With CAS interviews approaching and the 18 months of CAS complete, I want to write one last reflection for swimming: the one activity that I have been doing through the entire process. SEASAC selections came out just this week, and this year I was selected to represent East (thank god). This year the boys selection was even more competitive than last year, with more boys being in the mix as possible selections, but I was still quite confident that I would be chosen. But then again I was even more confident last year and was not chosen so I did not make any assumptions this year before the actual team was released.
We are changing my program again from what it was changed to last year. After SNAGS last March, I felt like my training went back to the kind of swimming I was doing in the fall of 2017, when I reflected on wanting to quit swimming due to the long and mentally tiring training sessions. All of last fall and the winter break I was always swimming in training and thinking to myself: “Why am I swimming this set? Why am I swimming such long distance.” I did not bring it up to my coach mainly because I did not want to put in the effort of having to think through an argument and a solution ie. a new program for myself. At that point I was also ready to quit swimming and honestly did not care whether I improved or not. However, I had competitions last fall that had been paid for that I did not want to waste and I always had the possibility of SEASAC to keep me swimming. (LO4)
Over the winter break I met with a coach outside of school and spoke about my training. We discussed what I was doing, how it could be changed and how the other coach could help. Then I went to talk to my coach in order to try and come up with a new program in order to try and make this last stretch of high school swimming something worthwhile and to see me improve. We had to compromise in order to get most of what I wanted, but to still allow my coach to have some say in what was best for me at this stage. Overall the new program looks promising and I think with it I will be able to make some huge leaps before SEASAC and swim my lifetime best times there. (LO5) Then afterwards we will keep it going for a couple weeks before Singapore National Age Groups.
After these two competitions in March I will likely not swim as much anymore. Swimming has been a big part of my life since grade 8, and for the past two years has been hugely mentally draining. Although I do not want to completely let go of swimming, I will lessen the amount in order to let me take a mental break and focus on other things such as exams and preparing for university. It is unlikely I will swim at university and therefore do not feel the need to keep going for that reason after this final stretch.
Overall swimming has been a great experience and has given me valuable lessons, but is soon time to move on to other things. And until then I will focus everything (food, sleep, free time) towards swimming fast this March. And who knows? Maybe I’ll swim so fast I’ll have to continue to swim at university and later the olympics.
