennessee has also had a successful meet, arriving in Indianapolis without a single NCAA relay win in their history books and winning three in a row. As a generalization, however, the swims have seemed lackluster compared to the last few years.
But why?
I have been mulling this over for the last few days, talking to coaches, swimmers and even other members of the media to hear their theories. There is obviously not one answer, but likely a combination of factors that are coming into play and pulling the emergency brake on this competition.
The Power Conferences
The Pac-12 Conference teams--like Arizona, California, and Southern California--have all been performing well. The best performance of the weekend was Elizabeth Pelton’s blazing 200 backstroke that earned her a standing ovation on the podium. Unlike the SEC and Big Ten Conference, the PAC-12 teams really do channel their focus toward the NCAA Championships as opposed to winning a conference ring.
That being said, I am not 'accusing' any SEC, Big 10, or other conference team of tapering prior to this week. Just because they don’t taper, however, does not mean that the athletes won’t 100% 'check in' to their races both mentally and physically. Swimming a four-and-a-half day meet without any rest and the excitement level equal to or greater than the NCAA Championships is very hard to bounce back from. That could explain why Georgia broke the NCAA and American Record in the 800 freestyle relay at SEC’s--without a taper or shaving down--but was unable to replicate the effort at NCAA’s even with rest.
My sophomore year, several of us did not taper for the Big 12 Conference meet because we had our sights set on NCAA’s. Of course, we wanted to take down the eight-time defending champion Texas Longhorns and win our first ever conference title, but we made the decision that the end of the season took precedence. We followed through with this plan from a training standpoint, but when it came down to racing, it was a different story mentally. We did end up beating Texas that year, by only a single point and it came down to the final relay. It was as if we were trapped inside some sort of feel-good sports movie. We were able to step up and swim very fast even without rest once the meet got rolling because of the neck-to-neck scores between us and our rival throughout the meet. Outside of the Olympic Games, this was the most emotionally exhausted I have ever been after a swim meet, and was unable to come close to those times I had posted at conference once I hit the water at NCAA’s. I remember later reading comments about how, since we bombed at NCAA’s, we must have been rested for the conference meet. But we weren’t. And neither was Georgia at the 2013 SEC’s, yet their relay was slower.
So often we focus on perfecting all the physical aspects of our training, and the mental side gets compartmentalized until it is too late. You have to be able to line up your mind and your body when you arrive at a meet, and this holds true for what you want to focus on for the season: just because you don’t rest your body for conference doesn’t mean your mind won’t treat it like an Olympic final.
The International Cycle
There are a lot of Olympians here at this NCAA Championships, some whom even stood on the podium last summer in London. Balancing international competition and swimming collegiately can be challenging, and motivation usually wanes when the pressure of the Olympic year is finally lifted. The year following the Olympics will probably be the slowest of the cycle, with swimmers retiring, taking time off, or simply backing off their training because they are no longer under the Olympic thumb. The last time we were in part of the international cycle it was “the year of the suits”, which completely negated any ill effects. Plus, we can’t forget that was the year that Dana Vollmer taught everyone what not making the Olympic team can do for someone’s career.
Of course, the argument to this theory would be Rachel Bootsma: she was on the Olympic team and is swimming great. Maybe it is because she is only a freshman and is still very young and relatively inexperienced compared to the likes of Allison Schmitt. Success may breed motivation, but years on the international stage can breed a burn out, no matter how much success it has brought you.
The Temperature
After a sub-par first day, plenty of coaches and swimmers were complaining about how cold it was on the deck and I had to agree with them. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a cold pool deck can be a serious detriment to performance, and if I am not sweating through my shirt up in the stands, it is definitely too cold for the athletes.
When it comes to a cold deck at a meet, usually this will have the most effect during the first few sessions because the swimmers will wise up to it and strategize ways to keep from getting too cold before their races. This morning Elizabeth Beisel told me that she actively made an effort to keep warm before her 400 IM by bundling up in her parka and gloves. This could explain why, although the meet still hasn’t been the swimming spectacle we assumed it would be, the swims have improved since day one.
These are just a few theories, and there are as many factors that can affect performance as swimmers at this meet. No one knows 'the answer' -- even the most seasoned and successful coaches on the pool deck -- probably because there is no answer. After all, as my on-camera partner Talor Whitaker so wisely pointed out, “The times can’t get to zero, so we can’t improve forever.” There are bound to be blips and plateaus. We see and accept them in individual athletes all the time. But when this many athletes hit a blip at the same time, we are left perpetually questioning what went wrong. Sometimes the answer might just be nothing.