Bringing back some memories

I've caught some glimpses of the US Olympic team swimming trials this past weekend and that's brought back some memories. The early morning swim practices, the long practices, swimming on the days where you even felt like you were going to be sick. It takes a lot of dedication to be a swimmer, if you don't have that, you're not gonna make it. I wasn't the best person on the team when I swam in high school, but I had the dedication. I was up at 5:00am three times a week so that I could make it to practice and be in the pool at 6:00am, and then go through a full day of classes before having another 2 hour long practice afterwards. I was the one sneaking out of church a few minutes early to make it to noon practice on Sundays. I swam all year round to stay in shape for varsity season, and club swimming isn't any easier than varsity. In the winter and spring we swam at my HS (except for when the pool sprung a leak and we had to swim at Western for a few days). Summer was when it'd all change though. We'd go from swimming indoors in a 25 yard pool to swimming outdoors at 7:30am in a 50 meter pool, and I'll tell you what, those extra 3 inches really do make a difference. And in the summer you swam rain or shine. The only thing that got us out of the pool was lightning, while our coaches stood in the shed and watched us.

As I was watching the trials I was thinking about that stuff. I really admire the swimmers that are Olympic caliber. Especially since swimming is the hardest sport to qualify in. You have to finish in the top 2 to make it to the olumpics, and sometimes you have to swim the same race 3 times to make it to the olympics. I miss swimming. I wish that I would have been good enough to continue swimming in college. Ah well, what's meant to be happens...