If you’ve read Course Review, you’ve likely picked up a few things about me by now. One of those things was the fact that I’m quite skilled with swim.
You remember when I said that? Well… the swim season starts this spring, and everyone had to go to the tryouts first. The morning of tryouts was cold and fairly tense. I stood outside the pool in a line with the other kids who were trying out for the swim team. There were lots of people trying out— I’d guess about 100, likely even more. The number 100 sounds like a lot- the odds were certainly against me! How could I make it in when I had 100 other people to compete with?! Well, the swim team was accepting 100 people. I didn’t need to be amazing. I just couldn’t fail.
The line dragged on for thirty entire minutes. I didn’t do much in those thirty minutes— just sat on my phone and wrote a bit for this blog. As I got closer to the pool entrance, I could see the inside of the pool area. There were loads of kids trying out for the swim team. Many were diving into the water. Some were swimming from one end to the other at astonishing speeds. The Regular PE swim was comprised of literally everyone who was a freshman, so you had kids who didn’t know how to swim and were only there for the points. This was the real deal— the kids who actually knew what they were doing. As I waited to check in, I started to get nervous— we were just going in guns blazing with the swim already? I was… probably screwed.
After I reached the front of the line, I checked into the pool. They took attendance quickly before giving me my very own swim cap. Once I entered the pool deck, I took off my shirt (shut up, most boys do that in swim) and met up with some of my friends who were also trying out. They were VN (Who’s smart when it comes to geography), KK (Who’s even smarter when it comes to geography), and JW (Who’s taking a load of APs and is really smart). On top of those three are also TB, DS, and WS, who I don’t know extremely well but they were also part of the group that I hung out with most during the tryouts.
Everyone agreed that we should start by warming up. Me, KK, and VN got in the pool quickly and started doing regular swim— about 150 (25 is 1 length of the pool, so I swam 6 lengths of the pool) with regular freestyle. Vishnu did the same, before KK pulled out a slightly intense 25 butterfly, which is by far the most energy consuming of the four strokes. Speaking of the four strokes… let’s discuss how the tryouts actually worked before we continue on the story.
Whether we got into the team would obviously be based on time. Every person would be measured based on their time of 100s (4 lengths of the pool) using the four various strokes. If you’re unfamiliar with swim, the strokes are butterfly (or just fly), backstroke (or just back), breaststroke (or just breast), and freestyle (or just free). Most people will generally finish a 100 swim in about 2 to 3 minutes. The swim standards fluctuate a little depending on stroke, but in general you’re probably good enough to get on the team if you can finish most or all of your strokes in under 2 minutes. The boys and girls each did their trials separately, with about nine or ten people in a trial called a “heat”. For each stroke, there were ten heats, five heats for girls and five heats for boys. The first stroke we would be doing was freestyle, the girls were going to be the first ones to do their heats. We’ll get there soon. For now, let’s go back to where we left off… we were warming up…
Okay, back to the beginning. We didn’t stay around long for warming up, as no one wanted to be exhausted when we started tryouts. Most of us ended up going back up to the pool deck to get ready. We spent a few minutes watched JW do his warm up before JW promptly forgot how to swim butterfly— literally. We basically stood from the sidelines and reminded him how to do butterfly, and he swam a twenty five with it flawless. (In case it wasn’t obvious yet, he’s a really good learner)
As this was all happening, I began to notice some people were crowding over something on the other side of the pool deck. I didn’t know what it was, but KK and VN were already rushing over there in excitement. I had a feeling whatever the horde was fascinated with was probably important, so I followed KK and VN to the thing.
It turned out that the thing people were all fascinated with was actually a chart of all the heats and lanes in chronological order that the team would be doing for tryouts that day. From here, you could know which lane and heat you were in. Most of the kids who already had experience with the swim team ended up going in the first couple heats, while the Freshmen and newcomers (Like myself) were going in the later heats.
Before the girls freestyle heats, however, we had one more event to look at. The captains of the swim team were to dive into the pool first and perform a freaking 400 IM. If you don’t know what that means, it’s a 100 of every single stroke— so 16 lengths of the pool. The captains all took their positions on the swim blocks (Diving board thingies) and disappeared into the water with flawless dives.
Within moments, they were starting their 100 Butterflies and went across the pool with astonishing speed— in an instant, they were already turning around with a 25 out of the way. The speed these guys went at is insane. I went to reread the heat list again for a few moments and by the time I came back they were already on breast, which meant they already were more than halfway through the IM. The first one finished the race at around 5 minutes 20 seconds. To make it all even crazier, the slowest captain on the team still finished their 400 IM in under 6 minutes. This is genuinely wild— they swam almost half a kilometer in less than 6 minutes! I’m not exactly a horrible swimmer myself (Maybe) and that would have taken even me at least 12 minutes (I wouldn’t know, I’ve never measure my 400 IM time) but with the warm up out of the way, it was now time for the girls to begin their freestyle heats.
The first heat of girls dived in flawlessly and most of them finished in under a minute. I started to get nervous about my own time— my best ever at the time was 1:26, and not a single one of the girls got a time that was more than 1:10. The heats went by and by. It turned out that all the girls on the first heat already had a lot more swimming experience than those in the later heats. Most people got around 1:20 and 1:30. I realized if I sprinted the whole thing and didn’t mess anything up— I might be able to stick around most of the crowd.
The girls’ heats for freestyle were finished before I knew it. I immediately got ready for my own heat, which was coming up quickly. The first several boys did their 100 frees and just like I predicted, they got amazing times. Even my freshman peers, from what I’d heard, were far ahead of mine. Was I going to make it? Before I knew it I was getting on the block— preparing to dive in. It was almost my turn. I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to dive correctly— the last time I dove off a block was in 6th grade. I’m in high school now, so you can imagine it’s been quite some time since I practiced dives. I told myself again and again, It’s only going to be one minute. You’ll be in and out in no time.
“TAKE YOUR MARKS.”
HONK.
I’m not sure how good my dive was (That was the first dive off a block that I’ve done in about three years, so probably not amazing), so I’ll leave that up to interpretation. I landed in the water (Hopefully headfirst, that’s how it’s supposed to go) and things immediately went wrong. My eyes instantly filled with water. I didn’t see anything— only a blue blur. My goggles hadn’t filled up.
For a brief moment, I was frozen. What was I supposed to do now??? Was I supposed to fix it? I almost did. I very nearly pulled myself out of the water to fix the goggles, which would have wasted several more seconds that I didn’t have. I realized any time wasted fixing the goggles could cost a lot, so I decided to simply start swimming and see what happens.
I raced across the pool in what felt like forever. I flip-turned, swam, flip-turned, swam, flip-turned, swam. I was almost there in what felt like a long and a short time. I raced towards the end, pulling at the water with every bit of energy I could spare and then I finished…
The first thing I did was fix my goggles. They were half filled up with water for the whole heat and I had to consider myself lucky I could still see the whole way through. Once I got my vision back, I checked the time: 1 minute and 20 seconds. And for comparison, my personal best prior to this was 1 minute 26… I beat my PR in the worst possible circumstance.
That was genuinely wild.
After two more heats, we were done with 100 frees. Next up was breaststroke, which was coming quick. The girls heats came and went, and during that time, we watched and discussed the coming heat. We all agreed that breaststroke wasn’t the kind of exercise to “sprint” on. The boys heats eventually began. We started with the varsity kids who obviously dominated the competition before eventually getting to ours.
Then it was my turn.
I climbed onto the block and waited, positioning myself for a dive. I waited for the “HONK” but it wasn’t immediately coming. Confused, I turned back to see that one of the scorekeeping devices had suddenly moved out. That only made things worse, because I just wanted to get this all done with now. I waited for minutes and finally the issue was fixed when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. HONK!
And then my goggles fell loose for the second time. As soon as I entered the water, I saw another big blue blur. Once again, I moved my hands to fix it but then thought, Screw it! And sprinted again. I sprinted and saw other swimmers around me going at amazing speed. I raced to the next wall, turned around, went back, then turned around again.
It was about halfway through that I (Stupidly) thought it would be an amazing idea to try and fix my goggles in the .2 seconds that my head was out of the water during breaststroke. I quickly regretted this. As I pulled myself over the water again, I started to reach for my goggles in order to do it, but…. I had to stop halfway through because my body was basically hardwired into doing the breaststroke rhythm and my head plunged into the water again. I swallowed a load of the water on the way down and regretted it.
With breaststroke done, next was backstroke. The good thing about backstroke was that backstroke is done on your back, so for now I didn’t need to worry about dives and my goggles coming loose. I did, however, need to worry about being too slow. My backstroke is generally pretty weak, and I have this crazy fear of hitting my head at the wall every time I do it. This time, we had ropes to signal when the edge of the pool was coming, so I higher hopes. The girl heats came and went, boys heats as well, and then I hopped into the pool and waited.
“TAKE YOUR MARKS.”
HONK.
I leapt off the wall and sprinted across the pool. You know the drill by now— across, turn, across, turn, across, turn, across. The backstroke was the worst of my times at 1 minute and 55 seconds and definitely felt the longest. I wasn’t too surprised by this. I expected this to be around what I got, so in general it wasn’t disappointing.
What could be disappointing, though, was butterfly, the last of the 100s I needed to complete. Up to this point, I couldn’t even do a 50 without wanting to die, and 100 would just be asking for collapse. On top of that, I’d need a good time, and a full sprint on butterfly was probably not going to give me that. Me, KK, and VN all watched girls do their fly heats and discussed the upcoming fly.
“Don’t sprint on 100 Fly,” KK warned us. “If you sprint at the beginning of 100 fly, you’ll burn yourself out and look like an idiot in the second half.”
With that in mind, we headed to the blocks and wished each other good luck when it came to our heats. The first boy heats began. As the boy heats went, I met up with my friends, a captain on the swim team (JN), his friend DT, and JN’s brother BN, who used to be a captain of the swim team. After some quick conversation, I climbed onto the diving board and prepared myself for Fly 100.
“TAKE YOUR MARKS.”
HONK.
I dived off the board and this time, for some strange reason… my goggles didn’t fall off! This might be because of an adjustment I made to their tightness just before the heat, but it was certainly critical, because this meant I didn’t waste five seconds debating whether the fix my goggles or get on with the sprint. I sprinted through, and was encouraged when I saw I wasn’t too far behind. Across… turn… across… turn… across… turn…
I sprinted through. Just a few more yards to go. I was almost there. My arms felt like crap, but I persisted. A few more meters away… I could hear JN cheering me on from the side, and I sprinted… I touched the wall. It was over… I’d expected a time of 2 minutes 30 seconds MINIMUM… but I finished in only 1:47. That wasn’t a strong time by any means, but it was far above my expectations.
After this, I got out and let the last few boy heats go ahead. Afterwards, we did a quick 200 cooldown (everyone collectively) which was led by JN and DT. After this, we tarped up the pool. Me, KK, and VN left the pool that late morning with mixed feelings.
“A few hours ago, we entered this place thinking we’d do absolutely horrible,” I said to KK and VN as we walked to the parking lot.
“And we did absolutely horrible,” VN joked (Kinda true though), which got laughs from me and KK.
Now all that I had to do now was wait: would I make it in?
Spoiler Alert: I made it in.
PART 2 COMING SOON