Throwback Thursday

Topic 1 – Seizure leading into Olympic Trials

So, to set the scene, as is probably obvious with it being Olympic Trials season, this was a part of the 2020-2021 season. AKA, the weirdest season I have ever had in the sport.

I was training at this point down in Northampton and I had been commuting every week staying at a lovely local hotel called the Poplars. In truth, I really did not enjoy this period of time training down there. It was nothing to do with the training, I really liked the sessions and the environment, but COVID meant that it was a really lonely point for me for 6 or so weeks.

Due to the restrictions, and staying there 5 days a week, meant that I did not have many people I would interact with (my Mum, Dad and Abs were my lifesavers during this time). Such small amounts of social interaction only ever available during training times were playing havoc with my already fragile mental health and I just lost track of what was important at that point.

I have epilepsy, caused by a small benign brain tumour in between my frontal lobes of my brain. I am used to it and have it mostly under control. I had only had 2 seizures at this point, and it was quite easily medicated in a way to prevent them. However, whilst I was down in Northampton, the pharmacy I would normally pick my prescription up from was still in Sheffield, the prescriptions were also only open Mon-Friday, the days I was away down in Northampton predominantly. One week, I completely lost track and forgot to pick up my prescription in time, and when I was on my final week down in Northampton, I ran out of tablets with 48hrs until I could pick up my next set.

I didn’t think too much of it, I would never mean to, but back in those times I missed a tablet every now and then by complete accident. So I thought 48hrs wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

I finish my last session down in Northampton as I was changing training location to Leeds, a place where I could safely commute daily from Sheffield with a friend from my team. My girlfriend Abs picked me up and it seems like any other journey, however we get half of the way home and around Leicester and I start having a tonic-clonic seizure in the car. I awake to being parked on the side of the road thinking I must have dozed off, but Abs is in bits. An ambulance is up the road and I am informed of what has happened. After a trip to the hospital to make sure I was ok, I was more just annoyed at myself. I was alone, worried about Abs and what I had just put her through and frustrated that I had let something that was preventable happen. I wasn’t even thinking about swimming at that point.

In the incident, my back had been compromised and I had trapped a nerve which took roughly 2 weeks to fully release. In the first couple of sessions when I went down to Leeds, the coach, Rich Denigan, must have thought they had brought in a pensioner in with the speed I was going and how regularly I was having to stop!

It took seeing a physio who identified the spasming and gave me some loosening exercises that it really started making progress.

So fastforward 2 weeks and I am back to training almost normally. I WAS training predominantly for the 400free still at this point, but this incident directed my focus to another event of mine, the 200fly.

With only 6-7 weeks to go until Olympic Trials, losing 2 weeks of hard training and, although the Leeds training was much more suited to me, I was only available to do 6swim and 4gym sessions a week (my normal routine was 9/10 swim and 3 gym at this point). It seemed fitting to really be able to give myself a chance at trials to focus on just the one event. This enabled me to actually enjoy the sport again, as at this point I was having a struggle or two with this after all that had happened.

The work down in Leeds with Rich helped me learn how to be adaptable and kind to myself. Our sessions were focused around longer distance fly with the emphasis on finishing reps faster and imagining I was going through the gears.

The main session that gave me confidence was a session that involved 150s, 100s and 50s fly with rest or recovery in between the longer reps. The first week we did this I wasn’t quick for max effort swims, but it was also far better than I expected to be at that stage (1:33-1:35 on the 150s).

I learned how to be patient, week 1 = done! Now next week will be quicker.

2nd week – 1:32-1:33 = great progress, keep moving it forward

3rd week – 1:30.9-1:33 = more speed = great progress.

And so on, and so on.

This kept going and the time honestly didn’t matter because my goals were really just to make it to trials. I was intending to swim at both Manchester International meets but had to pull out due to the back spasming and lack of fitness so I was going in kind of blind. I say this, but that time down in Leeds and focusing more on gym taught me so much, and I actually turned up to trials feeling the most confident in my fly I ever had.

Down at the event, due to COVID-19 procedures, it meant that we had our own rooms, we could only travel on the walk to-and-from the pool and we had individual allotted training times, sides of the pool and limited swimmers per lane. It kind of played to my strength as it helped me stay mentally relaxed.

The event was at the London Aquatics Centre, The Olympic pool and also the pool where I competed in my first ever Olympic Trials event back in 2012, ironically the only event I did there was also the 200m Butterfly!

Race day comes and in the heat I swim a time of 1:58.37, literally only 0.3 off my Personal Best and my fastest ever heat swim. The best bit about it was I felt so controlled, and I knew that I was capable of a personal best at least in the final.

In the final, I have qualified in 2nd place and I back up the heat with a full 1 ½ second personal best, knocking my pb down to 1:56.76, halving the distance between myself and the Olympic standard and placing 2nd. I was so proud of myself and the swim and it reaffirmed what I have always believed I can accomplish in the 200fly, and this is why I treat it as my main event now.

The best bit about the swim for me, is it was slower than I had gone out to 100 in the past, just 56.4 out, but I brought it back in 60.3, when I had never come back sub 62. Clearly the focus on backend had worked dividends and gave me the intended confidence.

Following this, I unfortunately missed selection for the European championships, which myself and coaching staff thought was rather unlucky, but the point is that I was proud of my progress and my achievement. I can only take it at face value in what I achieved for MYSELF, not other opinions or anything else. I knew from that point moving forward I had more confidence and belief in myself, something that selections did not prove to me before.

My learnings from this period were rather simple, so I shall list them now

1: Be patient with myself – I couldn’t have rushed the recovery period, if I was not patient I would have shot myself in the foot with the end goal, to the point that I may not have even made it to trials.

2: Take my bloody medication – This one seems obvious, however I was clearly missing something and it clicked after this incident.

3: Focus on myself and only myself – I learnt that I couldn’t control what shape or anything that the other people would turn up in, but I knew I could control myself, my training and how I prepared to get there.

4: Teamwork makes the dreamwork – Working with Rich, Sophie my Gym coach, and my training partner and friend in Leeds, Tom Watkin, really helped drag out of me what I got at the trials competition.

Every competition/period of training/life, is a chance to learn something new, to develop and to progress, and as long as I am progressing, I am happy.