A ridiculously long post on the lessons I've learned from this swimming season thus far. I just had to get it down on paper, so to speak.

"There is no such thing as a perfect race. It doesn't exist. Even the fastest swimmer in the world isn't perfect. It's simply unattainable. Get usted to that fact." My coach said. It doesn't matter if you're perfect. What matters is that each and every day you get closer to perfection.
The big meet won't define your swimming career, won't define you, and won't be the most important part of your journey to perfection. It is a learning experience, a chance to rest a little, and see how fast you're getting before going back into training to see what else you can do to get closer to perfection. The most important thing is to enjoy the journey itself, to enjoy every stage, and not to fear the big hard workouts, or the big meet.

Sometimes it feels like you can't please my coach, no matter how hard you try. There were days when I left practice, feeling sad because I had disappointed my coach.

Despite the fact he says that "being a jerk" is his job, I know that he isn't really being a jerk to anyone. The simple fact is that we don't like hearing the truth sometimes. When someone tells us the truth, they aren't hurting us; we feel hurt because we realize what they say is true, that we can definitely do better, be better. That feeling of disappointment in ourselves, the fact that we have let ourselves down, drives us. Despite the fact that the truth is hard to hear, it refines us--we have a natural burning desire to do better, to be better.

And if you're like me, you need constant reminding and repetition--the desire to be better goes away pretty quickly if we're not constantly exposed to the bare truth. If my coach didn't constantly remind me that I could do a specific thing better, my stroke would've gotten very sloppy, and I wouldn't be making any progress.

In the middle of the season, we go through a training phase called "tear down." We literally train hard enough to break our bodies down, and rebuild ourselves into something more powerful, quick, and strong. Tear down definitely isn't my favorite part of the season because my coach seems to want nothing more than perfection--if we messed any small thing, we would have to start the entire set over. Sometimes we even had to put our shoes on and run around the Huntsman Center in our suits. I remember one day we made so many mistakes throughout practice, we ran around the Huntsman Center about 17 times.

There were times where I just wanted to quit. I wanted to give up, never to swim in college again. It was discouraging at times, and it was hard to find reasons to keep going. But I kept going, and I'm a better person because I did so.

My coach has the best poker face imaginable. He wears a blank face most of the time, so I'm never sure if he's happy, mad, or disappointed with me. Until he starts talking, you don't quite know. But at a couple points of the season, he'd have to call a team meeting because someone quit the team. His voice would stutter a little when announcing they're not coming back to swim. It was at points like these that we knew and realized that he cares for each and everyone of us individually. He puts a lot of time and attention into each of us, striving to help us improve, to become better, to get faster.

Coach holds high standards for us concerning what we put into our bodies. He came brand new this year, but he had a strong sense of where he wants to take us. And one of his goals was to make our team to have a better reputation. He's doing a good job thus far.

Coach seemed like a mean person, making us work hard, making us give all of our energy to the pool, never telling us we did a good job unless we truly did a good job, always telling us what we could do better, often punishing us for not being perfect... but now I know that he truly cares about us. He wants to make us the best we can possibly be. And to do that, he can't pat me on the back all the time, telling me I'm doing great. It is when he tells me I'm better than what I just did that makes me faster and better.

I know he's made me faster. I can't wait to see how we do in conference this week. He hasn't only made me better physically, I'm thankful that he helped make me a better person as well.