On January 15th, I broke Prestonwood’s school record in the 500 yard freestyle at the Pre-Regional swim meet. I started working to try and break this record at the beginning of my freshmen swim season. Breaking a record requires a significant amount of dedication.
First, you need to attend a lot of swim practices. I practice five days a week; two hours every day for club, then, I factor in school practices which are an hour and a half three days throughout the week. These practices are in addition to all of the school work that students have.
Second, you must attend swim meets. In order to achieve a personal best, which simply means to improve your times, you must attend swim meets and swim that event. I swam the 500 yard freestyle more than “once or twice”. I competed in this event at almost every meet leading up to the Pre-Regional meet, including my freshmen and sophomore season. I also got a personal best again when I swam it at Regionals. Sometimes, you add time, which is what happened to me at the beginning of my sophomore season on the 500. It puts you down, but it can motivate you to work harder.
Third, you must keep going and keep encouraging yourself to get there. You can put in all the work you want and still not succeed. Swimming is about constantly trying and sometimes you fail by adding on your times or not getting where you want to be on your times. This can be discouraging so you must trust God through it. You also need to hope and pray for courage along with strength to keep working hard and not give up.
Many people might not think this is a huge accomplishment, but swimming is all about personal bests and for me setting a new record was a personal best. It truly meant a lot to me. Achieving my goal of breaking the record required time and some bumps in the road but I eventually got there. Swimming demands a lot of hard work and dedication. To break a record you must keep trying, failing, and working hard in order to succeed.
