29 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Lesson 24

Bayview Invitational it just what it’s named, it’s an invitational meet that teams go to. Every year our coaches pick a couple girls from our team to go and represent at Bayview. Freshman year I had the honor of being invited.

This was my first big meet. Before this all I had gone to were dual meets with two teams there, at Bayview there were 20-25 teams. There were a lot!

I swam Breastroke, but on my team I was the second fastest breaststroker. Our team captain was also a breaststroker and she was much faster than I. At dual meets there are only one heat so I was used to swimming against her and always getting last, however at Bayview, there are so many swimmers in each event that there is more than one heat. There are multiple heats and each heat is seeded by time.

So I was swimming in heat with swimmers who all had the same time as me, but I didn’t know this.  

As a quiet little freshman I just assumed that this meet was going to be just like every other meet, except with more teams.

I stood behind the blocks before my event and fiddled with my goggles ( a nervous habit of mine). My coach stood on the side of the pool waiting to cheer me on once I dove in.

“Step up”

“Take your mark!”

BEEEEEEEP the electronic gun sounded and I dove into the water with a splash.

Press, pull, dolphin kick, streamline, breaststroke kick. I went through my first pull out meticulously before coming up and starting to swim. Shoot – kick, shoot – kick, shoot – kick. I swam as fast as I could into the first wall before doing my first turn and another pullout.

I gasp for breath in between each stroke and finally made it to the second turn.

I came up from that pullout and was slightly worried to see no one to either my left or my right. My mind starting racing a little bit….. why didn’t I see anyone.

“NO! NO! NO!” I heard my coach screaming on the sideline

I freaked out I stopped and turned at looked at her with wide eyes, what was going on?

I stopped dead in the water and just stared at her, then I looked over my shoulder and saw the other breaststroker were still behind me.

Her eyes grew extremely big and I swear I never have seen her so stressed out.

“GO!!!!!!!!!” she yelled “GO!!!”

Suddenly it clicked.

She wasn’t yelling “NO” like I thought she had been, she was yelling “GO” and the reason I couldn’t see anyone was because I was so far ahead of them.

I kicked back into gear and pushed myself even harder. I finished the race and looked around, I still had beaten everyone else, but my poor frazzled looking coach on the sidelines looked like she was going to have a heart attack.

That day I learned a very important lesson:

NEVER stop.

Suddenly the words of Mr. Robinson from Meet the Robinsons felt very personal to me.“Keep Moving Forwards”

My coach learned and important lesson too – to never cheer for me again.