Hello everyone! I’m a junior and a swimmer for LM. In some ways, being a swimmer is a very fun and relaxed sport…wait, I was thinking about sailing. Swimming, on the contrary, requires a substantial amount of time and energy, and because of school and extracurriculars, that is not a common occurrence. Much of my free time is spent in the pool, which isn’t necessarily “free time” at all. With that in mind, I would love to share what a normal, COVID-19-free schedule looks like for me as a swimmer.
To preface, I like to relate my swim schedule to the song “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles. I feel that the days in my life repeat over and over in the same way during prime swim season: I wake up, fall out of bed, go off to school, and swim. Although it’s a ton of practice, it makes me and other swimmers that much better in competition. A typical daily schedule of mine follows something like this:
5:30 a.m. — Wake up for swim practice! Sometimes—especially on weekends and half days during a regular school year—I have morning practices that I must wake up at the crack of dawn for. Though it’s somewhat brutal getting up that early, there’s something to be said about swimming and finishing up my out-of-school practice before the world even wakes up, and that always feels really nice.
7:30 a.m. — Everybody’s favorite activity: school. There’s not much to be said about school other than that it’s school. However, as an athlete, having frees during the school day is fantastic. I have a finite amount of time to do my homework outside of school, as you will see.
3:00 p.m. — Afternoon swim! Right after school, swim practices are hosted for a few hours. What’s convenient about having swim right after school (like most other extracurriculars) is that you don’t have to drive anywhere else. You get to just walk down to the pool, and hop right in.
5:30 p.m. — I get home just in time to finally eat something: dinner! I can safely say for most swimmers that we get hungrier as the day goes on, so finally being able to eat is certainly a treat.
6:15 p.m. — Hooray! I have some time where I can finally relax… nope, not yet. It’s homework time, if I didn’t finish all of it during school hours.
Sometime after 6:15 p.m. — Now, I can finally get ready to go to bed. I usually aim to fall asleep at around 10:30 so I can start the next day with even more energy than the last. But, as a busy student-athlete, that unfortunately never seems to happen.
That’s a day in the life of me, a swimmer. If you talk to most swimmers about their sport, they’ll most likely give off the impression that it’s unbearable. And though that’s true a lot of the time, it’s super fun as well. I get to hang out with an awesome group of hardworking and committed people who are living roughly the same life that I am. Shout out to the rest of my fellow swimmers, and as always, COFTB!
