My son swam his 1st mile race shortly after turning 12. It wasn’t by choice; everyone in his practice group was required to swim it once that year. He was not looking forward to it, but he was not particularly stressed or upset about it either.
His dad & I were timers for that race, as parents so often are for distance events. I felt proud at his calm focus when he stepped up on the block. As the race got under way we were surprised to see him keeping pace with the top seeded kids who had previous experience with mile races. We wondered when he would start dropping back. As the race wore on we were shocked to see him still matching them stroke for stroke. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should look to see what the time standard was for that event to qualify for states.
When he touched the wall and looked up to see his 2nd place finish I told him he had just qualified for states!! That announcement would normally elicit a huge smile and a fist pump. Instead we got our second surprise of the day when he angrily responded, “That’s terrible.” He continued on to say that he hated that race & now he would just have to qualify for more events than he was allowed to enter at sates, so he could scratch the mile. I thought he’d change his mind when he was more rested.
As we walked out to the car he told us. “If anyone ever makes me swim that race again I’m doing it butterfly”.
“What?”
“If I swim it fly no one will expect me to be fast, they’ll just be impressed if I finish it”.
Fast forward 5 years, junior year of high school, he has not swum any other mile races, just that one time. He’s a mid distance kid now, breaststroke & IM. At the end of that winter season and he’s chatting on deck with his high school coach. Coach had been a state champion in his day, and an NCAA star. Now a wife, a kid, and a law degree later he clearly no longer has the athlete’s physique he once had. Coach tells his swimmers he’s going to get back in shape in the spring. Some kids may have laughed, some encouraged him. My kid says, “I’ll make you a deal. If you get in shape and swim the mile at our first long course meet next summer I’ll swim it with you but I’ll do it fly.”
With those words his fate was sealed. Coach worked his butt off all spring and by summer he looked like he’d dropped at least 20 pounds. He entered the mile…& so did our anti-distance kid.
My amusement changed to fear as the day of meet drew near. I was worried that a mile butterfly would injure our son and ruin his entire summer season. This was the summer we hoped college coaches would be watching him. I thought that surely his high school coach would talk some sense into him & call off this silly challenge. When that did not happen I hoped his current club coach would order him not to swim it.
None of that happened. Everyone was looking forward to this insane race, coaches included. On the day of the meet storms were forecast. It was an outside meet, so I started hoping that it would get canceled due to lighting.
That didn’t happen. The meet went slowly along. Parents and kids kept coming up to me and saying, “Is he really going to swim a mile fly?” I started feeling nauseous. The meet drug on at a snail’s pace. There were delays for weather, delays for malfunctioning timing equipment. I started thinking it would surely be too dark to swim before they got to that event.
That didn’t happen either. They turned on the lights & began to prepare for the mile. Kids started gathering at the end of my son’s lane to cheer for him. Everyone on his club team stayed to watch, many of his high school teammates too. Some kids showed up just to watch this one event. A girl on his team came over to me and said, “Don’t worry. I am going to watch from the side of the pool so if he has trouble in the middle of a lap I’ll be close enough to jump in & save him.”
OK, was that a joke or was she serious? I’ll never know but it certainly escalated my fears, especially when she did watch all by herself from the midpoint of the pool.
To say this was a race to remember is an understatement. The coach had his own mass of fans at the end of his lane. There was an incredible amount of noise & excitement as they dove in. Somewhere during that race my feelings changed from nervous fear to amazement at the number of fans that showed up to cheer for my stupid kid. I saw some old swim friends at the end of his lane that I had not seen in years.
As he plugged away lap after lap, my amazement gave way to love for all these great kids that were there for him, screaming encouragment for him on every turn. What a supportive close-knit team we have! What crazy wonderful people all these beautiful athletes were. The girl at the side of the pool never gave up her careful monitoring of his progress. It was a very moving experience to say the least. By the time he touched the final wall (two hands of course..and in last place) I had to admit I was really surprised to discover that I had actually enjoyed watching that race. He was right too, no one noticed or cared what his time was.
Also surprising was that he really wasn’t injured from it.In fact he was pumped by the whole experience. He even got a personal best in his 1st race the next morning…and dislocated his finger on the finish. Yeah, it was a 50 free that threw a wrench in his summer season, not the mile butterfly. Go figure!
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