We are really happy to welcome the lovely Rebecca Gillis to our team of bloggers. Rebecca has been swimming competitively since she was eight years old and has a wonderful ability to document the ups and downs of a competitive swimmer. Every fortnight we will post something new from Rebecca, but be warned, unless you’re a swimmer, you couldn’t possibly understand.
So here’s the thing about competitive swimming: it’s an Olympic sport, international and sometimes even national-level meets are televised, and it has some of the hardest working athletes. We’re talking seven, eight, or even upwards of nine practices a week.
This being said, when I introduce myself to someone as a swimmer, there is usually a lot of confusion that follows.
“That’s cool, I do swimming lessons too!” is a pretty typical answer. I cannot stress enough to these people how different competitive swimming is in comparison to the once-a-week commitment of swimming lessons.
The other half of people jump to the complete opposite: “So are you the next Michael Phelps then?”. For starters, I am an average-sized teenage girl, NOT a 6’4, 28 year old man. And no, I will most likely not win a total of 22 Olympic medals in my career.
Perhaps the most frustrating…
