Swimmers don't swim because its fun. Ask any of us, most of us hate it, but we couldn't imagine our lives with out it. Its part of us, its something we live for. We live for the 3 hr practices, the team parties, the cheers, the long bus/car rides, the invitationals, the countless broken swim caps, the chlorine, the jokes, the friendships, the laughs, the love, the coaches you hate but appreciate later, and the sport itself. We live for the way it feels when we beat the person next to you by a tenth of a second, because we now know that those 2 extra laps we did in practice were worth it. We live for the pride of shaving our entire bodies for a meet we have worked hard to get to. We live for the way we jump every time we hear a buzzer, or the way we scream whenever we hear the gun on the 500 go off, even though we hear it at every single meet and should be used to it. We live for the workouts, the gear, and the goals we set at the beginning of the season. We live for the way we celebrate when we get to do a set of flip-turns or some starts at practice. We live for the way we become a family with our team, and how no one understands what happens within that pool or locker room but us and our teammates. We live for the countless songs we sing in our head when we're swimming laps that seem to last forever. We live for the people who scream at us while we're swimming even though all we hear is BLAHBLAHBLAH. We live for the competition, we live for the friends, we live for the practice, and we live for the pain. We live for the race, the sprint, the distance, we live for the team, its a part of us because we are S W I M M E R S.
