Inspirational Swim Stories

AquaticQuests

So this is a place to post any inspirational swim stories you come across - or any of your own

AquaticQuests

https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/swim-like-hell-a-daughter-races-for-her-life/
Swim Like Hell: My Daughter’s Tenacious Spirit


By Kevin Baxter, Swimming World Guest Contributor

“Fractures well cured make us more strong.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Clearing the numbers on my stopwatch I realized that when I clicked the start button again I would be timing more than a swimming event. The clock was already ticking in so many ways that had nothing to do with an athletic event and everything to do with a whole different race against time.

Our daughter Colleen, now an eighth grader, was an excellent swimmer and today had reached the pinnacle of her tiny athletic world. My wife Jodi and I had traveled 80 kilometers north of our Arabian compound at Abqaiq, to Ras Tanura, another Saudi Aramco camp located on the Persian Gulf, to watch her swim in the Regional Finals of the highly competitive Aramco Swim League. The top three swimmers in each age division would be advancing to the National Finals. Colleen wanted to be in that top three.

Today however, there would be other issues on our minds besides whether or not show she would win any medals. It was November of 2002. The date 9-11 was still very fresh in all of our minds for so very many reasons. Living in Saudi Arabia, we were constantly being made aware of our surroundings and who exactly had brought those planes down on that terrible day. We knew that Al Qaeda was a terrorist group that had little to do with the Saudi population in general, but we were constantly in a state of orange alert. A recent event in Kingdom did little to allay our fears and had set our nerves on edge. On the night of May 12, several vehicles containing heavily armed Al Qaeda assault teams under orders of Saad Bin Laden arrived at three Riyadh compounds. Thirty people were murdered during those attacks including nine Americans.

As Colleen stood up on her block to swim her first race, Jodi and I had noticed that the swimmers blocks on either side of her were empty. Perusing the event sheet I detected that both scratched swimmers were from Riyadh. I was hoping they were either in lockdown or too distraught to make the trip to Ras Tanura. I did not want to think of any other alternative.

Jodi and I had another reason to be concerned as well. Lately, Colleen had been prone to sudden seizures, which would cause her to pass out and collapse. The seizures had taken place during cross-country meets, at choral concerts, on a class trip, and at a recent swim meet. The worst one happened during a school day, where she passed out and fell down a flight of stairs. She was sent to Dhahran Hospital where a specialist had diagnosed her with syncope, a slowing down of blood flow that causes the heart to drop her blood pressure, thus preventing blood flow to the brain. We were advised to allow her live a normal life, as she would “outgrow it.”

Finding Motivation

Photo Courtesy: Kevin Baxter
The meet began and Colleen did not perform well in her first event. Finishing well back in the butterfly, she seemed exhausted. She had four events to go, but based on her finish in the first race, things did not bode well for her winning any medals today. Jodi and I were more concerned that she would over-extend herself and pass out in the middle of a race. We were both prepared to dive in the pool and bail her out if needed.

As the day progressed, she had mixed results in her finishes. However, as her final event approached, I scanned the time sheets and realized that if she could finish second in the backstroke, she would have enough points to earn an overall bronze for the meet. I was now caught between wanting her to make it through this meet unscathed or inviting disaster to accomplish a hard earned goal. I watched her lying on her towel appearing absolutely exhausted, trying to regain her strength. Crouching beside her, I offered a bottle of water that I knew she would not accept in her frustration.

“You’re doing a great job today, Colleen. We’re so proud of you.” She did not respond. Turning away, I could sense that she was not proud of herself, so I returned and crouched beside her.

“Colleen, Mom and I are just so glad you are here with us and healthy enough to even compete. Regardless of how you finish, you have been an excellent swimmer.”

Then, to try and shake her from her depression, I pressed her a little.

“Just so you know though, if you take second in the back, you’ll get silver for the race…and win the overall bronze for the meet.” Colleen snapped her head around to face me. “Really?”

“Yep, I checked the standings. You are only a few points out of third overall. I’d say take first but the girl from Jeddah has an incredible time. I doubt you’ll beat her. But you are only a couple hundredths off the girl with the second place time.”

Colleen rose off of her towel and reached for her goggles. “Where are you going?” I asked as she was already moving. She did not look back, but extended her hand.
“To warm up. Water please.”

Revealing the Fighter

Photo Courtesy: Kevin Baxter
As the starter yelled, “Set!” I walked to the middle section of the pool to get a good view. Colleen coiled her body up against the pool wall so that when the gun went off, she would explode into her start. It was not enough. The 100 backstroke was four long tough laps, so by the time the swimmers had turned for their second lap, Colleen was second to last and 20 yards behind the top four swimmers. I looked over at Jodi who appeared absolutely stoic, disappointed I knew, but never going to let anyone, especially Colleen think that she was anything but tremendously proud of her. As I watched Colleen struggling mightily to keep up, I muttered under my breath, “God love ya kid. You are a fighter.”

As the swimmers approached the wall for their final 25 meters I thought of those missing kids from Riyadh and told myself that I really didn’t give a damn how Colleen finished. As competitive as I was, it was dawning on me that all I really wanted for my children was for them to be safe and healthy. I had to admit though, that I did want this for Colleen because she had trained so hard and so much of her self-image was wrapped up in being a good swimmer.

As the swimmers submerged for their final turn, Colleen was still 10 meters behind. All that practice, all those laps. I shook my head, feeling disappointed for her. I should have had more faith.

Colleen reached the turn and blistered it, not emerging until she was a quarter length down the final lap, surfacing with her legs kicking like pistons. Half way through the lap she was only a few meters back and had passed all but three swimmers, legs churning water, arms clawing. I couldn’t keep myself from yelling, “Colleen! Swim! Swim like hell!”

I was in a near frenzy yelling for my daughter to out swim her illness, out swim the fearful world that she would inherit, out distance all of her demons.

The first swimmer, now pulling for all she was worth in a panic, touched the wall just a millisecond ahead of Colleen and another powerful swimmer, churning stroke for stroke.

I grabbed Colleen barely in time to keep her from sinking, as her eyes rolled up in her head. I stretched her out on the pool deck and lifted her back so she could resume breathing. Jodi leaned over me whispering, “Just give her time.”

An hour or so later, during the medal ceremony, as Colleen was walking up to the podium to receive her medal, the parent of a swimmer leaned in to speak. “That kid is a fighter,” she said. “Yes,” I replied. “Yes, she is.”

About the Author: Kevin Baxter is a teacher and writer. He spent 12 years teaching in Saudi Arabia where his wife was also a teacher and his three daughters went to school and swam competitively for the Abqaiq Stingray Swim Club. In 2003 Mr. Baxter and his family moved to Asheville, North Carolina where he continued to teach and was selected as the Buncombe County Teacher of the Year in 2006. Today Mr. Baxter writes for publications such as Teaching Tolerance Magazine, The National Literacy Council and Teacher’s and Writers Magazine. His wife Jodi, is a teacher as well while his three daughters Clair, Colleen and Marie, own and operate a local bakery.

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AquaticQuests

Swimmer to Swammer… to Masters Swimmer


https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/swimmer-to-swammer-to-masters-swimmer/

I’ve never seen any stats on the matter, but I’d be willing to bet that the majority of folks who spent their formative years as competitive swimmers don’t return to the water in adulthood. As a former collegiate swimmer myself, I’ve watched old teammates go on to incredible feats out of the pool – academic, professional, even other athletic endeavors. But, rarely do they decide to continue swimming, even for fun.

Why is it that we, as competitive swimmers, tend to reject the idea of evolving into Masters swimmers, post-career? Is it because we’ve spent so many years training in the water that we don’t even really equate swimming with exercise anymore? Is it because we live in the United States of Pinterest where the “30 Minute Ab Killer!” sets that beckon us from beyond our Mac screens seem a million times more appealing than hopping in an icy pool and staring at a black line for an hour? Or is it because it seems kind of, in comparison to our former careers… anticlimactic? I mean, let’s face it: it’s hard to imagine Michael Phelps lighting up the USMS National scene in his 50s.

Post retirement, something about the idea of swimming Masters can feel, on some level, like an admittance of defeat; like getting back with an ex after a breakup, only to find yourself back in an all-too-familiar cycle of disappointment. Like it or not, a stigma frequently exists in the minds of post-competitive swimmers when it comes to Masters swimming, and I think, more than anything, there’s a fear of the judgment that comes with continuing to swim past one’s “real” career. Oh, this person just can’t seem to let go, can’t seem to move on. Poor thing. She just misses it so much.



In my mind, I framed it this way: why put my body through the same pain and stress of training – and especially competing – with none of the potential rewards? I like to win. And sure, you can win at a Masters meet. But I like to win against myself. Can you ever touch the wall faster than the times you clocked when you were 17 and weighed 120 pounds and your biggest concern was whether or not Matt was going to ask you to the homecoming dance? And, since the answer to this question is most likely no… then what’s the point? These were my thoughts – albeit ignorant ones – when it came time for me to retire from swimming. All the while, ignoring the voice in my head, telling me that maybe, just maybe, I would miss it. I already missed it so much.



For a while after I graduated from college and embarked on life as a swammer, I chose to speak of my new exercise regimen in hushed, reverent tones laced with tragically West Coast phrases like, “Um, well, I’m focusing on healing my mind before my body” (read: I’m focusing on eating literal quarts of gelato nightly on my couch and managing to never get my heart rate over 130 for two full years).

Plenty of former swimmers go through this weird, toddler-brained, exercise rebellion, I told myself. But soon, after binging essentially all of Netflix (you heard me: not a Netflix series, the actual streaming service, y’all), I began to accept that I would need some sort of productive workout method into which I could channel my energy. But what? Waking myself up in the morning to go on a jog? That’s adorable. Also, never. I have the ligaments of the elephant man; everything is double-jointed and pops out of socket if the wind blows the wrong direction, so yoga and Pilates were out. Given that I share its moniker, spin class seemed doable at first. But I just don’t know how many vaguely generalized platitudes about “reaching out and touching your goals!” shouted at you by a sweaty cycling instructor/actor/writer/producer/director/bodybuilder/vegan from West Hollywood a girl can really handle.

Even “fun” stuff seemed – to pick the least dramatic phrasing I can possibly muster – soul-sucking. I watched, literally horrified, as friends around me signed up for events requiring them to wake up early on Saturday mornings and hurl themselves through dirt, under barbed wire fences, all while enduring the screams of race organizers clad head-to-toe in Goodwill-provided Army fatigues. Oh, it didn’t stop there.

There were fun runs, beer runs, gorilla runs, mud runs, polar bear runs, runs to benefit Alzheimers, runs to send bags of rice to kids in Bolivia, runs to raise money for your 5th grade teacher’s daughter’s vet’s dentist’s weird nephew who needs money for the trip he’s taking to Africa to “find himself.” Listen, these are great causes, and I commend those who participate in them. But it’s taken me 18 months to find a decent dry cleaner in Los Angeles and I refuse to put the poor man through the torture of trying to get a rainbow of stains out of my favorite white t-shirts after some 6 a.m. 10k color run.



So, knowing both that I wanted to start exercising again and that my options were clearly limited, I threw a mini, internal tantrum, sighed, and signed myself up for a US Masters swim practice. And, with the sound of my frustrated, injured, college-swimming-self promising my teammates, “I’ll NEVER do masters swimming, are you kidding me?” echoing in my head, I found a team (shout-out to Southern California Aquatics!), plopped myself reluctantly into the car for the long drive to the pool, trudged on deck and introduced myself to the coach, squeezed on my cap and goggles, and dove in.

Dove in, and fell in love all over again. Hard. See, here’s the part of the story where I shed any semblance of chill. Because, put simply: hopping in that middle lane, feeling the past three years of retirement loosen away as I warmed up, watching the muscles in my arms – on autopilot – take their cue from distant memories to form strokes I hadn’t attempted in years, hearing the faint roar of the water rushing past my cap as I felt my brain click into that that terribly familiar setting that allows you to push your body to its absolute extreme – all alongside people of varied ages and sporting backgrounds and jobs and cultures who were doing and experiencing the exact same thing – well, it felt like coming home. Crap. I’d missed it so much.



A few days of workouts turned into a week, a week into two. Exponentially, as I counted tiles on the bottom of the pool with each lap, my contentedness, happiness, and general love of the sport grew. Or, re-grew, I should say. Every day at the pool, amongst my new Masters teammates, felt exactly like wrapping myself up in a comfortable, cozy, familiar childhood blanket knit with the scent of chlorine and the faint sound of a coach yelling at me to jump in for warmup. I’ve really missed this, I thought to myself.

Then, it happened. Hey, I have an idea, my stupid brain whispered at the end of a particularly satisfying IM set. Why don’t you enter a Masters meet? Pick an easy one, it’ll be harmless. If you don’t want to go, you can just scratch it. Could be fun… No no no no no, my brain screamed at my computer as I scooted around on Google, searching for a nearby SoCal meet to enter in February.

No no no no no, it screamed at my steering wheel as I drove to the pool the Saturday morning of the meet. No no no no no, it screamed at my fingers as they traced the heat sheet taped to the wall of the pool complex as I sipped my coffee and wondered how much time I should leave myself to warm-up before the first event. But then, of course, the sun peeked through the morning clouds as I hopped out of warm-up and slipped into my parka, I introduced myself to some teammates I’d yet to meet, my feet found their place behind the blocks so I could stretch and listen for the starter’s whistle, and suddenly, all was exactly as it should be in my little world. When I dove off the blocks for my first event, my brain whispered a new mantra. Yes yes yes yes yes, it repeated through that race, and the following four I swam that day. I’ve missed this so much.



They call it “flow”: the mental state in which a person performing an activity is entirely lost in the feeling of focus and enjoyment in the process of the activity. We feel it for years in the water as competitive swimmers, every day in practice and every weekend at meets. Then, we go on with our lives and get to experience it in other ways: at our jobs, with our families, pursuing our passions.

But the thing with flow, I learned on that sunny day at my first swim meet in years, is that there’s no shame in feeling it, no matter where you find it. Just because I’m an adult now, in a brand new city with job aspirations and a wholly different lifestyle than when I was a “career” swimmer, doesn’t mean that I can’t still swim, doesn’t meant that I can’t still enjoy swimming, doesn’t mean that I can’t also still be a competitive, proud Masters swimmer. Sure, it’s different than it used to be. I won’t lie – for all the joy I felt on deck that day, for all the confidence that surged through me every time I touched the wall first, there was a little sadness mixed in, sure. Something about dreams, maybe, and falling short of them. I have a feeling that slightly bitter sensation will turn to sweet, the more practices I make myself attend, the more meets I push myself into. I also have a feeling that, now that I’ve begun the journey of Masters swimming, I won’t be able to stop. I won’t want to. And how fun is that?

Swimming was my childhood, swimming was my adolescence, swimming was my college. Swimming was my religion and my identity and everything in between. Swimming has been for me, like for so many of us, my entire life. And how could I have ever been in such denial as to think that Spin plus water would ever equal anything but happiness? If you’re a post-grad struggling with how to fill that athletic void inside you, there are a lot of great options, each person’s choice unique. But, if you’re toying with the idea of Masters swimming, give it a try. It might be just what you’ve been missing.