Swimming

My freshman year of high school, I went out for the swim team. It wasn't my idea at first; Coach Christy, my cross country coach, had it in his head that all good runners are at least decent swimmers and, therefore, I would be a good asset to his swim team as well. I walked into the first practice thinking I would quit in a few weeks after he'd forgotten his impassioned swimming pitch and didn't really care anymore about my presence, one way or another. But as I headed home on that rather embarrassing day, with his good-natured, yet surprised, laughter still ringing in my ears after I completed my first 50-meter backstroke in slightly more than 50 seconds, I was left somehow with a desire to earn his approval for both swimming and running, so I decided to stick with it for the season.

As it turned out, swimming competitively wasn't something I was really cut out for. Years of running without bothering to do any strength training had given me a very imbalanced body. I had no upper body strength at all, which meant that even when I did finally learn the mechanics for all of the strokes, there was no way I could execute them. Even the little things were foreign to how my body moved: the flip at the end of the pool, the streamlined push off the wall, the starting dive from the blocks.

At that time, I was still seriously considering the Olympics in long-distance running as a potential life track (injuries, emotional trauma and simple pragmatism had yet to discourage me from this rather lofty goal). For this reason, I was running for at least an hour a day, sometimes two. Swimming practices were longer; an hour-and-a-half every other day starting at 4:30 a.m., and another three-hour chunk late in the evening. By the time I added these into my schedule as well as a weights class to combat my weak arms, I was training for something on average about seven hours a day.

Looking back, I am quite sure that this sudden increase in work I was asking my body to do contributed greatly to the sudden onset of injuries I experienced the following summer. At the time, however, all I can remember is the feeling of excitement I found as I improved my strength, endurance and speed in both sports at a rate that I couldn't remember ever having done as merely a runner, and the corollary feeling of embarrassment I also experienced as a result of being such a terrible swimmer. I'm not really sure why I never walked away from swimming in defeat, but I know that every time I allowed embarrassment to creep into my consciousness, my coach was there to make me try that much harder. As a result, I learned how to complete a flip-turn, how to save my energy to swim for longer distances and how to breathe in rhythm.

The thing that never seemed to fall into place for me was the starting dive. At first I simply jumped in feet first from the side, but as I gained confidence I began to jump in feet first off the blocks instead. Periodically, the end of practice would be spent practicing starts. I wasn't able to race until I could start from the blocks, so I would continue to try and dive in head first, although some irrational fear prevented me from making much progress. When I would get up on the blocks, I would meticulously line up my hands, one on top of the other as if I were really going to dive. I would think about exactly what it might feel like to execute the perfect racing start as Coach would say, "Ready, Set!" But even as he would say the word, "GO!" I would know that my feet were staying under me as I jumped instead. I remember my teammates would snicker as I walked up to the blocks; they knew as well as I that I was putting myself through a pointless ritual. I'm pretty sure my coach felt a little guilty about recruiting me at the end of the cross country season; clearly I was easily able to disprove his runner-turned-swimmer theory. One day as I was walking back from yet another failed dive, he pulled me aside. In what I can only describe as an act of compassionate pity, he grabbed my arm and said, "Come on Autumn, I know you can do this."

I can't remember what my thought process was between that moment and my next dive, but I remember hearing, "Ready, set, GO!" and shortly after that a loud smack followed by a pain as if somebody had punched me in the gut. Certainly, a belly-flop isn't a perfect entry dive, but at least my hands had entered the water near my feet instead of my shoulders. I headed off to the locker room that day with skin that threatened the anger of a thunderhead, but my head was someplace much more fluffy.

After that day, I started getting to morning practices earlier, so that I could practice my starts without having to wait for my turn on the blocks. I'd expectantly whisper to myself each time, "Ready, set, GO!" even though I'd hear "Splash!" or "Smack!" or even nothing as I dove incorrectly in different ways, or sometimes not at all. Often I would end my sessions by splashing down angrily into the water, rather than feel the let-down of one more failed attempt. Sometimes Coach would arrive at the peak of my frustrations, and he would always say, "Don't worry, you'll get it," which would inspire me to take just one more seriously-intended biff in stride before I stayed in the water to warm up.

A few weeks later, after I had been repeatedly throwing myself at the water to what seemed like no avail, Coach posted the line-up for the next week's meet, like he always did. I checked it with the rest of the team, like always, and to my surprise, my name was listed next to the 4x50 free. I was apparently swimming the third leg of our slowest relay. Briefly, I'll admit that I was kind of excited to swim in my first race, until I realized that swimmers who aren't the first leg of a relay absolutely must dive to start. Immediately, I was in Coach's office, sputtering that I couldn't do it, that I wasn't ready, that I didn't even know how to dive head first, much less timed so that I could start a relay leg. Never one to be second-guessed, Coach didn't say anything that I wanted to hear in that moment; nothing even close to getting out of diving or racing or swimming in general. Finally, I left his office feeling both dejected and terrified. I was going to let down three other people. I was going to be embarrassed in front of everyone. Most of all, I was going to disappoint myself.

By the day of the meet, I had steeled myself for the worst moment of my life. The warm-up I swam was a blur, and I remember shaking as I slowly pulled my swim cap on. As the first swimmer got onto the blocks for our relay, someone touched my arm.
"Don't worry," said Coach, "I'll tell you when to go." I managed to express my approval for this plan, panic a bit more, and readjust my goggles once before he told me to get onto the blocks. "It's your shot," he said, "Are you ready?"
"Ready," I mouthed. I checked my arms for position.
"Set?" Set. I crouched down.
"GO!"

There was a split second of silence, and then I heard the most rewarding sound I could have possibly heard in that moment; "WHOOSH!"

The sound was like thunder bringing rain, or Niagara Falls, or just a beautiful, sweet graceful sonata on a crescendo into the final stanza. In the few seconds I was underwater, streamlining out of a dive for the first time, I let myself scream in joy, in ecstasy, in relief, where no one would hear except for me and the water rushing past my ears faster than I had ever felt.

I don't really remember how the race ended, or what my time was (although I can guess it was slow), or any of the other details of that day, really, other than the smile I saw Coach give me as I hopped out of the pool, exhausted after my first sprint 50m. I remember the sound of that water, and the feeling of it rushing over my shoulders, and the elation that came with my underwater silent scream. Some days when life is getting ahead of me, and I'm wondering whether I'm really ready for what's coming, and whether I have what it takes to push myself along, I remember the way that Coach always pushed me. I remember how he taught me to think past my obstacles, and work hard enough so that one day I can just leap through them. Most of all, I think back to that day of my first successful dive, and I allow myself to feel how the water is going to rush past me when I finally succeed at what I've been striving for all along.

"Ready!"
"Set!"
"GO!"

Silence, then:

"WHOOSH!"