For most high school students, school starts at 7:25 a.m. and that’s pretty early already, but for those that are on the swim team, we have to wake up at 4:45 a.m. to head to the Natatorium. Practice starts at 5:45 a.m., which means it is still dark outside.

At school, swimming is a class just like other sports. However, it starts more than an hour before school begins and feeds into first block with a total of an hour and 30 minutes of practice. It isn’t until off-season that the swimmers get to wake up a bit later for a 45-minute practice.
Before then, it’s non-stop swimming from the start of school till early February when districts and regionals end the season. Afterward, we have a choice to play in the district Water Polo team. This supports the fact that, despite contrary belief, swimming is actually a winter sport and not a summer sport.

However, it is not just only about jumping into chilly waters every morning and swimming the whole time. Twice a week, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there is something called Dryland. We work out on land instead of the water. Yet, it is not always considered dry. Sometimes, after swimming for 45 minutes, we get out of the water and put on our t-shirts and shorts then run while wet. Since it’s fall, we are able to run outside for two miles, but when you’re cold and wet it gets a bit chilly.

Practice doesn’t end until 7:15 a.m., if we finish the coach’s plans. Then, we have until 7:40 a.m., to get dressed and get on the buses that take us to school. Trying to look pretty and nice in 25 minutes is hard for many girls, especially when they want to blow dry their hair and put on their make-up. Sharing a locker room with the bigger teams in the district makes it hard to get a spot in front of the mirror, and do you know how difficult it is to put on a pair of jeans when you’re wet? There’s a reason why many of us choose to wear sweats and a t-shirt. It isn’t until we don’t have practice that we manage to look beautiful and aren’t too lazy to put on proper clothes.

Like other sports, we practice our techniques, speed, stamina, endurance and swim an average of two miles a day. Without an official Junior Varsity, there aren’t any afternoon classes. So slow or fast, they all swim at the same time, but in different lanes. Compared to the other district teams we are small, but over the years we have grown from 12 to 20 swimmers. There are times when things get hard and we want to give up, but the thing is, like other sports, swimming is not just about the game.