Stuff My Coach Says

My parents try to convince me that the only reason that my coach is yelling at me is because she cares about my stoke or kick. While I believe this is somewhat true, I also have to disagree. When Coach is yelling at me I always think in the back of my head, “I’d like to see YOUR stroke”. I know this might seem a little bit cocky, but this is what she said to me the other day while swimming a 1000 breaststroke kick…

“CHLOE!! Do you see everyone else’s faces? They are bright red! Yours isn’t! This is called sprint kick, not lala kick”.

When I told my dad what she said, he just laughed and said that he was glad that he was not longer the one that had to yell at me. I just laughed.

While doing the 1000 kick, I got the worst chafes under my arms, and I told my coach, and she just told me that it was because I was “resting” on my board. I just smiled at her and said ok.

Seems like this blog is turning into Stuff My Coach Says.

Thanks for reading!!

I have the slowest tempo in the history of swimming

The other day I made back to swim practice, and I have been going at least four times a week. Practices only are and hour and a half, and we have a thirty-minute dry land before practice starts. These dry lands are getting the best of me, because the only dry land things that I can do are…. the handstand, jump ropes, and jumping jacks. Everything else works on my core, and I literally fall over every time I am doing the exercise.

As most of you know, I am a long distance swimmer. As most of you need to know, I have the slowest tempo in the history of swimming. And my coach lets me, and my teammates know this fact. Every. Single. Day. I am not kidding. Sometimes Coach is nice about it and just says something when most of the other swimmers are already off the wall like,

Good tempo Chloe, but I know that isn’t your fastest.

And other times, when I don’t get so lucky she announces it loud and clear in front of the ENTIRE pre-senior group, like this,

CHLOE!! What do you think you are doing?? This is a sprint set, not a warm down!!

And other times when the whole team is sitting on the wall after a long workout Coach Dana says something like this,

CHLOE!! Do you see everyone else? They are breathing hard! Are you? I don’t think so? When you push hard, you breathe hard.

When she says the last thing I mentioned, I get so mad! I don’t know why, but this one bothers me the best. I think it is because she isn’t focusing on my stroke technique, but just looking at my breathing patterns. But who knows?

School is going well, I just got a 90 on my math test, and I was so happy! I have an 89.45 in the class, and this will bring my grade up to an A, finally. The school I am in now is so much more challenging than my last school, but I have all As and Bs. My lowest grade is in Biology, and I am working so hard to bring it up!

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good week! Thanks for reading

Back And Ready To Swim

I have some sad news..

I can no longer walk out my door and enjoy and open water swim. I just moved to Kentucky.

Anyway, I am very excited to be living here, because the swim team here is amazing! Also, my school has a swim team, and my goal for this year is to win the MVP award. I know I am aiming high for a freshman, but I think if i try hard enough I can do it.

I just started back swimming, and the night after my first night back my english teacher told us to write about an embarrassing thing that happened to us. I decided to write about my first day back to swimming up here in Kentucky. Here is the story if you are interested.....

I hopped into the third lane at the St. Xavier pool thinking that I was going to accomplish something amazing on my first day back to swimming in a little less than a year. I was going to show the other swimmers that were in shape how fast us “Florida Girls” really are. I jumped in, and I was ready to swim my first warm up – 300 meters freestyle – as fast as I could, and I was going to keep the pace for the rest of practice. As I finished the warm up I was a little out of breath, but I covered it up by floating with my face in the water so no one could tell that I “actually tried” only after the first set. Next, were seven 100s, odds were freestyle, evens IM. I knew I wasn’t going to make it very far let alone fast with this, but I was determined to not let anyone know. When I got to the third 100 my arms started getting shaky, I had the worst foot cramps, and I knew that my dinner would be floating in front of me in any second. As I looked at the clock to see that I was 30 seconds behind what I should have been, the coach screamed my name, as if I was a dreaded disease and said, “Chloe how out of shape do you feel?”

I responded with out even digesting the question, “Badly”, I said.

My answer didn’t even make since. How embarrassing! As I was still overcoming all the embarrassment that I had already caused myself, the coach told me to move down a lane. Moving down a lane is the biggest insult to any swimmer. It is almost as embarrassing as wetting the bed, when having a sleepover with all of your friends. I knew right then that I didn’t belong in the “fast people lane”. I had caused myself pure embarrassment during the first practice, and I am still debating whether or not I want to go today. I tell my mom that I don’t feel well, and I have homework in every class. I tell her everything that could possibly be wrong with me so I don’t have to cause my self anymore pain, mentally and physically. It shouldn’t be like this, but unfortunately it is. Embarrassment happens to everyone, and we all get over it sooner or later. As for now, I am going to flip a coin to see if I will be attending swim practice this afternoon.

Thanks for reading!!