Author: Abiel Garcia & Derek Monroe
It’s a funny thing going to a championship. For us, the swim team, it marks the end of a grueling five-month training season. Like a drawn out show-and-tell, three days exist in February merely for us to show what we’ve been doing for the past season.
We get to the hotel on Wednesday night and it sinks in-we are really here. Just a short while ago, the season was beginning and it looked as if the end was nowhere near. Freshly shaved (use your imagination), the only thing keeping us warm are some sullied budget-hotel sheets and a thick blanket of anticipation, the latter probably the warmer of the two.
Swimming may be a non-contact sport, but winning SCIAC is a three-day fight with yourself, the clock and the damn kid next to you who somehow managed to drop 35 seconds in the 500. (Okay, well done, Austen.)
The first swim is usually the worst, except for the most seasoned swimmer. You get up to the blocks, and it goes silent. No one but a swimmer quite understands the feeling of hundreds of conversations ceasing for a split second so that eight people can start their race simultaneously.
Your body is still, your heart is thumping, your mind is clear and every eye in the place is on you. It is a moment of extreme clarity, and it would be very liberating if it weren’t for the intense pain that ensues at the conclusion of the race.
Before you have time to realize it, the race has ended, and, in that short amount of time, nearly half-a-year of training has been put to the test. Your result is written permanently in digital ink, but the emotions fade only after the adrenaline has worked its way through your system.
The constant redeeming factor to this experience is that there is a team behind you, helping you along the way. Other kids who went through the same punishing workouts are now encouraging you and standing right next to your lane screaming at you to go faster while you swim your race.
Three days later on the way home, you sit in the van with fellow teammates, the pain, memories and glory of the past few days replaying amid conversations of coming social events that everyone can “finally attend” without practice for another seven months.
It’s in this moment that I am always reminded why I put myself through this. For some, it’s about chasing that ephemeral moment of clarity found on the starting block. For others, it’s the pursuit of the elusive goal time. For me, it’s all about the team and the (now) three years of memories I’ve built with my teammates. I couldn’t have put myself through all that without them, and I wouldn’t trade the memories for the fastest 50 freestyle time in the world.
Are you an Oxy athlete? Would you like to contribute to the Weekly? Please contact Gerry Maravilla at gmaravilla@oxy.edu or Andrew Valdes at avaldes@oxy.edu for more information.
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