My First Day Of Swimming Experience

When I was five years old, I joined the Carroll Aquatic Swim Team. I stuck with it because I loved being underwater, feeling the refreshing water all over and the sensation of touching the wall, finishing first hearing the people holler. When I got older I just didn’t have much care for it. So, I decided that I wanted to give up. Then, my mom told me that I should finish the season than I could determine, nevertheless, I did as I was told. At my last meet, my mom signed me up to swim the IM which is when you swim all four strokes. I was convinced that I couldn’t do it because I had never done it before. I told my mom that I couldn’t and I would fail, but my friend convinced me that I should do it. She told me that I would only disappoint people if I gave up; consequently, I swam and received first place. In conclusion, I ended up feeling the same exciting feeling as when I was five.

I was going to go! I promised myself, and my coach, that I would! I was really sweating, my face was seriously turning red, like I was eating a fireball! All of my teammates and coaches were all staring at me. I was so terrified and I felt like I was in the ocean with sharks surrounding me and going to eat me any second! “OK, this is silly” I told myself. ‘I 'm going for it!” I started to run in very slow motion and sped up, I started putting my hands on the ground and I could just see eyes staring right at me! I began to put my hands back, well they were touching the other side of my body, well very quickly lifting my body up from the ground and…… Finishing!! I could already see my friends coming to me and putting their hands out so give me a REAL BIG HIGH FIVE! Well my coaches were coming right after them! I seriously jumped up and down with the most excitement I’ve ever had! I was trying to get that for years I felt like! And guess what? I did it! Gladly,that was the last rotation before we got to go home! I was so thrilled to tell my mom

"BEEEEEP!" Turning off the familiar but annoying sound of the alarm, lying in bed until the last possible second, I admit: this is the big day. All those practices and early mornings will be rewarded today. Finally crawling out of bed to get ready for the meet, I grab my goggles, a towel, water, and a quick breakfast on the way out the door. Checking in with the coach before finding the rest of the team as the pool area becomes louder with every passing minute while more and more people arrive at the big event. Sitting and resting, I try to save all my energy for the race. I put my headphones in and turn music on as I try to begin to focus. Talking to friends to try to calm nerves. It is time.

My story begins on the boy's varsity swim team for Hilton High School. Before beginning the season I had taken a two-year break, so I was quite rusty and out of shape. At the beginning of the season, I had a hard time getting breathing patterns back and making sure my technique was good. I would be negative and tell myself that I could not do it or I would tell myself that I was too fat to be a swimmer and I should just give up. But every day I seemed to walk through the pool doors to begin another day of practice. The first meet of

I woke up nauseous, too sick to eat. The whole drive there I was praying it would be cancelled. The fear consumed me; I couldn’t move. I just wanted to be home in my warm, comfy bed, instead I was diving into an ice cold pool. After warm-up my coach gave me a pep talk, but I was too nervous to listen. Sometimes I got so nervous I’d throw up, right before my event. To this day I still don’t understand why I got so anxious at swim meets. For the past several years, I have had a love hate relationship with swimming. I always struggled with swimming, and many times I wanted to quit. The time commitment and the physical requirements have always been a little too much for my mind to handle and it all comes to a crescendo when it is time to compete. I often wondered why I continued to put

“Get up now,” My mom yelled down the hallway. “Hurry or you’ll be late!” My brother and I dreaded waking up early to swim, but we had chosen to commit. Even though I’ve competed every year since first grade, I still struggled. That summer swimming taught me to have stamina, the ability to not quit even though it was hard.

White water splashing all around me. Flip turn after flip turn, my body grows weak. Someone is on my feet, I go under in order to let them go by. It happens again, and again. I know this is not a good sign for me. Returning team members sit there staring, they are not required to tryout again. I was trying my hardest to keep up, but it is not working. My tryout for the high school swim team failed miserably . At the end of tryouts the coach spoke to everyone. He explained that there were too many people at tryouts to let everyone on the team, although he wished he could. He gave us one piece of advice: If you love what you are doing never give up.

Meeting younger swimmers during multi level practices and cheering them on by name during team relays has allowed to share my positivity to all.

It wasn’t like any other swim practice, no, not like any other I’d ever gone to. No one usually moved to Minot, North Dakota that was also in swimming, so when Emily Pitcher and her family moved to town and came to practice, it was quite a shock for everyone on the team. She moved from Colorado and she had 2 younger brothers and a younger sister as well. They seemed nice enough but there was something about Emily, who was my age, which seemed a bit off.

When I first joined the North Attleboro Swim Team my freshman year of high school, I did not know what to expect. Prior to joining, I had never swam on a team before so it was a whole new experience to me. As the first week of swim started, I was apprehensive if I wanted to continue since I was not on the same caliber as my other teammates were. The practices were brutal but extremely rewarding, as I strived to prove myself and to my coaches. As my freshman season was under way, a couple of upperclassmen took

The journey of competitive swimming started at the age of eight for my local `neighborhood team. I exhibited great potential for the future, for I won nearly all my races. This seemed like the sport

When I glance towards him, I give him a reassuring nod and start to pick it up. My heart started pounding faster than It has ever pounded before. I could hear the crowd cheering and saying, “You can do it”, “Keep going”, or my favorite, “Go faster”. Zoey started to pull away from me second by second and I knew that If I just kept going faster I would win. Once I reached 200m to go I started sprinting for my life. Now everyone was cheering and yelling at me (in a good way) for me to finish. As I started to stare at the finish line my eyes started to water until, finally I passed the finish line. My heart was racing, my legs and arms were burning, and I felt like I was about to faint. I was so happy and a little light headed, but mostly happy. When everyone finished I congratulated and hugged my three friends, Zoey, Bella, and Sydney, who finished right after me.

I led a few stretches, ran a few warmup laps, and headed up to the stands. With my parents and teammates beside me, I felt ready to go, until my race was called. Then my heart dropped and the pressure of not false-starting, successfully passing the baton, and running faster than I ever have fell on me. My Coach led the three other runners and me down a tunnel to the track. Then we are placed in order by heat and leg

I thought to myself “What if I’m not good enough? What if I dislike it as much as I remember? What will the Lyman Hall kids be like?” These worries only lasted until I opened the front door of the school, because I was greeted by many familiar faces. I shook hands with the captains, Victor Jacome and Robbie Driscoll, whom I had known from my previous swim team. The first practice was very difficult; in years past, I would have considered it to be very mild and easy, but I hadn’t tried to swim in a competitive manner in a very long time, and even after a couple laps, every muscle in my body ached. This was a very foreign feeling to me because I hadn’t felt this way since I first started swimming when I was 10 years old. At the peak of my conditioning when I was around 14 years old, I could swim a full mile, or 66 laps at a competitive pace, without stopping, and I would feel fine. However, like riding a bike, there is muscle memory involved, and after a few more practices swimming started to feel more like I remembered it. Despite this, some things still felt different; I changed a lot in 2 years: I grew from around 5’8 to 6’1 and went from very scrawny to somewhat a normal amount of muscle. These physical changes were beneficial to my swimming of course, and I felt myself traveling farther in the water with each stroke, therefore being more efficient. When swimming

By this time I had started to go through puberty and became taller which enabled me to swim faster. The morning group was full of dedicated swimmers who were crazy enough to get up every morning to go jump into a pool and practice. Of course I was no different, but during April of that season I had started to lose my motivation. I began to skip practices and gave my parents excuses, which then they told me to take it easy. After two months of periodic practices, I realized that swimming was an activity that I wanted to do and that I loved, and I decided that I would not allow myself to quit, no matter how hard it became. When the new season started, I started to push myself, trying to keep up to the faster swimmers. I became close with my team mates as people who go through pain together get closer. We started to have more fun together from going out, to having funny conversations in the locker rooms. I also began to do travel meets where we would spend a few days together, eating, sleeping, and swimming. I spent more time out of the pool with my friends and even became romantically involved with one. Now, swimming has become one of the most important things to me, it has been the activity that has the most influence on my life. From my work ethic, sleeping habits, to my choice of friends, all of them are tied to