Wednesday, August 1, 2001

Lori Schwanhausser

Wilton Y Wahoos

Day 2: I remember about halfway through the summer season, when our team was going through heavy training, I felt extremely frustrated with my swimming. This is my senior summer, and I was having trouble putting my whole heart into the sport, when all my other friends were unattached to anything, able to stay out all night and sleep in all morning. When they went to concerts, I was at swim meets. I wanted to be able to hang out with them, go away and visit those who were away, and have no responsibilities other than enjoying myself. And I remember one morning practice when we were in the middle of a difficult set, and I could not find the determination to push myself harder to stick with my pace and finish the set. Practices always hurt, pain is always a key to successfully completing a practice, and the only thing to keep one going is his/her will to succeed and overcome that pain to reach a new level of training. And I have never had the feeling of not being able to dig any further down into my soul to find the energy to swim harder, faster. However, this one morning practice, I tried to tell myself to push myself, go faster, forget about the pain. But the more I thought about it, I could not overcome the physical pain with the mental determination. This frustrated me beyond belief. I got out, crushed that I had no more will to train. I spent the rest of practice talking this over with my coach. I wanted to go to nationals, I knew that if I didn’t go, I would regret it. But I could not knock the feeling out of me that maybe, just maybe, I was taking a wrong turn with my life. I had been so excited for college, big time swimming, but I could not stop thinking, “If you can’t train now, Lori, how do you expect to do it for the next four years in college?!” I went home after my conversation with my coach, and thought about everything I had been feeling for the past two weeks. And I realized that all those things I had wanted to quit swimming for, hanging out with my other friends, having no responsibilities, was not worth giving up one of the most important things in my life. I remember even when I have a month off every August in between the summer and winter season, after about two weeks without swimming, I drove myself crazy! So I went back the next morning for practice, ready to push myself, with the confidence that I would be able to succeed.

And here I am, in College Park, MD, at my last Y Nationals. Though the whole week has felt weird because I am only one of two senior girls out of a total of twelve that decided to stick with swimming this summer, I have no regrets. And even though I have not been swimming as fast as I had hoped, I have rediscovered the joy and exhilaration of competition. And of course it is impossible to not have an absolute blast at this meet!