Will Swim For Food
There is an ‘I’ in swimming but you can’t forget the team part too
Swimming is considered an individual sport. It is, when you are racing, but that is only one component of this sport. Swimming really is more of a team sport than an individual sport because of all of the training that you go through the whole year with your teammates.
When training, your friends push you to do better every single day whether you are in the pool or doing dryland. They push you to do better and you will push them without even knowing you are doing that. Training is very hard, but it is even harder when you don’t feel like going to practice. I can say I am guilty of this especially when it’s pitch black on a morning in the middle of February when it’s -25 C and I have to be in the pool for 6am.
My group trains 7 times a week over 6 days. We put in 19 hours a week doing a combination of swimming and dryland. It’s really hard to push yourself through workouts if you’re feeling ill or just not having a good day, but when that happens all of your friends will be there for you in the highs and lows, not just at practice but throughout your whole swim career.
With all of the highs and lows, swimming can be very challenging like how it was for my friend Alexander. Xander, as we call him, is a phenomenal swimmer. He trains hard in every practice and it really shows in his races. When he was 12 he hit the qualifying time for 200 Back for Winter Festivals, Canada’s provincial level meet for 13 and under, but got disqualified for a turn infraction. He was determined to qualify in another event but he just kept coming up short. Xander was giving it his all, he would have to drag himself out of the pool and then almost crawl back to our coaches table, but he kept coming up short.
At this point, my teammate Clarke had qualified and I had qualified too. Clarke is the best guy to have around as he is always so positive and encouraging. He was saying “We’re bringing you to festivals! We just need one more to qualify and you’re coming for the relay!”. If you have three qualified swimmers, you can bring one swimmer who hasn’t qualified for the relay team. My teammate Matthew was swimming 200 breast and was the closest to qualifying. He swam a great race and the clock showed he made it by .04 seconds.
Normally when we hit a time standard, my coach, Rob Taylor, shakes our hand to congratulate us. Matthew was so close that Rob got up from the table to get the official time before giving him any congrats. We all stood together waiting for the results. Rob looked over at us and gave us a huge thumbs up! Matthew had done it! And for sure Xander was coming with us to Festivals. We were jumping up and down and the parents in the stands were cheering. Xander’s work ethic and determination has kept up strong. He has gone on to become the Ontario Provincial Champion for 100 back and qualified for his first national meet this year in multiple events. We support each other during the lows and celebrate the successes as we are a part of them all.
Another cool story happened this past January at Regionals. My friend Sebastian and I were both trying to hit the time standard for Winter Festivals but we both missed it by a couple seconds. Later at the meet, my coach announced that they were doing a time trial the next day. Seb and I both put our names forward not knowing that there was only one spot per team. We kept offering each other the spot to the point that my coach interrupted us to say “Hold on, lets see who has the closest time”. It turns out that I was closer to the time by 0.20 seconds so I ended up getting the spot in the trial. After the decision was made, Seb said to me that he would have given up the spot for me anyways because I was turning 13 soon and had a new set of time standards to get for Summer Festivals. He figured he had a better shot at Summer Festivals as he was 12 for the rest of the season.
During my race, Seb was on the side of the pool deck cheering me on as well as the whole team. It really helped because I ended up making the time! Later that night I sent an email to my coach to tell him what Seb said to me. Rob was very impressed. It turns out Rob arranged a time trial in our home pool for a few swimmers that were also close and Seb was offered a spot. Seb swam and made the time standard for 100 Back. It was amazing to go to Winter Festivals with Seb as I knew how hard we both worked and that we were also cheering for each other too.
Last year I created a campaign called ‘Will Swim for Food’. I swam 35 km in one week to raise money and food for the Orangeville Food Bank. One of the best parts of the week was all of my teammates that came out to swim with me each day. This year, I’m doing the same thing but with as part of a group of 12 swimmers. With all of the support I received last year, it was no question that my swim friends wanted to take part as well.
We are trying to raise $5000, 500 lbs of food by swimming 500 km. The 12 of us will swim 420km over the week but we are asking everyone to contribute laps to get us up to 500 km. Olympians Tera Van Beilen, Olympic medalist Brittany MacLean, Paralympian medalist Tess Routliffe and Din Selmanovic who swims with the University of Cincinnati are all contributing some laps.
The swim community is incredible! I think because we all understand how tough this sport can be and the amount of effort it takes at each practice.
With the support of your teammates, it’s definitely worth it!
Read more at http://willswimforfood.ca
Wow, just wow! Fantastic read. Very inspiring. Your determination and team spirit is wonderful to read about. Best of luck with the rest of your swimming career.