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Reflections on the Water:
Winning in Everything
By
Sabir "The Duke" Muhammad |
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Towards the end of every season I like to reflect and extract all the good I can from it. I am sure many of our readers wondered what happened to me at Pan-Ams and Nationals, well here is the story. After touching the wall at the Pan-Am games in the prelims of the 100 fly I can certainly say that I swam the worst race of my adult career. I felt like I couldn't show my face or even look in the mirror. I just said to myself "What's going on? You're not sick. You're not hurt. You didn't give up mentally." Not looking for an answer I tried my best to move on and think about my next race. Then a reporter asked me how it felt to be the first American male ever to fail to qualify for the championship finals at the Pan Am games.
I was embarrassed by the swim I swam that morning. The only thing I could think was that hopefully the onlookers thought that I was playing a joke on myself just for laughs. Yet, I knew that my swim was far from funny. Deep breaths and relaxation helped to clear my mind. Then I started to think about my swim and the many things that I did wrong. Finally, I thought to myself "What was right?"
Still unsure of what to do I came very close to losing all hope. I learned that not only had I failed to qualify for the championship finals I had also failed to qualify for the consolations finals finishing 17th. I closed my eyes in disbelief and listened to heartbeats pulse throughout my body. Was this the end for the Duke? Well nigh, but all was not lost. A generous hearted South American swimmer pulled out of the race so that I may have another chance. Thrilled with the possibility of rectifying the situation I thought that perhaps I had been given a chance to swim a "redemption swim".
My teammate Megan Melgard solidified my hope when she told me that I had been given another chance and that "its up to you to use it." At that moment, I knew that I would do a better job that night in the consolation finals. I thanked Megan for her kindness and I told her that her words inspired me to go for it that night.
The Consols
I arrived early that night ready to swim faster, I listened to my "pysch up" song and did my pre-race warm-up ritual. Ending my warm-up with a few pool bobs, I dried myself off and went to change into my race suit. The 100 fly was the first of event of the night, I stretched a little and said a prayer. I thought of Megan and her comment and was ready to race. I marched to the blocks with a smile on my face and hope in my heart.
Ready to swim with excitement and enthusiasm I stood up on the blocks clear-headed and prepared for victory! The race had begun and my show had started, swimming more aggressively than I did in the prelims I stroked the first 50 meters smoothly touching the wall one second faster than I had that morning. As my body rotated in the turn I felt my feet touch the wall. I pushed away thinking of the trip back. Suddenly I realized that my trip back down the pool would be a struggle.
As I spoke to myself coming back the last 50, I instructed my body the way I known for years. But my body responded in such a way that I thought that perhaps I was speaking the wrong language. I touched the wall turned to the clock hoping that real-time had transpired faster than "Sabir" time, but it had not.
On the scoreboard, I saw that my time was right and that I had finished a disappointing 5th place. However, the time was more than a second faster than my preliminary swim. I was relieved despite the fact that this consolation time was nearly three seconds slower than my personal best.
I smiled inwardly and realized that although I had experienced failure by not improving on my best time I had achieved a small victory that day. The moral of the story kids is to look to win every day regardless of how small the victory may be.
Another Day Another Way
After that day I approach swimming in a new way, if we can succeed in the midst of defeat then we really have not lost at all. We learn from each turn in the road we travel and know in our hearts that many champions travel the same road, they experience defeat and then go on to conquer the world. And really what is a hero anyway? Is it someone who wins all the time or is it the one who knows both happiness and disappointment and chooses to be happy?
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