ALICE DEARING
KNOWING WHEN TO STOP
IT’S NOT NORMAL TO TAKE A BREAK FROM swimming when you compete at Olympic level. At peak training, I would swim about 80km a week and do five gym sessions. It’s obviously a lot to ask of your body, and your mind, but it’s what you’ve got to do if you want to be selected for the 10km events I compete in. If you take time out of the water, it normally means you’re either quitting or you’re injured – and neither of those are good things.
Early in 2022, I failed to qualify for the Commonwealth Games and I was devastated. In the weeks afterwards, I wasn’t enjoying training – it felt like I was hitting a wall. Then, after one particularly tough session, I just felt broken. I got out of the pool and started crying into my towel. It was like, after 16 years, swimming had finally defeated me. I didn’t even have enough energy to speak to my coach. There aren’t many times in my career when I’ve felt like that. The only other time was when I got out of the water at the Tokyo Olympics and was so mad at myself about my performance. But this wasn’t anger, I just didn’t know what to think. I kept asking myself, Do I stop here, go home and end my career?
It took me a few days and some difficult conversations to make the decision to take a break. A lot of athletes are afraid of having those dialogues. Rightfully so: there are consequences to taking a rest, such as funding being cut, which I will have to deal with going into the next season. It’s not only athletes that find it hard to know when to take a break, anyone can struggle to understand when they need to pause and hit reset in their careers. But it’s important not to ignore the warning signs – mine came from my body: being constantly ill and never properly giving myself a chance to recover. Yes, it’s OK to push yourself, but you also need to trust your intuition. It’s much harder to come back from burnout than from a break.
I ended up taking four months off this summer, doing all the things that I’d been putting on hold because of swimming. I immediately went to get long, thick braids, which meant I wasn’t tempted to get back in the pool because it was too much effort to swim with them. My standards also slipped in terms of punctuality but, I’m not going to lie, it’s been refreshing to see a non-athlete’s perspective. We are super-harsh on ourselves, always striving for perfection. It’s been good for me to step out of that world and realise life is a lot bigger than your sport. There has been a lot of things to involve myself in that can hopefully help me create a better environment outside of sport.
When I wrote about being Team GB’s only Black swimmer in 2019, then became the first Black female swimmer to represent Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics and secured a Nike deal, I didn’t expect to receive so much attention. I’ve always seen it as an uplifting pressure, but it probably has weighed on me more than I’ve appreciated. This time off has allowed me to explore that part of my identity. I’ve got more involved with the Black Swimming Association, and looking to discover it more for myself rather than just being labelled as ‘that swimmer’.
I have had moments where I’ve questioned whether l will get back in the pool, but they’re never strong enough to overpower the fact that I really want to qualify for Paris 2024. I did go open-water swimming with a friend during my break. It was actually the first time I’d swam recreationally like that. Rather than thinking I’ve got to hit this time, I simply enjoyed the sensation of swimming.
It’s not long until I’ll be back in the pool. I don’t know what my future in swimming looks like; I’m going to put all of my energy into it. I believe my body will get in the shape it needs to be in, I only need to make sure my mind trusts that I’ve put in the effort – that I deserve this, that I can do it. But even if it doesn’t happen for me – if I fail in what I try to achieve – I know that in taking a break I’ve done the right thing, and I can’t regret that.