Work hard, push yourself, put the time in, and stay determined and you can do great thing in life. This was something my parents told me repeatedly throughout my childhood. When they would tell me this I never really believed them. However, many years later I realized that their words could not be more true.
It was the fall of my junior year in high school, I was almost done with the swimming season. I had one final meet of the season left, regionals. For me, regionals was the only meet where I had to leave everything in the pool, and it is where I could see months and months of training finally pay off. This is the only meet where I could qualify for the State.
In high school swimming, in order to qualify for the state swim meet you have to be within the top 24 people ranked in the state after regionals. There is also only one division in swimming it is not like other sports where there are division 1a, 2a, or 3a. We all have to swim against each, so to make it to state people from Decorah compete with people from Ames and Dubuque. At regionals, this is the one meet where most people wear fast skins, which is the long black suits that you will commonly Olympians wear at the Olympics. At regionals, this year I got to swim the 100 freestyle, which is swimming down and back twice.
All season I had felt like had been fighting a war with not a person
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I turn quickly looking up at the score board, and next to my name I see the time of 59.77. A smile quickly grows on my face, and the pain in my body detrates soon only happiness is in me. However, the numbness from my muscles stay, but it is a pain that I do not mind. I look over at my teammates with a smile on my face, and I hear them all cheering for my especially the coaches. Inside, I think “You did it all of that hard work, endless sets of 100s, and watching what you ate finally payed off. You finally broke a minute