JEB Stuart Swim Team

I had been on the swim team at my summer pool, Sleepy Hollow Bath and Racquet, for five years and then had to stop because I began working at a summer camp and the times were conflicting.  I was also unable to swim for the JEB Stuart Swim team my freshman through junior years because I was working.  However, my senior year I decided that I missed swimming too much and I decided to join the swim team.  Although it was difficult at times, I am very glad I did.  Breaststroke is by far my worst stroke to swim, but my coaches decided that because I would need to swim the 100 meter breaststroke because of the placement of others in the swim meets.  This was definitely a challenge, and in the beginning it was an embarrassing one.  Throughout the swim season, I continued to work hard on my breaststroke and I eventually began to drop seconds in the meets and improved.  Although I would definitely not say that I am good at swimming breaststroke now, I am much better than I was.  In summer swim, the longest distance that you race is 50 meters.  In winter swim, the distances are much longer.  My coaches decided that I had to swim the 500 meter freestyle race.  I will admit, I was very scared at first.  The first time I swam the race, I kept a pretty slow pace, my only goal was to finish without drowning.  Thankfully, I did.  The next time that I swam the race, I upped my pace a bit and dropped about 15 seconds on my time.  I continued to work on the race and my pacing and by the end of the season I had dropped around a minute and 30 seconds on the race.  While my time still may not be very impressive to the people who swim constantly, it was a huge improvement for me and I feel that I definitely developed new skills at swimming longer distances.