Over the 17 years (1979-1996) I swam competitively, I experienced countless times going into an altered state of consciousness during practice.
My earlier recollections start around when I was 11 years old. At the time, in Canada, there was a national ranking for the 3000m free. I remember clearly doing a timed 3K at Laval University, racing with Alexandre Leduc. These would take us a good 45 minutes to do at first. We were racing each other the whole time as none of us wanted to be second. Through the sustained effort and focus, I would drift into a state where I felt like the energizer bunny; meaning that although I was pushing my body to its limits, I felt like I could keep this going forever. Also, time was not passing as normal. Sometimes it felt like I had swam for a few minutes only, rather than 45ish minutes.
I remember sets where I was racing with Jacynthe Pineault. There too what pushed me into Flow, was my intense desire to not let a girl beat me!
One set I remember, was three 400 IM on 5:00 short course at the Charlesbourgs pool on a Thursday afternoon. I was 16. Nicholas Perron and I were doing the set together. At the time, our best times in this event was something like 4:40, so on 5 minutes, three times in a row was quite a challenge! None of us wanted to miss the pace time, or be slower than the other. For me it was also important to be able to beat Coach CYB’s set. I can’t remember if Nicholas made all three, but I remember I did.
I think it is then that I first came to realize that once I “die” (the body is overwhelmed by lactate and pain), if I keep pushing myself a bit longer, there’ll come a point where I simply stop feeling any pain although I’m not swimming any slower. It’s like, the invincible zone, where the body is more like a machine than an organism. Whenever I would enter that state, I would swim at a crazy rate while being able to sustain it for period of time that seemed impossible.
One set, often sent me in the zone. I remember one particular time doing that set in Sherbrook during the Canada Games prep camp in 1993. The set was 20 x 50 on 1:20 long course. Odd were fly and even free. At each 50 we had to get out of the water to dive. All the 50’s were at maximum speed.
Coaches were calling out times and I wanted to make sure that my times were the fastest out of everyone. As the lactate accumulated, I could feel more and more pain/discomfort but I felt I had no time to think about it because my desire to be outstanding wouldn’t let me give myself a break. It didn’t take long to get to the invincible feeling.
I remember at one point, Coach Lois Daigneault, caught me false starting and gave me 50 push ups. I didn’t like it but I didn’t have time to feel bad about it as I wanted to show Coach Lois that there was nothing she could throw at me that would make me crack.
I proceeded to doing my 50 push-ups non-stop and getting back to the set without missing the interval.
It seems that wanting to beat my coach’s set, wanting to out do my training partners and my desire to stand out from my peers, were important factors into getting me to experience these altered states of consciousness.
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