One Saturday in early November 1970, I had an experience in swimming that mystified me for years after. While swimming in a dual meet for St. John’s University, I raced John Quinn, a close friend and rival from Adelphi University, in the 1000-yard freestyle. For several years John and I had swum for Coach Bill Irwin on a club team, Manhasset Swim Club, racing each other day after day in summer training, before heading to our respective colleges in the fall. John was always a bit faster than me in training and held the edge in most of our meet encounters.
On this day, I wasn’t especially looking forward to racing him. We were in a hard-training phase and I had felt sore and tired for days. The day before the meet—perhaps because grueling workouts had reduced my resistance—a nasty cold had reached full bloom and I spent the evening dosing myself with orange juice and vitamin C. The morning of the meet I felt sluggish and fuzzy-headed during warmup. Following the 400 medley relay, John and I mounted the center starting blocks for the 1000 free, flanked by two other swimmers from each team. I was aware that this was the most personal rivalry of all the races I would swim during the season.
After the starter’s pistol went off, we had swum barely four lengths of that 40-lap race, when I realized that I was swimming as never before. I was slightly in front of the field—I almost always started races behind and then had to catch up—and yet I was swimming with no awareness of effort. Over the next thirty-six lengths, I continued to move effortlessly ahead. I simply felt as if I were floating away from the field—so detached from the race that I almost felt as if I was watching it from the outside. I never felt the slightest pain or fatigue. I never felt as if I was going too hard or too easily. I barely felt as if I was even doing it. Yet, despite feeling as if time was suspended, I felt perfectly in control. At the finish, I had lapped everyone in the field, finishing a stunning fifteen seconds faster than the best time I had previously recorded when fully rested and shaved down.
I never matched that time again and I never beat Quinn again. In every subsequent race, he beat me easily. When I sat back down on the team’s bench, I just kept shaking my head and saying “I wonder what I could have done if I’d gone hard?” What I didn’t understand, but realize now, is that I had experienced a rare and elusive experience known as a Flow State—perhaps the richest, most memorable experience any athlete can have, yet one that few ever experience.
Today, I understand Flow well enough to be able to experience it virtually at will, while swimming. And I know that pursuit of Flow, more than the willingness to train hard, is the surest path to swimming your best. When you think about it, what activity could be more perfectly suited to Flow State training than swimming? Everything TI teaches is about achieving more Flow in your stroke. By making Flow State the primary goal, you’re simply taking the logical next step.
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