I almost drowned when I was 2 years old... Mom, my brother, and I were visiting a friend's house that had an in ground pool and my brother and I were playing with our plastic bath toy boats on the edge of the pool... Mine got away from me and I tried to reach for it and fell in... Mom had her back to me, but Mrs. Mines saw me fall in and jumped off her lounge chair and yelled, "the baby"... She pulled me out of the water and I was ok... Luckily I held my breath, but cried because it scared the hell out of me... I still remember that till this day... After that mom made it a point not to sit with her back to the pool when we were swimming...
Our parents then signed us up for swim lessons at the local High School and I learned how to swim... Then my brother joined the swim team and when we went to pick him up from a meet, I saw the other kids and it looked like fun, so I joined the next season when I was 4 years old...
I grew up swimming in the age group team at our high school until I reached high school and they rezoned the district for a new high school and I wasn't in the same school as I grew up swimming on... I did join the new high school team my freshman year and swam for most of the season until the coach and I got in an arguement and he kicked me off the team and I quit at the same time... It was a mutual **** you... :icon_fU:
However I was the clean up man on the freestyle relay that set the pool record at that high school... I want to go back sometime and see if it still stands...
I wasn't the fastest freestyle swimmer on the team, but we had good depth for our team then as we had the local high school's age group swimmers along with my old high school swimmers... There was a guy one year ahead of me that was just a little faster at freestyle than I was that was on the old team with us...
The summer I was 8 years old I only lost one race... That was in conference and I was gaining on the guy in 50 freestyle, but didn't have enough pool to catch him... He got lucky... I was so pissed off at ruining my perfect season I hid under my sleeping bag in the pits until butterfly and took it out on them... I beat everybody by 3 - 4 body lengths... :icon_fU:
My strategy back then for 50 free was to pace the first length, then hit my flip turn and go all out on the last length and finish strong... My assistant coach and I worked on my flip turn and I was very fast at it, when most kids that age weren't... On the day of the conference race that I lost, I came into the wall 5th, then hit my flip turn and came off the wall 3rd, passed the next guy for second and was gaining on the first guy and just got touched out... If we were swimming 50 meters instead of 50 yards, I would have had him no problem... :BangHead:
I could do 50 yard freestyle in 25 seconds and 100 yard freestyle in 52 seconds... I could do 200 IM in 2:08 minutes.... I could also do 50 yard butterfly in 27 seconds, but my 100 butterfly was only 1:08 as I needed to work on my endurance as it takes alot out of you... I was trying to get my 100 fly under one minute before I quit the team... One girl that was my age on my old team (Lynette Z.) was doing a 58 second 100 fly then and I always bench marked her and tried to meet her times... She was as good of a swimmer as I was... (Not to mention a decent looking red-head with a killer body)... I could hold my own against her on a 50 yard fly, but didn't have the endurance to blast all 4 lengths of 100 fly...
We went to a large meet in high school and competed against the best in the area... The coach said that if you placed first in that meet, you would most likely be able to place in the top three in state competition... I ended up 12th and was not on my game that day and didn't swim my best times..
I never went back on the team after freshman year as I couldn't get along with the "new" coach... Who happened to be the brother of the coach that I grew up swimming for... The new coach tried to get me back on the team sophomore year, but I refused to go back and put up with his antics and tantrums...
I seriously considered going back on the team for my old coach the summer I was 18 after I graduated, but decided to take the summer off and have fun as I would be going on to college and then most likely starting work afterwards and wanted to have one summer to be free and enjoy myself... I could have gotten my 100 fly under 1 minute...
I sometimes regret not going back and swimming on age group with my old coach (we moved into our grandparents house after grandma died and it was in my old district again) for my 18 year old summer, but I don't regret taking the summer off and going to the beach twice a week and hanging out with my friends... I was right that I would never have that opportunity again...