Officially psyched - posted at 20:10

The swim meet is coming up and starts this Friday. This is a Big Deal because it's the only short course yards meet of the year, it's the first meet I've swum in in two years, and because... The Adversary will be there. I've written about The Adversary in my much-neglected swimming log/blog before, but most of you probably don't follow that blog (hey, I wouldn't either, it would be fantastically boring to anyone except me) so I'll catch you up.

The Adversary was someone who was on the Buckner Masters Swim Team when I moved to Anchorage two years ago. She's the type of person who will either a) turn any conceivable comment around and start talking about herself, b) take any conceivable comment and turn it into an excuse to be extremely negative, or c) amazingly, take any conceivable comment and apply both a and b. She and her then-husband were having problems and she bitched about him constantly to people that barely knew her and had never met him (it is so telling about people's character when they do something like that). She is basically a thoroughly unpleasant person. Thing is, she is a very naturally talented swimmer, but she was so stuck on herself and thinking that her shit didn't stink that she was under the impression that she didn't have to work hard.

Apparently when I joined the team it upset the balance a bit and knocked some reality into her world. She is also a 400 IMer and when I joined the team she was faster than me. Well, if I have someone to lock onto I will and so I did and I used my dislike of her to fuel my own motivation. Before she knew it I was going faster than her in practice and I began to hear subversive whispers of "Stacey's going to beat The Adversary in the meet..." which was fine by me. If she heard those whispers and began to work harder in practice that just meant we were going to have a better race. I've always maintained that while I didn't like her, I always liked swimming against her.

Anyway, the meet came around and I beat her in the 400 IM - she maintained that she had a back injury but whatever. She had such a long list of excuses for slacking off in practice that I wasn't about to believe one that she whipped out come meet time.

Well she's not on the team anymore. I haven't seen her for a while and as far as I knew she had gotten a divorce and moved far away.

That is, until I got the psych sheets for the meet and saw her name in there. She has the nerve to enter herself in the 100 breaststroke, which she does not swim well... well, we'll see how that turns out. The thing that's really cheesing me is that she entered the 200 IM too - with a faster seed time than me - but didn't bother signing up for the 400 IM. I guess she just hasn't been working hard enough to train for that one, but there's no surprise there...

The only thing that's really bugging me right now about the meet is the 200 freestyle. I entered that because I like middle distance but I'm not particularly good at it. The Adversary is swimming it too and she always had a faster free than me - no surprise, everyone does. I'm a breaststroker and an IMer, not a freestyler. Anyway, ours is not a thickly populated age group, so if by some fluke she beats me in the 200 IM and the 200 free (notice how I'm not even entertaining the possibility she'll beat me in the 100 breast?) she'll win the high point award in our age group, which is unacceptable.

So yes. I'm a tad competitive. If I wasn't I never would have made it as far as I did in swimming. I guess the psych sheets have officially done their job....

chrissa commented:

Yey! I'm always in favor of a little "friendly" competition.... I hope you kick her trash!

Jitterbean Girl commented:

Thanks Chrissa! It's good to know someone is on my side :)

She's a really negative person, and I found an old post that had my mantra: superior competition through positive thought! Looks like it worked two years ago on her, I bet it will work again...

By the way, for some reason my blogging software ALWAYS marks your comments as spam, even though I've added your email address to a white-list that should automatically approve your comments. Please be sure to drop me an email at staceyfish at gmail dot com when you make a post so I can make sure it doesn't get trashed....

Melissa commented:

Kick some Buckner butt Stacey!!