From Dream to Reality

By TERRY LAUGHLIN


In the last issue of Total Swim, in the article Goal Setting to make Every Minute Count, I described how I had recently added several “Dream Goals” to the list of goals I use to give each day a sense of keen purpose. I described such goals as intended to “stretch the boundaries of ‘the possible.’” My three Dream Goals for this Open Water season included: (1) To win one or more US Masters Long Distance Championships; (2) To break one or more national Long Distance records in my 55-59 age group; and (3) To medal at the Masters World Championships.

As I wrote previously I achieved the first by winning the 55-59 age group in the 3000-Meter Open Water championship June 17 in Clemson SC. On July 15, at Chris Green Lake in Charlottesville VA, I got the second, as I won my age group in the USMS 2-Mile Cable Swim Championship, (A "Cable Swim" is done on a quarter mile course, along a cable or rope line, with a turn buoy at each end. There's usually a clockwise heat and a counterclockwise heat. I usually opt to swim counterclockwise) in a time of 47:00.56, 13 seconds faster than the former record, set in 2002 by Bill Braswell (who was in the field on Saturday, falling just short of the 60-64 age group record.)

It’s difficult to describe the deep satisfaction of setting a national record for the first time at age 55, in my 40th years as a swimmer. For the first 25 years, though I loved swimming without reservation, I showed no special aptitude for it. I swam for relatively undistinguished teams in high school and college without ever threatening any team records. But when I shifted from training to TI practice in 1989 all that began to change. I improved as never before during my 40s and have seen my progress become supercharged since age 50.

As I’ve written previously, swimming offers a unique opportunity for “ordinary” people to achieve extraordinary things through intelligent, patient and purposeful application. In most sports we can only watch in admiration as impressively gifted athletes do things the rest of us can only dream about – laserlike 300-yard golf drives, 98-mph fastballs, 4-minute miles, 7-foot high jumps, acrobatic basketball dunks. Such feats only become more remote as we age.

But swimming happens in such an uncooperative medium that it offers unmatched opportunities for problem solving. The strength, athleticism and special talents required to do special things on land have less impact in the water, and awareness, mindfulness and patience have far more impact. I believe I’m as typical as anyone of the middle-aged still-aspiring athlete. I have a slightly arthritic wrist, a balky shoulder, take a daily pill to control high blood pressure, and have spent lengthy periods in the past 18 months recovering from surgery or injury. Yet through craft and cunning, as much as conditioning, I’ve been able to achieve an athletic dream. Two Dream Goals down, one to go. I swim in the World Championships on August 11.

And to demonstrate that my story is not as unique as you might think, two other TI coaches also achieved Dream Goals on July 15. Ann Svenson broke the 60-64 women’s record in the same event, and Lou Tharp won the gold medal for the 55-59 men in the 800-meter Free at the International Gay Games in Chicago. Lou’s winning time of 10:59, improved on his personal best by 43 seconds! Ann did not begin swimming until age 35 – and set her first national record at 45. Lou swam his first strokes at age 45, mainly because he weighed over 300 lbs and had unhealthy levels of blood pressure and triglycerides. If Lou, Ann and I can set and achieve high goals from such modest beginnings so can you.

TI will publish a new book and DVD on Endurance Swimming later this year, detailing the strategies, techniques, and training used by Terry, Lou, Ann and other TI swimmers to improve their health and fitness and swim their best in distance and open water events.

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