Throughout high school, I swam on the swim team for the fall seasons well as on the club team year round with the same coaches and teammates. I was never particularly good at swimming, in fact, I would say I was definitely one of the worst if not the worst member on the team.

That didn't matter to me though because swimming was a big part of my life for other reasons. It served as a fun (sometimes) activity to get me out of my bed and it was a place where I met a lot of great friends. It also has helped me in other parts of my life, such as learning time management skills and learning to persevere through life.

I know most of the people that chose to spend their time not breathing in the water for at least a couple hours every day have a love-hate relationship with their sport, so here are some relatable reactions to what we had to put up with every day at practice.

When you look over your practice and you know it is going to be super hard.

Your coach is just in a bad mood for some reason, so he decided to crush all of your hopes and dreams by making every single set on the practice ridiculously hard. You already know you and your teammates are going to pass away and go to heaven after this practice, and you've come to accept this fact. At least, after it's all over you guys will probably hit up Panera and load up on some calories.

Eating everything after practice.

For some reason, swimming makes you incredibly hungry. At pasta parties, there was no judging at all. Your best friend may have eaten five cookies, but you had three servings of spaghetti. You know it's okay because you just burned thousands of calories at practice, and you're "carbo loading" for your meet tomorrow.

Honestly, I don't know how much truth is behind the idea of loading up on carbs for energy for the next day, but regardless, I'll accept any excuse to eat more. Hey, it's necessary for success, right?

Always looking terrible at practice.

Your teammates have seen you at your absolute worst. You wear a swim cap which makes you look like a bald old man, and you wear a tight suit that shows off any flaw your body could possibly have.

There's no judging on anyone's part, though, because everyone is in the same situation. They know every flaw of yours and you know every flaw of theirs, except no one even notices or cares. No wonder swimmers are always so close like family. We all know this is a complete lie:

Morning practice at 6:00 A.M before school.

Morning practice was never okay and it will never be okay. Everyone is groggy, uncomfortable, and cranky, so you really get to see the worst sides of all of your teammates. Even your coach doesn't seem happy to be there, which makes you wonder why morning practice is even a thing.

It really doesn't need to be a thing, because everyone is way too tired at that hour to even function normally anyways. After morning practice ends, you still have a full day of school and afternoon practice to look forward to!

Showers with the team.

Whether it is a quick one that lasted three minutes after morning practice or if it is one that lasted three hours after an afternoon practice, it all serves as potential bonding time for the team. Whether we were singing together or yelling at each other over who gets which shower, it made us closer as a team.

I will never forget the time we spent in the locker rooms together, because it was a stressful yet exciting environment where you really got to learn a lot, if not too much, about your teammates.

When someone skips part of the set and the coach congratulates them.

No, Coach, you don't even know. She went to the bathroom for five minutes while we were all swimming our butts off, and then she came back and sat at the end of the wall for a couple minutes. You can't just come waltzing out of your office and congratulating people because you don't know.

Forcing your friend to come to practice.

You know that you will not survive practice without your best friend, but you also know your mom will not let you skip. You don't care that she thinks she has the flu, you just need her to come to practice. That way, she'll be with you and you can catch the flu, so then you both can skip practice together after you get sick. Perfect solution!

When you get yelled at for breathing.

Oh, my bad. I didn't know that I don't need to breathe to survive. No, it's cool, I'll just pass out in the water because you told me I can't breathe for such an extended period of time. Thanks for all the advice, Coach!

Teammates who actually loved the torture.

Most of us admitted that we hated swimming, but we still loved it in a way. There were a few exceptions though that absolutely loved swimming in a way that is almost creepy, and you always had to listen to them talk about how amazing that practice was or how excited they were for the upcoming morning practice.

They were the ones that were even more cheerful than the coaches were, and they were always excited to do whatever hard tasks the coaches threw at us. Basically, these were the people that made everyone else look bad.

Drylands.

No. Running is the exact reason you chose to swim. You thought swimming would involve no running, so when you found yourself running for practice every day, you wondered why you didn't just join track instead.

You don't really care that running helps your endurance because running is the single most painful activity ever. Drylands also consisted of push-ups, activities with the med-balls, and wheel barrels. Let's not even talk about wheel barrels. I don't think I'll ever be able to look back at those and laugh.

When you do well at a meet and realize your hard work is paying off.

Praise the Lord, because if you didn't just get that time, you probably would've quit right then and there. It's nice to know that all those awful practices were worth something, and it's awesome to know that you're improving.

Also, it's nice to be congratulated by from your coach, your family, and your teammates, because even though it is an individual sport, your teammates care so much about each other that they will always notice when you do well. After all, you guys are basically a cult.

I will never regret swimming, even though I did "hate" it. It really changed me in a positive way and made me a stronger person, and I had so many fun experiences throughout my swimming career.

I was never the top swimmer, but that never seemed to matter to me or my teammates. We were family, and I will always cherish the wonderful memories of high school swimming.