Personal Narrative: My High School Swim Team

Swimmers, take your mark...BEEP!

I plunged into the freezing water and flailed my arms trying to swim butterfly. Although my other strokes were decent, this particular stroke, commonly referred to as fly, was my bane. As a result, I covered a couple meters before sinking like a rock. Despite these crippled wings, I had my sights set for a place on my high school swim team with the encouragement of my peers.

After the week of tryouts, I had one more obstacle to overcome: timed trials. If i exceeded the coaches expectation, I would most definitely make the team. Therefore, At the blow of the whistle, I sprung into a dive and swam as fast as I could. Once I finished the race, I glanced around to discover that everybody else had already finished. I assured myself repeatedly that I still had the chance to make the team; however, the anticipation for the results got the better of me,

I easily made the team with fly, my newly acquired weapon, and throughout the year, my teammates were my family as we trained, celebrated, and developed the trust we had in each other for our relays.

However, making it did not quench my ambition. I wanted more, so I set my sights at qualifying for the state championships. I wanted to be apart of the tradition where the state qualifiers bleach their hair and shave it into intricate patterns. However, I was naive to the fact that this would come with a terrible price; I slowly became an individual within the group rather than a teammate who supports the team.

The next year, I went to the dark side and trained with a year long swim team. I had my goal set at achieving that state cut. I endured three hours of training six times a week and began to warm-up and warm-down properly between every swim. One day, the training paid off as I achieved my first state cut in fly, and later on, I broadened my strokes and achieved the cuts in Backstroke and in the Individual Medley as