Mental Strength
What is the secret of successful racing? It is not pacing, it is not what you ate for breakfast and it is not wearing the right swimwear. It is the ability to keep going when the pressure is on and you are feeling uncomfortable. It sounds so simple but can be very elusive for some. You could call it "mental toughness" and some people seem to be tougher than others.
Can you learn it or is it instinctive? I don't really know but I think you can learn it to some degree by exposure to tough experiences and events. It is not just about overcoming pain, and being phyically fit, confident and motivated adds to the toughness.
Fitness and confidence will come from training frequently, training well and training hard. Whatever you swim the tougher your mind the better your performances will be. You have to be stubborn and don't give in to yourself even when it hurts. You can't just have the mental toughness though, if you get the race wrong and "blow up" no amount of mental toughness will help you. You need to have completed the necessary training to make sure you do not "blow up".
In my experience, swimmers who train and race for intrinsic/internal reward rather than extrinsic/external reward such as pleasing parents or coaches tend to be tougher. So do it for your own satisfaction not for medals, rewards from parents or to please others. You are then much more likely to do better and be able to push yourself harder when the going gets tough.
Parents need to be very careful about how they reward their children for swimming performances. I would not recommend giving swimmers any explicit rewards for specific performances as this encourages swimmers to look externally for their reward.
You can visualise and talk to yourself before a race but you can also try talking to yourself in the race when it gets hard. It sound a bit cranky but it can really help. Most of the better swimmers probably already do this naturally anyway. You can do this in training by trying to keep focussed and talking to yourself such as "I'm not going to let x beat me on this 50", then use that same self talk in races.
It is difficult to change the way you think and the way you deal with the hurt of racing to become mentally tougher, but in the long run it is well worth the effort. But the bottom line is that you have to practice the hurt in training and the old maxim of "train hard, race easy" goes a long way.
by Keith