My Personal Experience: My Experience In Swimming

It is hard to think that in one instant an entire years’ worth of dedication, hard work, and countless hours of training can come crashing down without a single ounce of control over the situation. I never thought this would be something that happened to me. I am careful, I do not take many risks, I do not engage in any dangerous behavior, and I try not to make any stupid decisions. Apparently in the summer of 2015 none of that mattered and life just decided to throw its biggest curveball of my short 15 years of existence.

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.

It was my first race headed to Greater Lowell Tech.The first thing that happens when i walk into Greater Lowell’s track were 50 to 100 people in different schools including greater lowell there were schools like Mystic Valley, Northeast. My heart was pounding heavily like it can’t stop. luckily i was taking deep breaths to calm myself because the quad race haven’t started yet. So then our coach was discussing about Greater Lowell’s Course but there were a lot people i was shocked to watch. then show us the course when should we take advantage to pass people. Then the starter guy will say all boys will meet in the starting line so i walk there seeing 50 to 100 people in the starting line i already feel my legs shaking and aching a lot, mouth dry too need water etc. I look at the other teams they looked determined

Standing behind the starting block, I began to turn my head in both directions, eying out my competition. Standing behind lane four, I began to see who was seeded ahead of me. Seeing Her I began to shake girl standing behind lane three was Maya, my friend and the fastest swimmer on our team. Every chance I got to race her, I always messed up, one way or another.

People need self-motivation to succeed because not every problem can be solved by others, some have to be solved by oneself. When conflicts arise, individuals need to seek out the path of best fit to conquer the issue at hand. Throughout my entire childhood, I aspired to be a great swimmer. When I was a young adolescent, my favorite sport to watch during the Olympics was swimming. How could someone move so fast through the water? The extremely close races and extraordinary comebacks always excited me. I wanted experience the thrill for myself.

“Good Job keep going, you can do it, run run faster, you got this!” These were the words coming from the audience as I was finishing my last 100 meters in the cold, pouring, rain during sectionals. I was in second place in my heat and my heart was thumping and I couldn't see through the water stains on my glasses, but I heard someone someone breathing hard and their spikes hitting the track as they ran behind me and I knew I had to push even harder.I remembered the rough trading I had in practice and knew I could do it.

The coach made us run extra harder, which many people did not enjoy. I ran thinking, if I run hard enough, I will run the greatest 2-mile, the distance we have to run in the league finals, I have ever ran. We would run intervals, 1 lap, 2 laps, 3 laps, 4 laps, and vice versa. We would also run up and down stairs and run track laps until we felt like puking. The week passed by fast as we practiced, and the league finals was just up ahead now. The weekend before the meet, wasn’t much, but for most of the weekend, I had butterflies in my stomach multiplying every second the meet got closer. My dad told me not to worry, which I thought was silly, because this was a huge meet. I got a lot of rest sleeping, and finally, the day had come. The day of the cross country league

The 200 freestyle at WPIALS, the championship race for my section in highschool, did not turn out the way I wanted it to do. After practicing for three months I only dropped half a second in my race, finishing at 1:49:56, which is good in shorter races but I know I had more in me. The next week I could not stop thinking about what went wrong in my race. That weekend I swam a meet for my club team and went a 1:46:98, by learning from my failure I was able to get back up and succeed. Now, I know that all my hard work and failures will lead me to any goal that I set for

My life was changed this summer after my winter swim team received unexpected news. We were told that we would no longer be able to practice at the same pool as before, leaving all of the swimmers without a place to practice. Unfortunately, this meant that my team, the Tiger Sharks, would no longer exist. I was devastated and now forced to bring myself upon a new team with unfamiliar faces. On my new team the head coach, Coach Bill, was able to assist me in making this transition easier and he was also exceptionally inviting to me and the other new swimmers. His unique training allowed me to immensely improve my swimming.

I knew the first couple weeks of practice were going to drag on, but I was ready for whatever workout coach was going to throw at me. Then came meets and the fun really started. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely feeling the nerves, but it didn’t stop me. The first indoor meet was at Buena Vista College and I was in the open 400, the one race I had been training for. I was so anxious to see what my time was going to be that I was shaking. I just kept telling myself, “This is what you worked for. Everything that you have worked for starts showing now.” I ended up getting my PR and winning the race. It was the first of many heart pounding meets. As the season went on, every meet started to count even more and I was getting frustrated because my time wasn’t getting better. After crying to my dad one night after a meet, I realized that what did matter is that I wasn't getting worse either. I was maintaining my time and that counted for something. A couple weeks later I was standing in my blocks at the district meet trying to maintain my nerves. After the hardest 400 of my life, I ended up making it to state and I could not have been

In “Six Things You Should Know about Being a Swimmer”, I have changed the 6 things many times. From making it “6 Things You Should Know about Being a Middle School Student” to “6 Things You Should Know about Being a Kid with Diverse Parents”. However, I didn’t really know what 6 things to put about any of these. In the end, I decided to do something that I am really good at, swim. Even doing this was hard. They’re plenty of things that I could say, but then I didn’t know how to put it into words.

It was just a typical afternoon swim practice and the regional swim meet was almost here. We’ve been training and practicing all season for this event. Every afternoon after school we would go to the YMCA pool to practice. I’ve been working on long distance swimming, such as the freestyle 200 and 500. The night before the regional swim meet arrived, and I happened to get sick. I felt weak, stiff, and exhausted. There was no way I could do well in any event that was going to occur the next day. I took some medicine and had some tea to try and feel better. Nothing really helped. All there was to do was hope. The next day arrived… feeling sick and weak, I went through the day until it was time to go to the swim meet. As we warm up, I began getting a headache and feeling worse, yet felt like I still possessed the capability to carry on with endurance. When the first race came I felt nervous. The whistle blew and I was the last one to dive in from the block. Pacing myself slow and steady, I caught up only making third place. I felt like I could’ve gotten first place if I wasn’t sick, but I was glad that a team member got it instead of another school. The last race came. This was the most important race for me all season; I couldn’t screw up. We got up onto the blocks and once we heard the whistle we dove in. It was terrible. Everyone was in front of me and I was in last for at

It was a cold October day. The closer I came to the fogged up windows, the faster my heart would beat making my breath quicken. I step into the locker room to prepare for the pool. As soon as I step out the humidity hit me. I’ve been scoping out the competition for a few hours now and they are good. I say to my friend” I sure hope that I don’t have to race against them” . Then my name gets called and what do you know I have to go against a state winner and 6 more excellent swimmers. Suddenly my number gets called.”Swimmer's step up!”.My heart racing. Adrenalin pumping. Me trying to calm down so I can actually go. “ Swimmers ready?”...The whistle blows.

My hands dangle in mid-air, my googles snug against the border of my eyes, my mind empty as I stare into the sea of blue before me. The announcers voice echoes over the seemingly quiet deck. The faceless voice proceeds, “On your mark,” this sent the anxiety, and butterflies through my entire body as I gripped the rigged block. As my hands rest now on this pleated surface, I think of all the time and effort I had put in just for today. I knew that if everything went smoothly, I would drop a satisfactory amount of time. “Get set,” the changeless voice declares. My body now shifts my weight to my legs, my head moves into position, and my hands grip the block so bearish that my knuckles turn white. I repeat to myself, “two hand touch, it’s a