courtesy: Markus Stitz
Think back to when you first started swimming. Think about what your fears were, what your hopes were, what you were really proud of.
We asked our Twitter followers last night what their #earliestswimmingmemory was, and there were some clear trends that emerged. A huge portion of you remember not being able to finish your first race. Another chunk of you remembered the massive number of times you got disqualified while swimming a stroke that you probably had no clue how to swim, and then eating ice cream afterward.
courtesy: Markus Stitz
Others of you remember how excited you were just to get a participation ribbon, or to get 2nd place, or to finish an event (even if it took you 1:02 to complete a 25 free).
These memories are the essence of our development as swimmers. As we get older, suddenly the focus becomes dry seasons, high school versus club debates, technical suits, and taper cycles, and all of those things are very important at the elite levels of competitive swimming – those are the details that win Olympic medals.
But at its core, at its root, swimming is about diving over Whitney Phelps’ arm (we had one follower talk about this), and crying our eyes out after a disqualification but laughing about it later, or having a moment of panic because we didn’t really understand what’s going on. When you get DQ’ed in the 100 IM like Maeke Duncan did, but it’s hard to get mad…because the official is your dad. Or Nelz’s dad telling her that the race was a 100 fly, when it was really a 100 free.
These are the memories that bind us, that unite us, the common bond, and the common ground that ties together swimming all over the place.
Thanks all for sharing your stories. Check them all out below.
Remember first meet after one month of swimming when 2 false starts allowed. So nervous legs shook so much fell in before “take your mark” Was 17 at the time.
I’m not on Twitter, so here’s my #earliestswimmingmemory is when I learned breastroke and thought it was just THE BEST STROKE EVER!!!! I was seven. My feelings have since changed.
These are amazing! I’m not on twitter and wanted to share mine. My earliest memory is when I was 6 and I crossed the line that separates the deep end from the shallow end for the first time. I couldn’t even touch the bottom at the deepest part of the shallow end, but my 6-year-old mind didn’t comprehend that – the deep end line was SACRED. I was so proud of myself when I finally crossed it!
shucks, i missed this on twitter, but my earliest swimming memory (eight years old) is refusing to take off my goggles during meets. i was afraid they’d leak so i kept them on when i was in between swims, eating rigatoni, playing cards, didn’t matter. they were always on. that lasted for a good two years…