Long live Lamorinda Rec swimming. Long live the mom screaming during her 8-year-old’s 25-yard backstroke. Long live the dad with the stopwatch scribbling down relay splits. Long live the little boy that shows up to practice in zebra-print swim trunks and little girl that shows up in pigtails. Long live the teenagers leading team cheers. Long live the coach juggling a large Peet’s coffee, an unfinished meet lineup, and two or three pairs of sparkly pink goggles that need to be tightened. Long live the loud, hectic, colorful, sun-bleached, chlorine-scented madness that’s been every summer of mine for fifteen years now.

There’s a running joke that summer rec swimming borders on a religion in Lamorinda, and there’s definitely some truth to it. It’s honestly a little bit impossible not to get wrapped up in rec swimming when you live here. You see it everywhere. If you’re not near one of the 11 swim clubs in our league, you’re near a poster, a bumper sticker, or a painted car from one of them. If you’re not part of one of these teams, you’re reading about them in the local newspaper and seeing their parka-clad swimmers all over town on Wednesday nights after dual meets. Only members of these teams, however, have witnessed the chaos that is Lamorinda rec swimming in full force. This chaos has ruled my summer every year since I was five, and by some standards I was a bit of a latecomer. Others my age have been swimming for our club, Meadow Swim & Tennis, since they were two or three. Every summer we know has revolved around swimming. Every summer memory we have takes place at the pool.

If this is sounding a little intense for rec swimming, that’s because it is. We host a championship meet featuring over 2,000 swimmers. We have an online database that stores all swimmers’ times for every summer since 2007. We cheer on seven-year-olds wearing tech suits that cost hundreds of dollars. We have a list of Olympians who began their aquatic careers in our league before pursuing swimming or water polo more seriously. But this type of intensity is what makes swimming here so much fun. Over the years, I’ve spent hours visualizing my championship races and everyone cheering for me from the bleachers. I’ve spent days scouring that database, scoping out the competition. Heck, my dad used to make me Excel spreadsheets in the spring that tracked my progress from recent summers and projected my goals for the upcoming summer.

I’ve seen and done some crazy things as a rec swimmer, but at the same time, Meadow Swim & Tennis Club has also given me many of my warmest childhood memories. As someone who has lived and breathed Lamorinda rec swimming for as long as I can remember, I can say that it does live up to its hype. To get up on that starting block in front of a huge, glimmering pool, heart pounding in your skin-tight racing suit, forehead sweating beneath your swim cap in the August heat, thousands of people cheering you on from all sides, you really feel like you’re doing something special. Even if you’re just ten years old and all you’re swimming is two laps of freestyle, not even fast enough to be in the circle-seeded heats. You’re still doing something special; whether it’s popping your time, or touching out the girl next to you, or reaching a Bronze or a Silver or even a Gold time. Whatever you do, it’s special because it’s a part of something bigger, a part of something that has impacted me and so many other people in this area, a part of a long-standing tradition of teamwork, sportsmanship, and fun: a part of Lamorinda rec swimming.