More Favorite Swimming Stories.
Want to add yours? Send it to me - Mathew Luebbers, swimming.guide@about.com
| Senior Year at YMCA State I thought I had the sport of swimming
pretty well mastered, and wasn't worried about any little things like false starts
and missed turns. After 7 years of swimming meets at the Schroeder YMCA pool, I felt relatively comfortable on their blocks (which happen to cover less than a square foot, 30" above the water). I was pumped for the 200 Breast, and was seeded to win because a teammate from last year, the defending champion, was already in college and no longer a threat. However, I was doomed from the moment I set foot on
the blocks. Before the starter could even mouth the famous statement
"take your mark," my nose was a few inches away from the T on the bottom
of the pool. My balance had betrayed me and my body gave me no warning of my early |
| The best I can think of is when I was in 7th grade. At the time my
best time at a meet in the 100 yard free was a 1:01.something...it was right before the
high school boys left for their season. We were doing a set of 15 x 100's on
1:30 in the Buchanan Pool (25 M). For most of the set I was holding around
1:15's(1:07Y), then with three to go the high school guy who was leading the lane next to me (they were going on an interval that lapped us), jumped into my lane (which I was
leading at the time) after his was done, and said, "You're going first, and I better
not catch you!" Being a wussy little 7th grader, I thought that
if he caught me, he'd beat the crap out of me. "57, 58, 59, GO!!!
I took off.
Tight streamline and relentless kicking. Needless to say, I swam that repeat with more furry than I have ever swam in practice before. I saw him right on my feet with each of the three turns I took. I hit the wall exhausted 100 meters later. While immediately rejoicing he never caught me, I looked at the pace clock and realized I had just gone a 1:04 metric (58Y)!!! On that day, I changed my philosophy on how to swim a practice. Instead of swimming at a pace that let me survive each practice, I began swimming at a pace that let me fail each practice. I then found that by failing in practice, I began succeeding in competition. |
| At Summer Nationals in 1997, a swimmer on our team, was changing in the locker room after prelims of the 200 Fly. About ten feet down the row a World Champion swimmer was changing. The story you ask... The World Class swimmer doesn't wear underwear. My swimmer stopped from that point on - and keeps getting faster! |
|
My freshman year I got on my high school team in December. It was my first meet and I was petrified. I had to swim the 50 free and was scared to death. My goal was basically to survive. This meant get in the water with goggles intact swim to the other end, hit the wall and come back. As this was my first meet, I was unaware that you had to hit those annoying pad things at the end of your race. Needless to say, my time came up as about two minutes for the 50. Oh well. I knew what to do for the next meet. I find this amusing to look back on the fact that I was terrified of the 50 because I was my teams best distance swimmer this year! |
Send me your story to add to this page! Mathew Luebbers, swimming.guide@about.com
Back to entry page for Your Favorite Swimming Stories From the Pool.
