This is what Sunday’s race looked like, the Bosphorus Cross Continental Swimming race. It gives you a bit of an idea of the sheer size of it. In my recent post on Facebook, I talked about getting caught in a cross current close to the end. A client asked me today how I fought through the panic so philosophically.
There was nothing philosophical about it, I told her. I coached myself, the same way I would coach anyone who was repeating the same actions over and over again, looking for a different result. The conversation went something like this:
I can’t do it, it’s too difficult, I’ll never make it. Do you know that for a fact?
Well no, but I’ve been struggling for ages now and nothing has come of it. So what else could you do? I don’t know!
How could you find out? I could see what other swimmers are doing who aren’t caught in this.
And then what? I could swim out into the middle again and then veer back a bit further on.
So what do you choose? It’s not that simple!
I can see the finish from here! If I move over, I might miss it. Ok, and how’s the current situation working for you? (see what I did there?) Well it’s not!
So what do you choose? I chose to trust what I knew. And that brought me to the finish. Coaching works.
That’s why I love it.
