Hitting the water for Team Wyoming

Training versus exercise. They’re so similar to each other that it is sometimes hard to tell the difference. But there is one, and it can make a huge difference.
Training is a form of exercise, but it has something that exercise by itself lacks: motivation. When I train for swimming, I’m training for a goal. Working toward that goal is what drives me to continually show up for practice every afternoon, day after day, month after month, season after season. Most days, I don’t feel like going to practice, but force myself to keep going. 
Why? Because I have goals. Those goals are what keep me in perspective, and accomplishing them makes all the training worth it. 
One of my long-term goals was to qualify for Zones. Last winter, I achieved my goal, and throughout the week of July 31-Aug. 5, I participated in the Western Zone Senior Championship Swim Meet held in Clovis, California. 
It was a huge meet, far bigger than any meet I’ve been to before, and the swimmers there were extremely fast. Having the chance to race against an entire pool full of really fast swimmers was the opportunity of a lifetime. While I was nowhere near to placing in any of my events, the competitive atmosphere helped push me to swim my personal bests and showed me that there will always be someone faster.
However, the experience of Zones wasn’t only about swimming fast. The team spirit was probably the most memorable part of the trip. All of the qualifiers from Wyoming formed one team in Clovis, which gave me the chance to meet other Wyoming swimmers. The people I had competed against for years were now my teammates. Whenever someone’s race came up, all 30 of us were at the other end of the lane, screaming at the top of our lungs and cheering on whoever was swimming. 
But the cheering only got louder in the evenings. Those who swam in the top 32 during “prelims” competed again in the late afternoon during the session called “finals.” We spent our afternoon going to the dollar store to buy as many noisemakers and any other junk we could find to cheer on the finalist swimmers. Dressed in our dollar store garb, with cheap harmonicas in hand, we made our way to the pool once again.
Just being a part of that team was incredible. Even though I hardly knew anybody at the beginning of the week, I came home with more friends than I started with. 
That one week made the years of training worth it, but it wasn’t done without a little help. I had wonderful support from my family, coaches, and community to push me beyond my limits in order to pursue my goal. I thank God for giving me the opportunity to swim and for allowing me to accomplish my goals. To him belongs all glory, for without him I can do nothing. 
Now that I have achieved one of my goals, I have to start training for a new goal. Zones was a great kickoff to the 2018 season of high school swimming, and even though I only had one week of rest in between seasons, it kept me in shape and inspired me to pursue and achieve a higher goal. 
After all, seven days of no swimming makes one weak.