Just ten days to go. Taper time is a wild beast. It's a Tazmanian Devil raging and tearing through your chains and means of control. Fortunate is the swimmer who can keep a level head in the weeks running up to a meet. Even the hardiest and most experienced of competitors would be forgiven for turning their palms up to the sprint gods. In the water you feel great, but then not so a day later. What distinguishes those who succeed is not simply the belief that it will all come good on race day but rather the knowledge that it will. Yesterday I stood on the blocks at the far end of Aldershot's Garrison pool for a timed training swim, focussing on my dive and break-out but breathing and controling the last 15 meters in particular. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. I split 5.3secs to 15m, 10.3secs to 25m, and turned to my feet in 24.1secs. The committed visitor to this blog will know that that time was faster than my race there two weeks ago. To find that sort of speed when not feeling good breeds confidence, confidence that you can't manufacture when the time before a meet can be measured in days and not weeks. Normally I'd feel a bit squeamish about posting a training video online, but as the sporting legends in Johnson's Gold Rush kept reminding me, you can only affect what you do so don't worry about anyone or anything else.
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