For most Americans, and anyone else for that matter, swimming is a sport only thought up and glorified every four years when the Summer Olympics roll around. This past week Omaha hosted the United States Olympic Team Trials for swimming, an intensely competitive swim meet where athletes compete for the top two spots (or top six in certain freestyle events) in each event to make the U.S. Olympic team. This meet can possibly be the fastest meet in the world besides the actual Olympics because of the vast talent of swimmers in the United States. This meet was nostalgic for me and made me remember my experience competing at the Olympic Trials in 2012 and what lessons that swim meet taught me.
Being Unprepared Sucks
Being an athlete I have heard this phrase or something along the lines too many times, "It's not about the meet, it's about the preparation, hard work and effort put into the process months and years before".
I won't go into detail about my training situation that led up to the 2012 Olympic Trials, but I will say that being a senior in high school and having to force myself to train alone and get through workouts (if I even got through the warm up and pre-set without getting out) the whole year before the actual meet was definitely not a recipe for success. Adding six seconds to my best time at the meet was definitely a slap in the face and a mixture of not training and eating like I should've but also letting stress get to me and letting my emotions and anxiety take over and hijack my race plan. Back then I was terribly inexperienced and naive to what "hard work" actually meant. It was the lowest and highest point of my career. I learned what failure really felt like and how to gain my confidence back during my upcoming freshman season at the University of Utah, where I struggled with swimming with confidence because of it.
Stress
I wish I could say that every time I stepped onto the blocks before a race I didn't have butterflies in my stomach even if it was a meet where I knew the outcome, whether I knew I was going to lose or win. Never in my life have I shaken standing on the blocks waiting for the starter to press the button and here the buzz signaling all of the athletes to dive in like I did the morning I was standing on the same blocks athletes would stand on to qualify for the Olympic Team.
The race I was competing in (200-meter breaststroke) required you to pace yourself and stick to a race plan and not let the stress get to you and control your stroke rate. That was the complete opposite of what I did once I dove into the water. Right from the start I let my nerves get to me from the moment I stepped up and didn't swim with confidence and dove in and spun my wheels and had the stroke rate I would have if I were racing a 50 or 100 meter sprint. This resulted in my body completely shutting down and completely hit a wall and was just glad I made it to the wall without drowning. This was the most stressed and anxious I had ever been at a swim meet besides maybe my first actual swim meet as an age group swimmer when I was first introduced to the sport. Although "shoulda-coulda-woulda's" still haunt me, I'm glad I had this experience and went through that stress to be able to reflect on it and compare it to any stress I would feel later in life.
How Connected the Swimming Community Is
We seriously will know a swimmer in every heat, have heard of them, or someone who swam with them or have a mutual friend with that person. This lesson wasn't a lesson I really understood until watching Trials this year. After four years of collegiate swimming at a PAC-12 program helped strengthen the connection between other swim teams and myself because of the people I've met through this sport. I have either competed against, been at meets with these athletes, or have mutual friends with former and present teammates or just know of someone because... well, swimming. My roommates (also teammates) come from different states and different swimming communities that are also very well connected and were able to look at the names of the swimmers that were in the water and distinguish how they were familiar with their name whether they grew up swimming with them or have seen their name on countless heat sheets as club swimmers at local and national level swim meets. This is one of my favorite take-away's I've gained through swimming, being able to network and make friends with other swimmers I meet because of how interconnected our sport is.
Humble Yourself
Being at one of the biggest and fastest swim meets in the world definitely shed some light on where I stood among my other swimming peers. Jumping into the same warm-down pool as Olympians and have them hanging out on the wall right next to you talking to their friends was eye-opening. First of all, they made me feel tiny, as I was a scrawny 18-year-old that had maybe 15 percent of the muscle mass they had. Second, it made me realize just how many people are still competing and involved in the sport chasing their Olympic dreams well beyond their collegiate careers.
Being at this venue means you're the best of the best in all of swimming in the country. Its basically a national meet except more people strive to be qualified for this meet and attend because of the chance to represent their country at the summer Olympic games. Understanding that your hard work, perseverance, and talent have gotten you to one of the biggest stages the sport of swimming has to offer and that you deserve to be there.
The commitment it takes to reach the Olympic Trials is incomparable to other team sports because it relies solely on the work you put into the process to qualify and just make it there. It takes a different breed of athlete to make it to this swim meet because it involves both talent, skill, and determination through the years of grueling training and double practices all year, not just in the conditioning phase like most team sports do.
Even though I choked at the Olympic Trials I was able to find the silver-lining and gain a take-away about who I was as a person and how to use this as a tool to reflect upon in the future when faced with having to bounce back from a failure and needing to be humbled again by the memories and experiences of my past.
Support
My favorite part of the whole experience wasn't even the swim meet, it was seeing all of the support I had from my family, friends, state, and hometown. When you're a part of an Olympic sport like swimming it is easy for other popular sports to look down on you and not even consider what you do a sport until the Olympics roll around and everyone and their grandma magically become experts on whatever sport is on the television.
Being young and fresh out of high school I never really wrapped my mind around how big of a deal it was to qualify and compete at this swim meet. Although, no one really understood how big it was either because they didn't understand the sport of swimming unless they were swimmers themselves, but that didn't stop them from showing their support in my accomplishments. Having my town and regions support meant the world to me, to have people acknowledge everything I've done in the sport of swimming helped me realize how many people I actually had in my corner rooting for me. You never know how many people you have on your side until you're put into the public eye.
Although my swimming career has come to an end earlier this year and I didn't qualify for this year's Olympic Trials meet I am proud to say that I've qualified and experienced this meet in 2012. My career came to an end as I fell out of love with competing in the sport after going through four years of collegiate swimming and burning out and finding it extremely hard to get motivated through my senior year. I still have a love for the sport though and am glad to still be a part of it as a coach and shedding my wisdom and experience to younger generations of swimmers. One of my favorite coaches that inspired me in and out of the pool once told me that he takes pride in his job, helping others achieve their dreams. I can relate now after seeing the pure joy and astonishment on the faces of the swimmers I coach whenever they get a best time or reach the goals they set, it makes this job so much more worth it and fulfilling. I'm still young and still learning the ropes in this here life, but I am glad to have learned and experienced everything the Olympic Trials had to offer me.
