The Water Is My Second Home

My hands shoot forward through the water with a fast splash. I can see the wall just a mere 5 meters away. This is it, the final last strokes that will determine my fate for a race. As my hands touch the wall, I look up at the scoreboard where I can be satisfied or not. This is what it feels like to be a swimmer.

I’ve been swimming for 5 years and there are many things that I love about it that I don’t feel like I get from other sports. One, it’s social. My friends and I think of practice as not only practice, but as a social hangout.  It’s what makes swimming more than just sets and technique. I also love the practice part (sometimes). Every time I swim, I know that practice makes perfect, so every meter I swim makes me better. I also love swim meets. You have to wake up at five in the morning when no one is awake, and drive (sometimes for more than an hour) to get to warm-ups, which start at seven. Even though it’s ridding you of your sleep, it’s worth it. I always love swim meets because I get to sit and hang out with my friends, but also race people from other teams (and sometimes my own friends) to get good times. The goal for swimming is to get the fastest time possible. My friends and I always try to beat each other for friendly competition and we always cheer for each other, which makes swimming even better because you know your friends are supporting you even when you are swimming on your own.

To me, swimming is one of the most difficult sports. You can do a stroke a thousand times, and there’s always something to improve. It could be head position, timing, arm technique, muscle technique, there are endless things. Despite these things, swimming is a very relaxing sport and is extremely fun whether you do a stroke right or wrong. Swimming is also not like a sport you play. When you hear people say, “I play soccer,” or “I play football” or “I play basketball” you can’t say that for swimming. “I play swimming?” It doesn’t make any sense. You  do swimming. It’s just something that you do. I also get lots of exercise from it. I may not be running on a track or doing wind sprints, but the repetition is very effective and I remember a time when my coach made us do 32 75’s alternating between butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. After practice, my friend had figured we had swan 2400 yards which is about a mile and a half in about forty five minutes. Even though we all just wanted to stop, we didn’t, because long grueling sets teach endurance and swimming requires endurance.

In my mind, you need three things to become a good swimmer. 1. You need to be able to practice. Practice makes us all better. 2. You need to break down everything so that you can master little things at a time. My coach always breaks down different elements of strokes so that you can get 100% out of every part of the stroke that you are doing, whether it be with you arms or your legs.

I’ve been swimming for a while and I swim for Portland Aquatic Club right now and over the five years I’ve been swimming, I’ve had good races and had bad ones. I remember in sixth grade when I had one of the best and worst swims I’ve ever had. I was eleven years old and was waiting behind my block before my 200 free final. I was nervous. I was seeded fastest in the entire event, so if I won, I would be taking home a first place ribbon, which I had never won. The first heat of the event was finishing up when my speedo goggles which were placed expertly on my head broke at the nose piece and fell on the pool deck. My friend looked at me in worry as I tried to clip the goggles back into place. I remember thinking to myself “Get your goggles fixed.” and I clipped them back into place just as they called up the next and final heat. I was still adjusting the goggles on my head when I stepped up onto the block. I stared at the water in determination as the referee told us to take our marks. I heard the start go off and I slipped as I pushed off, my ankle whacking the metal part of the starting block and going into the water with an unpleasant “SPLASH!” I was gritting my teeth underwater and started to swim, but my mistake had left me behind, so I sprinted to catch up. Forgetting I had a total for 7 flipturns, and a long 2 and a half minutes of swimming ahead of me, I sprinted and burned myself out in the first hundred. It was a bad strategic move and I will never forget it. Guess what place I got. 2nd.

Even though swimming is my favorite thing to do and I will never get tired of it, there are times when I want to throw down my goggles and call it a day. Those long sets where you repeat the same sequence of 100’s, 50’s and 200’s just tire you out. Also when my coach finds us talking while she is and makes us do a 500 free is a drag, but discipline is part of swimming. There are the exciting parts too though, when you win your heat and win one of those lollipops or drop a ton of time on a event are probably the two most exciting for me. When you are waiting for the ribbons that you won and you get them in your hands and they have your name on them with your time, that is one of the most satisfying moments a swimmer can have.

And after four years, I finally won that blue ribbon that had 1st place on it.

I am the lane that is 3 lanes from the bottom