1500m pain explained

My love/hate relationship with the 1500m

Jo Mitchinson - MP Ambassador & Team Aqua Sphere UK Athlete

I’ve recently had the ‘pleasure’ of racing two 1500’s in 6 days. First at the Barnet Copthall Masters 1500m meet where I went 18:26 and next at the Stevenage Swimming Club Champs where I went 18:14. The opportunity to once again swim an event that I loved in my early 20’s has brought back a lot of memories of the random thoughts that occupy my mind in the time it takes to swim 60 lengths of the pool. I thought it would be worth getting these down so that coaches & parents understand what may well be happening inside the head of their athlete. 

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but when I dive in I always congratulate myself for not false starting. Then I think a phrase that has been with me since I was young “get up, get out, get on your way” - which basically encourages me to settle quickly into a strong rhythm. 

And then the weirdness kicks in and my logical brain is taken over by 18 minutes of abstract thoughts that pop into and out of my head. Such as; 

100m- “Ok, only 1400m to go”

200m - “1500m is a really long way”

300m- “I’m a fifth of the way!!”

400m - annoyingly, at about this point my brain usually throws a random tune my way. It's a way of distracting myself from the task in hand, but it's not massively useful and usually ends up with me losing count!! In both races recently it’s been ‘The Wizard & I’ from the musical Wicked. The verses; 

get stuck on repeat & although I remember thinking; 

500m “here comes the middle 20 lengths” (yep, this event comes with a middle 20!!), "If I looked in a dictionary, I'm pretty sure ‘de-greenified’ wouldn't be in it" "It should be though, it's a good word" 

600m - "I can't do this, this is a stupid event. Whose bright idea was this? Never again".

700m  - "nearly halfway" "HALFWAY??" 

750m - "On the home stretch now"

 800m  - “stay focused. You’re approaching the business end of the race”. 

900m - “you’re nearly there. Your arms are lying, they’re fine!! It’s not pain- they’re just reminding you that they’re there”

1000m - “no, it’s pain” At this point I ‘treat’ myself to a look at the lap counter. In both recent races I’ve been either 50 or 100m out at this point- which is horrendous. The thought of stopping through sheer disappointment of having more swimming left than you expected is very real and pretty devastating. 

1100m - “nearly there, you do loads of 400’s. You know how to swim these”

1200m  - “if I degreenified you?? What does that even mean??”  “ouch, my legs” "I can't do any more tumbles, they hurt too much", "I wish I kicked harder in training when I'm nagged to".

1250m - “the last 10 lengths don’t count, you won't even notice them”

1300m - “descend 4x50’s, that’s all, 4x50’s. You can do this”

1400m - “I can’t do this at all. 4 lengths is too much. If my counting was right I’d have bloody finished”

1450m - "THE WHISTLE!! Was it mine though??" “if anyone dares wave their hand at me and tell me to sprint or kick my legs I swear I’ll kill them”

1500m - “loved that!! Best event ever. When’s the next one?” 

That’s the genuine turmoil my brain is in during a 1500m race. It’s a mentally draining race, in which your ability to focus & concentrate is essential.  I think about how my arms feel, I think about pain, song lyrics & how many lengths left, but I never think about the other swimmers. I’m not in control of anything they do. They’re not feeling my pain & I’m not feeling theirs. In a 1500, more than any event I’ve ever swam it’s my race & I have to swim it my way. Go off too fast trying to race others & it’s going to go wrong. Go off too slow & you’re going to think it was a waste of time getting your cozzie wet. But when I hit it right I start feeling it with 1000m to go & am fighting with myself not to stop with 500m to go, it is my favourite event by exactly 1.5km!!