The Possibility of Success

Today at the end of my workout at the pool, the biggest fastest guy remarked about the set we'd just swum:  "I went ten on the one-fifteen interval today.*  I used to do a hundred 100s on 1:15 when I was really fit."

Ten thousand yards of freestyle in one long set is a lot to do.  Swimmers know this.  So, our eyes bugged a little since we'd only just done eight or ten 100s, depending on our send-off interval,* and we were feeling like that had been plenty.

Someone near me said, "I didn't know if I really wanted to try a harder interval today," and we all pretty much agreed, nodding, mumbling about Monday morning, tired after busy weekend, head not in it today, etc.

Big Fast Guy said, "Well, you can try and you might fail.  But, you can try and you might succeed."

Those kinds of words spoken from a guy who has just shown you their heels for an hour, and who is now smiling at everyone with the attitude of a winner who is actually encouraging everyone by example sink in extra deeply and make you feel like your excuses are, well, just excuses and that you have quite a bit more to offer if you take up the challenge.

I thought over other incidents in life when I'd felt self-doubt and gotten all tangled up in my own excuses only to feel the whoosh of someone passing me by, ignoring their own excuses entirely.  There you are, knocked head over heels into the weeds by someone who has made a different choice than you have, even though you actually wanted to make the other choice, the attempt-to-succeed choice, but you had diddled around and doubted yourself.

I like to watch sports and especially go bonkers over the Olympics when they come 'round every four years.  In spite of the fact that there are tremendous commercial trappings surrounding sports, at the core of sport is the athlete who says, "I could try and I might fail, but I could try and I might succeed."

Where do you see that in "real life?" Spirit, attitude, je ne sais quoi - the little something extra in people that's different, elevated.  It sparks the air, changes the equation and things pop.

We in the pool this morning were all willing in certain ways, willing to get to the pool, jump in and swim together.  We all know each other, feel familiar with how each of us swims and are usually pretty satisfied with just that.  When someone adds an extra spark, the pace changes.  Big Fast Guy could have been yelling and shouting and he would not have had half the impact he did when his quiet true words floated up over our heads at the end of the hour:  I could try and fail or I could try and I might succeed.

(*Swimmers do "sets" of a given number of laps and "send off" on a given time interval.  ex:  Ten 100s on 1:15 means you do four laps every minute and fifteen seconds ten times.  If you want any rest, you finish the four laps before the next "send-off" time.  You start, swim four laps, finish in less than 1:15, and when the second hand on the timing clock gets to the 1:15 mark, you start again, and so on. Seconds feel like big chunks of time when you swim.  A competitive swimmer knows their aerobic send-off time, which is the time they know they can do the given number of laps repeatedly for a long time.)