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Once a swimmer...

Tuesday, 07 February 2017 23:10

By Kristina Swenson (kristinaswenson.wixsite.com)

I've always loved the water. Growing up in Minnesota, water is a staple part of being a kid... my favorite summer memories are the weekends spent at the cabin: playing on the beach, jumping on the water trampoline, being flung off tubes, and skiing at sunset. My parents put me in swimming lessons at a young age, wanting me to get comfortable in the water. By the age of 13, I was ready to take the next step and joined a local club swim team. Freshman year, I joined the high school swim team. Thus began one of the best journeys of my life....

I loved everything about high school swimming: the early morning weight lifting sessions, the hard sets that you thought you would never be able to finish, the muscles that were always sore, the locker room chatter with the team, the nights spent on a dark bus jamming out to Miley Cyrus on the way back from swim meets, the cheering your teammates did when you were neck and neck in a race, and the satisfaction you got when you hit the pad and looked up to see a huge time drop on the clock. The girls that you spent every evening with became a family, and you almost didn't know what to do with yourself when you had a night off. The countless laughs and inside jokes we shared pop up on my TimeHop (an app that shows your social media postings on that day for the past several years) every now and again, reminding me of just how close we all were.
 
It was my senior year, and it was time to start thinking about college. I don't really remember when I made the decision that I didn't want to swim in college, but I know that pretty early on I decided that as much as I loved swimming, I wanted to focus on triathlon for the next four years. I never filled out any swimming recruiting websites, or contacted any coaches, simply because I wasn't interested. My senior swim season left me on a high: my dad was the head coach, I was the captain of a three-time section champion team, I placed top 8 and swam personal bests in both of my events at sections, and I got to compete on a relay at the state meet. I was so happy with my swimming career but so ready to see what triathlon had in store for me.
 
In the fall of 2015, I started my freshman year at Iowa State University. From day one, I began practicing with the Triathlon Club team, as I had already been in contact with the president of the team over the summer. I loved the team right away. Everyone was really friendly, and it was amazing that there were 30 people showing up at practice every day, excited to do the same thing I did. I swam 3 days a week with the team, and enjoyed my time back in the pool, but for the first time in years, I really struggled with my swim. After my senior high school season got done, I didn't go back to club swimming, so I really hadn't spent consistent time in the water in 9 months. I wasn't able to make the intervals I once could, and my stroke just felt bad.  READ MORE