I found this a little while ago, so I’m posting it mostly for my own reference. This is the first piece of writing I was really proud of (and it was heavily reviewed by family and friends) before I submitted it as part of my college applications. It is somewhat of a precursor to my final swim race Toastmasters speech 10 years later in 2018.
I approached the starting block shaking from the quintessential panic attack. I was fourteen, had been swimming two months, and was lining up for my best event—the 100-yard breaststroke. It was a varsity heat. I was terrified. Everyone yelled encouragement, “do well!” I was thinking, “don’t do bad,” it was ringing in my ears and I could not focus. My breath became quick and shallow. A competitor next to me told me it was going to be all right. I listened and wanted that to be true, but when I entered the water, I did everything wrong. I rushed my stroke and kept looking at everyone as they pulled further away.
With 25 yards left, my choking progressed from psychological to physical. A ripple wave caught me and I swallowed a breathful of water. I went through two rushed, breathless painful strokes, and started seeing black spots from oxygen deprivation. I had to come up, cough to clear my throat without breathing, take another stroke and then lift my head for one glorious revitalizing breath.
I finished ninth, and was last on our team. It was the worst meet of my life.
In my failure, I learned how simple swimming is—just swim to one side and back, repeat as necessary. No complications, no pressure and no choking. I had been focusing on what I could not control instead of controlling what I focused on. Once I started to slow my mind down I sped up and rewrote what I could do. I decided to get serious about swimming at 15, with the goal of finishing top eight at state. People have actually told me it’s impossible. The fastest swimmers start around seven years old and have always been the fastest swimmers. So I will swim eight years in one.
Every morning at 5:00am my alarm clock plays music and I swim for two hours, for a total of 20 hours a week. Before each practice, at the pool’s edge, I breathe deep and assure myself that, in all the world, this is where I want to be. I jump in and start swimming. I feel chills, but the heat from my core spreads out slowly as I warm up. I tell myself that cold is painful but can’t hurt me here.
I have now moved up to lane two. Lane one has six junior national qualifiers, and everyone in lane two, except me, has been club swimming over three years. My inexperience is my motivation. I want to beat swimmers who have trained competitively for years. I swim nine times a week during the summer, under the same coach who taught Olympic gold medalist Tom Malchow. Regrettably, playing catch up is hard. So I work harder and smarter, focusing on my goal. When I pass someone, I do not dwell on it, but I feel proud that I have earned it.
The year after my first conference meet I came back and won three out of four possible events, went to sectionals, and qualified for state in a relay. My third year, I won four out of four events, went to sectionals and qualified for state in an individual and relay event.
I have learned to forget everything outside the race and just race. I know now to live in the present, to focus on what I am doing and nothing else. Every time I have a big meet or test coming up, I don’t think about how I will do. I don’t think of my successes, or about family, friends or the competition. I remember the only meet I choked and laugh, so when it’s race time, all I think about is swimming to one side of the pool and back, repeating as necessary. In moments like those, everything else is irrelevant. That is how I swim.
Daeus Jorento 