Spence Smith

Inspiration is watching the USA Swim Team and Jason Lezak crush France in this race. Especially since France was so confident they were going to beat Team USA. Whatever! Never ever ever mouth off before the race! Please! Dear France…it doesn’t matter if it’s a tenth of a sec or a full body length. You lost, it showed on your face and now it’s time for more winning.

I love watching the Olympics this year. Every event I’ve seen has been inspiring to watch. The basketball game between China and the USA was awesome! Even watching a 17 yr old from China win the Gold Medal for the the dead lift inspired me…don’t be looking for me to be weight lifting though:)

The ultimate has been the swimming. Especially now. Last night I watched these swimmers pump out 100 meters in less than a minute. I’m sitting there thinking, at my very best so far I did 100 meters in 1:14. I did this a couple of weeks ago and it felt awesome. Yesterday was my first day back to swim practice in a week and a half and I felt heavy, sluggish and worn out. The practice was tough and had to do 100 meters at 1:20 at one point. It was tough. I have a tremendous amount of respect for our athletes.

So with all of this, I’m inspired. I love watching those final seconds in a race, or that perfect form and landing from a gymnast. With everything that is going on in the world, the Beijing 2008 Olympics are a welcome distraction to inspire, encourage, motivate and activate a community.

Way to go Team USA!!!

Last night was my first practice back since the new year. It was tough practice. 3100 yards with very little rest in between sets. Ashley worked us out hard. There was a bunch of us swimming tonight and it felt like the whole work out was designed to take off the weight we had put on from the holidays. Let me tell you that we worked really hard. I can already tell that 2008 is going to be serious when it comes to swimming. I know I travel a lot, but I really don’t want to miss practice…I will because I do have to travel, but there is a focus here that I haven’t felt before in a long time.

Right now my eyes are set on a half marathon in April and a triathlon in May as the first of many triathlons for the season. As I swam, I had time to think and focus. Sometimes we have to count strokes, breathe in odd numbered intervals and really concentrate on form to get us to the end in the amount of time we have been challenged with.

In the middle of all of this work, I find myself thinking about life and stress. I still think to myself…take a good breathe, let it out slowly, calm down, take your time and listen to what your body is telling you in the water…at this point the body is very stressed and your lungs and muscles just want oxygen. Oh it’s there for the taking, but you have to be ready for it when you can get it. meaning…every time your mouth comes out of the water…breathe and make it a good one.

So in life, there are stressful times…whether it’s with work, money, marriage, dating, friends…whatever it is, some times there’s just a lot of stress. When I’m swimming, I’m reminded that when stressed…take a good breath and calm down. Take a few minutes to focus, think, and listen…there in lies the way to overcome the stress, to knock it down a notch and to start yourself on a path to achieving the end goal.

I know I ramble…and it’s a long way to the point…but when you are in the water for 90 minutes and you can literally hear yourself breathing…there are a lot of thoughts that come through your head. Mostly about how to survive life and getting through it. Because seriously…i don’t want to drown.

Yesterday I went with a couple of people for a bike ride. The plan for the day…ride 25 miles then go to swim practice. 

We started in Franklin in Fieldstone Farms and headed out to Leipers Fork. For those of you from Nashville, you know how pretty this area is. It was an incredible ride. I was sporting my new bike made by Giant and I really got the feel of the new gears and clipping in and out of the pedals. The hills were rolling and the scenery was just peaceful. About 18 miles in we stopped in Leipers Fork at a little convenience store. When we pulled up there were a group of cyclist from nashvillecyclist.com and Gran Fondo Cycles. It was cool to see some really serious cyclists taking their break and having a good laugh. As we got a gatorade and rested a bit, the group of cyclist took off. As they left us, I yelled out " Don’t wait for us guys! We’ll catch up to you in a bit!!" As they rode away, they laughed and said "have a great ride!" It was a great ride.

Next was swim practice. From now until the end of the year, we are doing nothing but drills.
Yesterday we
did two drills for the 90 minute practice. 20 minutes of warm up then the two drills. Both were tough. After biking 25 miles and going straight to swimming. I soon realized I had no energy at all. Nothing. My legs were cramping after every push off from the wall and I could never seem to get enough oxygen to make it happen. It was rough. I was really glad to be done with practice.

As I continue to train for this next seasons triathlons, I’m really looking forward to the growth both physically and mentally. I find that exercise like this clears my head, pushes me to do more, and helps me to put things in perspective. Don’t forget to check out my new blog Triathlete Training.

I’m always amazed that no matter how tough or easy the practice is, I’m always wiped out at the end of the night. The next day I’m usually useless physically. You know they say swimming works every muscle in your body…I agree. I am thankful thought for these work outs though. With my travels coming up i’m going to be missing a few. Coming back into the speed of things will be tough…but well worth it.

I’m amazed at some of the people i swim with. There are 3 or 4 in our group that have signed up for next years Louisville Ironman 2008. One of the guys swim s in my lane. His name is Mike. But then there’s my new friend Lynn. She’s a runner and this past summer she did a bunch of triathlons. Then on Saturday of this past weekend she ran her first half marathon. I asked how she did and she said she came in third overall! Impressive. Way to go! Then she said she the most she has ever ran was 8 miles!!!! Yikes!!! She ran it in 1 hour 45 minutes!!! Impressive again!

Here’s the deal. I love being a part of a group of people for two reasons. The group pushes me to work hard and I’m inspired by people who go for it, like Lynn.

Which reminds me…My friend Krissy Thomas is two weeks away from running her first marathon. The Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco.  I’m proud of her for going this far AND for raising the $4,200 for Team in Training! Way to go! You are inspiring….

Tonight’s swim practice was a tough one. Our coach, Dee Davis from Excel Aquatics in Brentwood, TN, put us through hundreds of yards of interval swimming which would be like tempo running for…well…runners. It was a great work out but tough. the bulk of the swimming was 1200 yards split into 3 sets of 4 100 yard intervals on a 2 minute 15 sec interval. This means, you swim the 100 yards in under 2:15. However, you are starting another 100 yards every 2:15. If you finish in 1:45 then you have 30 seconds to rest. Got it? Here’s the catch. for the first 2 sets of the 3. You have to come in within 2 seconds faster or slower than you first 100 time. The catch is to swim the first 100 as slow as you can without going over 2:15 and giving your self enough time to catch your breath…so ideally…1:50 would be a good slow pace. Then you have some room to get through the other (3) 100′s for that set. Make sense? ok…so now…you do the second set the same way. Both sets I came in faster than I wanted to…the first 100 of the drill was  1:38…fast yes…kick my butt for the other 3 intervals…very much so.  The 3rd set of four 100 yard intervals had to be in descending time. So whatever you do on the first set, you have to descend your time by 1 second for every interval. Remember, by the time you get the this set you have already done 800 yards of interval swimming. Not mention 400 yards of warm up and another 800 yards of other drills. Here lies the problem…I’m beat by this point in the work out and now I have to give it all i got and swim faster now? oh boy…The end result is always great. I finished and it was good. However, I’m starting to feel the soreness more and more with each work out. I think I’m getting a little better each time.

Last night I went to swim practice triathlon training. I do this with a group from EXCEL AQUATICS. We have two coaches that work us over. Ashley Whitney, who I’ve mentioned before, and Dee Davis. For the past few months Dee has been coaching our group. She’s tough, but good. As we were doing these drills and she told us that by opting out of breathing with every stroke we could save more time by creating less resistance in the water…basically, move your head less to streamline more. Take a breath when you need it, not because it’s every stroke. Once I fell into a pattern with breathing every third stroke, we took off the pull buoys and just swam…at this point, I had my breathing down to taking a breath every fourth stroke. It really felt good, but getting there took some patience. You take a breath, keep your head down and breath out for, in my case, four strokes. On the fourth stroke you feel like you are out of breath and you think "OH MY GOSH I’M IN WATER!!!!" I mean no one really wants to be taking water into their lungs because they are out of breath right? As I was working up to this, the only thing that kept running through my head was this, "just be patient…you’ll get there." In this situation, the natural thing for your body to do is want to speed up just to get the air. When your mind goes into this survival mode, your breathing gets quicker, heart rate goes up and basically you are pushing yourself to hard to make it work right when what you are really doing is swimming sloppy…so you have to ENDURE the anxiety a bit and stretch your lungs as Dee would say.

I wonder, how many times in life do we try to rush to the end and make things a little sloppy on the way there? What would happen if you took a deep breath, and exhaled it patiently through a stressful time?

With anything physical, when it comes to training, the first thing you learn about is correct form.  Why? because you want to use your muscles the way they were meant to be used and so you dont get hurt in the process.  If you stick to the form, (for you non athletic types, you could call this your plan) you will be more effecient and better at the skill…so, Dee would say, As your taking fewer breaths, think about form, do the form right and the breathing will come easier…

So I swam and thought…Just be patient…you’re doing ok.