Pretty recently my swimming has been a little bit discouraging. I have had a lot of troubles getting back down to the times I was going last year, and I was beginning to feel like it was never going to happen. My 100 butterfly time was about two seconds behind and my 100 backstroke was pretty consistently about a second and a half slower than that of last year.
On top of the disappointing times, I was also having some medical issues. It seemed like every week I had a new issue that was prohibiting me from swimming at practice. First, I pulled my diaphragm (no idea how) so breathing was difficult and swimming at any speed above snail was out of the question. Next I got swimmer's ear. About five weeks in a row. Every Thursday I would be feeling fine in the morning, and sure enough, by afternoon practice my ear would be throbbing. I did a lot of kicking in order to keep my sore ear out of the water. After it seemed my ear had healed by hip began acting up. We went on a run one morning and by the afternoon I could hardly walk without my hip feeling like a nerve was being pinched. I spent a practice simply trying to figure out which stretch would be effective.
But the worst of all began two weeks ago. I woke up one Tuesday morning at about three to a throbbing pain in my right ear. I spent the next two hour trying to go back to sleep after taking too much Advil and while trying to balance a heating pad on the side of my head. Needless to say it was pretty unsuccessful. We scheduled an emergency doctor's appointment. She determined that I had both an inner and outer ear infection. Painful. I did not get in the water until Thursday when I attempted to swim in a meet. That did not go over well. I ended up scratching both of my individual events and suffering through the relays. When it seemed like the pain had passed my luck reminded me I had not gotten off that easily. Apparently after the infection is gone it can still be excruciating. After another visit to the doctor it was determined I just have to wait it out.
Yesterday at my meet I was feeling pretty bad. The whole side of my head was throbbing during the warm-up and my coach and I had a serious talk about scratching that meet as well. But it was the conference championship meet and the last meet before regionals. Also, my team was in serious contention to beat our rival team who had already beaten us once this season. So I decided to swim, for the team. After struggling through my first event things were not looking promising. The pain was pretty bad.
Going into my second event, the 100 butterfly, I was seated sixth. After watching the heat before me I decided my goal was to beat the top time, 1:05.60, so I could make the podium. As I was swimming I tried to concentrate on my stroke so the pain would be less noticeable. As I came to the end of fifty yards I was surprised. I was ahead of the people in my heat, all of whom were supposed to be beating me. I just kept on swimming, and when I touched the wall my time had not shown up on the board yet. My coach yelled "TWO" really loud, and as I looked up not only had I gotten second place in the event, but I had gotten 1:02.43, a lifetime best. My luck carried on through the rest of the meet. I did well in the 100 back and the 400 free relay. And yes, we did beat our rivals.
This best time makes me optimistic. If I can get great times when I feel like crap, then two weeks from now when it comes time to qualify for state I can surely do it again. I will hopefully have recovered from my most recent sickness by then, so I can swim fast with no interruptions. I am optimistic that in two weeks, I will be good to go.
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