I was already feeling pretty good physically. Mentally though I must say was a little different. I felt nervous as I was swimming. It was a weird feeling, like something just wasn’t right. The feeling was like I had a job to do, and I knew I had one. All season, I had felt confident in myself and my team. I had reason too. We were the best and we had proved it, but there was just still something. The thought had just hit me, like the sensation of being shot. It had just hit me that now was the time to do something with this confidence. The time was almost near. That really mad me nervous. I felt like I was going on trial, about to hear my verdict I was that nervous. The difference being this trial was winning states. All of the preparation leading up to this trial was the countless hours of practice both in and out of the pool. The fact that all of these countless hours actually meant something now made it seem somewhat surreal. I did not like this.

Thoughts started rushing through my head. Thoughts like I’m not ready for this. I haven’t trained hard enough yet. I am not tapered enough yet. And the worst of them all, maybe we cannot do this after all. This thought made my stomach do a one-eighty. I didn’t like it. I imagined all the momentum we had picked up during the season. I envisioned our team being a big, huge truck going down a very, very, slight one degree incline. We didn’t start out going fast. Even though we were state ranked from the beginning, it took us a while to really get going. I envisioned our team as a truck rolling down a hill that has a very, very slight one degree incline. We weren’t going fast at first, but we picked up more and more speed at a gradual pace. We were finally at the bottom, but right before the bottom there was brick wall, and that thought made me hit it in my mind. It was scary. It was an unsettling feeling to feel unprepared, not ready and like our team was not first place material. I felt flustered. My brain hurt and didn’t want to think. My stomach was in a knot, and I felt like I was going to be sick. If I could see myself, I would bet that I turned green. I had another “a ha” moment though. Finally I had remembered something. Something that was very important. Something that was key to being successful in anything. It was something that got our team through the year. It gave us some swagger in our step. This very thing was confidence. After all our talks throughout the year about being confident and the thoughts that I was having the night before, it’s funny how one can forget this so quickly. I was shocked at how quickly I could psych myself out and fill my brain with negative thoughts. I wiped these negative thoughts out of my head quicker than they had entered. I re-welcomed my confidence. With that, I stopped swimming. I knew at the very moment that I was done. It had been a productive swim and I was ready to win. My coach said to swim until I felt good. I dawned on me then that not only had I swam until physically felt good, mentally I felt pretty good too. I was ready to win. I had a thirst, a thirst that only a championship could satisfy. It’s business time.