Swimming was boring. The commute to Albany was a whole half hour, and I never enjoyed the practice. It was a huge waste of time. The coach didn’t really notice me in the water, so I never really strived to get better. Also, my commitment was poor. I would always whine to my mom, asking to skip practice. Swimming was miserable, and I kept falling down the hole of boredom and laziness. However, one sentence would change my whole mindset.

It was the Albany Armada swim team’s home meet, and I happened to be on that team. The meet was a pretty important one, but I could honestly have cared less. I walked into the building at 6:00 in the morning (typical swim meets start at 7:00, but I was helping to set up because it was our home meet), and bumped really hard into my friend, Michael.

“Morning!” I said through a yawn. “Ready for this meet?”

“No, not really. I couldn’t sleep last night,” Michael replied. Michael was a freshman, and I was an 8th grader. He was a swimmer in my speed group, and he happened to look similar to me in the water. Our coach confused us so often that he started to give us quarters every time he said our names wrong (I made about twenty dollars from that). 

An hour later, I had finished warming up and was about to compete. As I stepped up onto the blocks, my legs shivered from the cold. My mind barely even processed the weird ringing noise that went off. However, thanks to muscle memory, I pushed off the blocks in time. My face hit the water (kinda hard, not gonna lie) and I was awake again. I swam the 100 IM, which included 25 yards of butterfly, 25 yards of backstroke, 25 yards of breastroke, and 25 yards of freestyle. I pushed and pushed, until I finally reached the freestyle portion of the race. I pushed my legs even harder, and I hit the wall just a second before the person in the lane to my right. I lifted my head up, felt a wave of nausea, and looked at the timeboard. My time was 1:12:54. I’d gotten first place in my heat. I shook hands with the swimmers in the lanes next to me, hopped out of the water, and immediately went to cool down. After my cooldown, I went back to my tent and started wiping myself dry. At that moment, my mom and an average height Asian man with a hat and sunglasses walked up to me. He said, “Hey kid, you’re pretty fast. You even beat one of my swimmers. Good job.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

My mom introduced this man as Coach Koo, and said that we might be switching to his team so the drive would not be as long. He coached in Emeryville.

 A month later, my first practice in Emeryville was on a Tuesday night. I walked into the facility, and Coach Koo was standing in front of all his swimmers.  As soon as the swimmers left to change, I crept up behind him. He still had his sunglasses and hat on, which was quite questionable. He also had a backpack strung over his shoulder. I noticed that his shadow was as big as my whole body. I shivered as a cold breeze hit me; he immediately turned around, and I jumped backwards. 

“Oh, it’s just you,” Coach Koo said, “Go get changed quickly, we can’t lose too much time in the water.”

“Ok,” I replied. I shuffled my feet, tripping over them a couple of times, and realized I didn’t even know where the lockers were. I looked back at Coach Koo, and he pointed to a door at the other end of the pool. I hurried myself to the door, and yanked it open. All the boys inside the locker room looked at me. I immediately looked away in embarrassment. 

“Sorry,” I apologized loudly. 

“You’re fine,” replied a kid who looked very familiar. The kid was around my height, and had brown and black hair. Then, I realized that this was the kid I had beaten at the swim meet last month. 

“You remember me now?” he asked. “My name’s Ting, and it’s nice to meet you.” 

The rest of the team walked up to me and each introduced themselves to me. Except for a couple of kids, they were all around my age. One of them offered me gummy bears, while the rest of them talked about swimming, using terms I’d never heard, like “Indiana I.M.” and “California 50 Free.” 

We exited the locker room with smiles on our faces. I walked to the other end of the pool with them, and they invited me to hop into the pool first. I respectfully declined, and watched them all jump in one by one. Finally, I was the last one standing on the pool deck. Coach told me to jump in and said that we were starting off practice with a 500 free. 

“What?” I thought to myself. “That’s a lot!” I jumped in and instantly regretted it. I shivered very hard and could hardly lift my arms. 

“Go!” Coach Koo said to everyone in the pool.

Everyone was gone in a blink of an eye, and I realized how fast they were. Oh no, I thought to myself. 

The first practice went by slowly. It was two agonizing hours of pain and exhaustion. When I pushed myself out of the pool at the end of practice, my arms wobbled so hard that Ting had to help me. 

“Thanks,” I told Ting, arms dangling at my side.

“It’ll get better once you start coming more regularly,” Ting told me.

I hope it will, I thought to myself as I headed to the locker room.

I went to practice for four straight days after that (which was a new record for me) and by the fifth day I was complaining to my mom again. I begged her not to make me go, but she ignored me. Basketball season had just ended, so my mom started making me swim every day. I was exhausted, and going for a whole week straight was a big jump from three days a week. Every muscle in my body was constantly sore, and I started to disbelieve Ting saying that it would get better.

Two months passed and Ting turned out to be right. I gained 8 pounds (in muscle, I hoped), and the constant soreness from the first week was long forgotten. I was able to keep up with more people during practice, and found practice much more enjoyable than when I was swimming for Armada. Our swim team was small, around 20 kids, and I bonded with them quickly. There was also a new aspect of swimming that I never knew before called dryland training. It included weightlifting and running. It was very tiring, but also very fun to do with friends. I had also grown two inches taller than Ting. I would mess around with him, calling him short. Our team atmosphere was at the point where we talked loads of crap about each other, which was the same as showing that we cared (kinda strange). I also started to go to more swim meets on the weekends. It was a great opportunity to bond with teammates because we would sit with each other for five hours. Competition wise, I had started to climb up the ranks. I was placed in faster heats and even raced some of the faster swimmers on Armada. Whenever one of my teammates swam, the whole team would be there to cheer them on. In the middle of my race, I’d always hear Ting’s voice the loudest, screaming, “Go!” 

Now, I’ve been swimming with this team for six months, and it’s been a heck of a ride. I’ve gained strength, endurance, and a stronger mentality. Swimming takes up half of my schedule, and has dealt a blow to my social life. Every day is swimming, and every weekend is swimming too. And I’m pretty happy.

Yesterday, after school, I finished my homework and glanced at the clock. “C’mon mom, It’s time for swim practice!” I shouted

“Can we not go today?” my mom asked.

“No, today is weight training day, and I want to go,” I replied. I stuffed all my swim gear into my bag and shoved it into the trunk of the car. I urged my mom to get off the couch, and she complained even more. 

“Can we skip just today. I don’t feel like going,” my mom whined. 

“No! Today is the best day!” I replied. I grabbed the car keys, grabbed a drink from the fridge, and hopped into the car. My mom looked grumpy as she backed out of the garage. I popped my drink open and took a deep sip. I still ended up falling asleep on the car ride there.

Once we arrived at the facility, my mom woke me up. She grumpily kicked me out of the car and told me that she was going to nap. I downed my drink, grabbed my bag from the trunk, and walked into the weight room. 

Coach Koo called me over and said, “Yo, you’re closing in on Junior Olympic times. You ready to hit some of them?”

“Yes Coach!” I replied.