The Struggle I left the cool air conditioned building and looked up, seeing the blazing red sun beating down on my dark tan skin. Walking on the pool deck, I then overlooked my 8 foot lifeguard chair. I then climbed up the ladder steps with caution. Next I ruffled through my long brown hair surfer hair to make it easier to see with no hair in my way. It was a summer day with plenty of people around the large pool. I saw children running around the slippery pool deck and yelled “WALK!” After, I continued on scanning the pool deck making sure that everyone was was walking and being safe.
The swim tryouts were going to begin in 30 minutes and I was suppose to watch over the swimmers. The children started coming into the pool deck and getting
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I was in a t-shirt, swim trunks, and slippers. My shirt was gray and my slippers were as black as the night sky. It was foggy that day with small droplets of water coming from the darkened sky. The trunks were a little long for they were my brothers. Water rushed over my body as I jumped in and it felt like the Ocean Blue. The water in the pool was as cold as the Arctic Ocean. I thought to myself I am not ready for this tryout I am too fat for this. I first started swimming butterfly stroke which made my arms tired as if they were logs floating on water. After that I started doing the backstroke and started feeling my legs starting to give out. I then thought to myself I just finished my 50 yards and 50 more to go. I felt all my muscles start to contract and tighten up. My veins then started to pop and give out. I had to start resting on every wall that I reached to catch my breath. I started backstroke which was the most confident stroke I was able to do. Backstroke was my fastest stroke and it felt like I could do this forever, but then I reached the wall and had to do freestyle. Freestyle was the stroke I hated the most. It was even worst while out of breath and no energy in my body. I started freestyle with the last amount of energy I had. I reached one-fourth the way for the 25 yards and thought to myself, this is the last 25 I need to do. After thinking that I pushed myself and kept on swimming. My arms during freestyle felt like weights in the water. I had just reached the wall and thought to myself, thank goodness I have finished my tryouts. All that mattered now was the coach's decisions if I made the team or not. The coach spoke “George you have worked hard to achieve this moment but i’m afraid you did not make the swim team.” At the moment I heard this I got angry. I said to myself I worked this hard for nothing. I was furious with myself and the coach
The first practice was at 5 a.m. and the night before I couldn't sleep. My mind would keep wondering what would happen, was I supposed to be wearing my bathing suit, what were my teammates going to be like. When it came time to go to practice I was shaking the whole way. Soon after I learned that my fears should have not been focused on such silly things now. If anything swim really helped me face them head on. With so much change going with swim I got used to this fear. My family and friends were also a great succor. Even though they probably didn't know that it was helping me. I'm very grateful to my father supporting anything I wanted to
I approach the rugged mountain, shielding my body from the nasty frost nipping at my exposed skin. The sun ever so lightly peeks over the horizon as I strap on my skis, lightly dusted with a thin layer of fresh snow. Although my body shivers unceasingly, I feel comforted by the surges of adrenaline pumping through my body. I skate briskly toward the ski lift to secure my place as the first person in line. On the slippery leather seats of the lift my mind races, contemplating the many combinations of runs I can chain together before I reach the bottom of the hill. I arrive at the peak of the mountain and begin building up speed. Floating on the soft snow, weaving through the trees and soaring over rocks, I feel as if I am flying. The rush of adrenaline excites me. I feed on it. I thrive on it. I am ski; I live for speed; I am an evolving technique and I hold a firm edge.
“Be Prepared… the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.” (Robert Baden-Powell). Track season was getting ready to start and I was excited for it because I love to run. This was my first year in high school so this would be my first time to get to be on a high school track team. I went to the first practice, which was conditioning day, and ran as hard as I could. No matter how hard I was hurting or sweating I keep running and finished in the top group every time. Practice comes to an end and coach calls up runners individually and tells us what we are going to be running. He calls me up and I am just knowing that he is going to say the 200 or 400. To my disappointment he tells me I am going to be running the 300 hurdles. I hated the hurdles so to myself I told myself I wasn’t going to practice hard because it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t practice hard so I got put on JV. I won all the JV races in the 300 hurdles so that just pushed me to not want to practice even more because I could win without practice. District track meet rolls around and Trey one of the varsity runners gets hurt so coach moves me to varsity. In my mind I am thinking this is going to be easy I haven’t lost a race on JV so I won’t lose on varsity. The intercom comes on and calls out for my race. It was time to go win.
After stretching, we went back inside the main pool area where we warmed up more by swimming laps in the JV pool. Compared to the outdoors, the pool was warm. However, it was also about the temperature I like drinking my water; ice water that is. We swam a few laps, practiced our starting dives, and went over the competition order all by or in the JV pool. Soon enough, the competition
My team, Brookfield, encountered many hard times to win this spot in the finals, and we ended up losing in overtime. We were down two to zero in the first half. Everyone was working vigorously. At half time, my coach gave us an encouraging pep talk. It hyped us up and gave us hope. Then in the second half, my team scored two goals to tie the score up. This made the game go into overtime. During the overtime period, which was two five minute halves, Waukesha scored another two goals. At the end of regulation, my team was devastated by the loss. We were defeated four to two. On the other hand though, we were delighted we got this far and took second. Weather
Summer break of 2015 had been greatly anticipated. With vacations booked, camp outs planned, movie watching with friends organized, and trek on its way this summer was going to be an unforgettable one. Here we are June 10, 2015 ,my first practice in preparation for the next school year, 50 freestyle warm up, working on streamline, introduction to flip turns, and freestyle technique. Fifteen minutes in and I am dead, exertion setting in, and I am wanting to quiet. Then in my head I hear "Will it be easy?" nope, "is it worth it?", absolutely, after that a thought about quitting had not returned. Every other day from there on practice getting tougher and tougher. With
It was finally time to run. As I got in my lane all I remember thinking about the time I false started so that freaked me out a little. Everyone there was watching, at least that’s how it felt. Probably because it was the first race. Then all of the sudden it was go time. Next I had to set up my blocks. I was ready to go.
Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On March 21, 1987, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned.
Hearing those hurtful words stopped me cold in my tracks. All of the satisfaction from completing the first race vanished. From that day forward I never improved and the coaches’ insults continued.
When i got there, i was pumped ready to show what i learned over the summer. I wasn’t that bad then, but i was nowhere near the people who were training for this for years. With their strength and endurance, i quickly had little to no strength, and it was about 2/3rds in. only day one as well. So I left early, and it killed me. I said i would make the team. I was so tired. It still kills me today that i didn’t try and push through the pain and try my
Swimming has been my whole life, since I jumped into the pool for the very first time. I loved every aspect of swimming from the adrenaline running through my body during my races and getting to spend even more time with my friends and my sister, and the stress of big meets coming up in the schedule. Except everything didn't go according to plan after the first day of school when I got home and I saw my parents sitting by my sister on the coach and my sister was crying.
Swimmers are required to learn the technique of when to breathe and how much to breathe and these are nothing that practice cannot make perfect. Blowing out all the air at once and trying to inhale too quickly or too late causes some of the biggest problems for swimmers, almost making them choke at times. The right technique requires you to breathe to the side of the recovery that is the arm which is out of the water and which alternates with every stroke. Whenever you breathe in, make sure breathing in as much as possible and then as your head enters the water, blow only a small amount of air both through the nose and the mouth. Continue exhaling small amounts till the next breath. Now, a very important pointer in this regard. Just as you are ready to breathe again, let all the air out quickly through your nose and mouth. So, in the next breathe, there should be no remaining air inside your mouth. Practice using this technique and all your breathing problems will take a backseat, letting you have an amazing time in the
The room started spinning, the walls closed in, and my vision went fuzzy. I saw stars everywhere I looked. My palms tingled. My fingers went numb. I felt as if my throat was closing up, and that I couldn’t breathe. If I had to sit in class one moment longer, I was sure I was going to pass out. I was having a panic attack. The first time I had a panic attack, was the beginning of freshman year after my dad had lost his job for the fourteenth time.
Finish, Finish, Go, and Go you just set the new world record. Every four years lots of people gather around a pool cheering for Olympians. It is a very noisy place. A lot of Olympians that are part of the summer Olympics are very athletic, they swim all year around. The swimming Olympic history and background is very interesting. They have done so many new things over that past couple of years. They come out with new rules every year to make things more fair and challenging. There are a lot of events and tons of records that have been broke. A lot of Olympians have set future goals to stride for. I was swimming the 200 meter fly I was at a really good time when I had 50 meter sprint left at the end all I could think about was I’m going to set the new world record. Olympic swimming is a very fun sport it is very athletic. Every year in the summer time every one always sits around a TV watching this it is very famous in America. Swimmers from all around the world come and here and compete. There is a lot of competition there I have found out a lot about the history of swimming. There are a lot of events and tons of records that have been broke. A lot of Olympians have set future goals to stride for.
After giving the signal to my friend that I was ready, I emulously approached the steps and sprang from the board- a perfect but imperfect dive. Perfect because everyone poolside oohed & ahhed followed by loud applause. This applause continued until... I didn't surface as planned. I was supposed to curve my hands after entering the water so I would surface and it played out fine in my head.