 |
| Sophomore Hattie Oatts |
It’s 8:00 AM and my Hanson’s “Mmmbop” alarm is going off, which my roommate for the week, Melissa, loves. She groggily wakes up, but I’ve already been lying in bed wide-awake for an hour. I am so nervous- more nervous than my usual nervous self. It’s the very last day of our MPSF conference meet and today I have the 200 backstroke.
The team eats a quick breakfast at the hotel, and we climb in the vans for another adventure in Long Beach traffic. Driving those vans are no easy task for our coaches. Luckily, we drive down the beautiful shoreline, which distracts me from my nerves for minute or two. When we arrive at the Belmont Olympic Pool, I get warmed up and then get mentally prepped….. to put on my new Speedo LZR suit. A few deeps breaths, precision, and some wiggling, the suit is on. Good thing I will be swimming the backstroke to optimize what little air I am getting.
The 200 back is the first event today, so I get up behind the blocks extra early to get ready. I visualize my race and jump around to get pumped up. I hear the whistle to enter the pool, and I step in. The race starts and I feel the effects of being tapered: I feel fast in the water. When I finally touch the pad and look up at the clock, I see that I got a best time, and I couldn’t be happier. I hop out of the pool, and wrap myself in my towel to watch the rest of my teammates complete their races.
As the morning session wraps up, I realize that I just swam my last race for the season. My nervous calm down, and in that moment of clarity, I suddenly want an In and Out burger…. the best thing about California. Over lunch break my mom takes me there. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.
After lunch, the team packs back in the vans to go watch the girls that will be swimming the mile. Melissa, Tatum, Emily, and Amanda do a great job swimming, and they always impress me because that race is far from easy. Now there is a break in the meet for the swimmers to warm-up who will be competing finals. The team manages to squeeze in a quick photo shoot on the beach. The girls on our team do awesome. The stand out swim for me was watching our captain Tori get an NCAA B cut. She always works as hard as she can, and she very much deserved that time. The entire team was definitely inspired by her swim if not everything she does.
Tonight we get to have a team celebratory dinner with our families now that we are all done with our 2010-2011 season. Dinner is awesome. We are eating delectable ribs, and the restaurant is letting us make our own ice-cream sundaes! Being around everyone always reminds me how much I love my team. We always have fun together and its okay that I don’t always swim my best because I am only going to remember the fun times I had, and there are a lot of those. Looking back on this year of being an Aquabear as a sophomore, I appreciate my experience with my team as well swimming much more. Being a freshman is hard because that’s when everything in your life changes and it’s a little uncomfortable learning all those new things. This year I knew what to expect and I could really enjoy the experience. Hopefully, that is a sign that it’s only going to get better as time goes on!
No comments:
Post a Comment