Hoover Challenger

By Challenger Staff
 

So Close

October 2009

Right now I’m in a place where I want something so bad that I will go to great heights to achieve it. This year I actually have a chance of going to state for swimming. If someone would’ve told me that last year, I would’ve said to them that they were out of their mind.

But my coach placed me on the A 400 freestyle relay. When I heard I was going to be swimming on the relay that has made it to state in the past, I felt honored and pressured to give all that I had in the hopes of getting to state again.

My muscles are beyond sore, I can barely lift my arms, and there are days when I feel like giving up mentally and physically. But something keeps pushing me to swim all the yards at practice, to work through all the pain–going to Marshalltown and representing my school at the state level.

Words can’t describe how much I want to stand behind that block at state and look over to find my teammates and family cheering me on. That would be one of the greatest accomplishments that I could look back on with pride.

Recently, a teammate told me that our relay must drop about 20 seconds to qualify for state; that’s about five seconds per person. Five seconds might seem like nothing, but when you feel like you’re going as fast as you can, dropping five seconds could feel impossible.

Now I feel even more pressure to do my part and drop those five seconds. It’s possible. And I know that I’m going to give everything I got for these last couple of weeks of practice. I want my coach to not regret her decision of placing me on the A relay. I don’t want to get so close and have it slip my grasp. I’m so close, yet so far away.

Swimming is a mental sport. I have to not only physically prepare myself to reach my goal, but mentally also. Every race before state is an opportunity to push my limits and see how far I can go.

Last year I wouldn’t have dreamed of making it on the A relay. But with hard work and dedication, I made it. Who says I can’t make it to state with these last few weeks in which I will fight until the end.