Suffocating...

I remember during the late 90’s watching the Yankees defeat the Red Sox over and over again as the curse of the Bambino continued to rock Boston. It wasn’t until 2004 that the Sox finally claimed redemption and ultimately won the World Series. I can remember watching Chuck Knoblauch, the 2nd baseman for the Yankees, making errors on routine throws to first base. This man was once considered one of the most lethal double-play (DP) men in the game. When he went to the Yankees in the 1998, after spending 7 seasons with the Twins, he began having difficulty with his throw to first base to complete outs. Unbelievably, Knoblauch accumulated 26 errors in the 1999 season. The problem became so bad that they moved him to Designated Hitter (DH) to limit the liability that he became . How could a famed DP man become so bad that he had to be removed from the position? This is what I call suffocating in sport.

My term is mainly a result of this condition that I experience personally, in swimming, but this applies to this mental deterioration that occurs in a stressful, pressured or uncomfortable situation in sport – feels just like suffocating. In swimming, you can’t simply pull over or stop the activity and if you lack the confidence to save your own life then you find yourself in a unique survival situation. Now, couple that with a race-pace scenario, the inability to breathe properly or even get a breath, a massive amount of people surrounding you and doing their best to climb over the top of you or pull at you – maybe even unintentionally knock your goggles off or kick you in the head. This is the riskiness of the swim course in a triathlon. The panic that may ensue is mentally damaging and energy draining. Learning to deal with these emotional battles and doing what it takes to overcome them is what separates those athletes making errors on routine plays and hanging on the side of a kayak from those making double plays and swimming successful courses.
I can actually feel the mind deteriorate. It starts with something going wrong; that may be a mouthful of water or an inability to get any space in the tumultuous “washing machine”, etc. Breathing and heart rate naturally increase as panic begins and the survival mechanism begins to take over. Your mind is telling you to get to safety immediately, not to relax and continue on with this insanity. As you begin to hyperventilate and heart rate reaches higher and higher levels, the mind begins to wander from the present. Thoughts of the pain ahead and mistakes of the past begin to send messages that this has to stop and you should not go on – but that’s not what triathletes do!
Mental toughness is so critical in overcoming these challenges. No matter how trained an athlete is, poor mental preparation can cripple even the most capable of performers. It is crucial to develop a contingency plan and visualization strategies for when things go wrong as well as to practice as much as possible in that racing environment. Perfect practice makes perfect.