Whether it is waking up at 5:30 every morning over the summer or swimming two practices a day during the school year, commitment to the sport and my team is something I learned quickly as a competitive swimmer. Next, there is patience. All of the training in swimming leads up to one race that lasts less than a minute. To make matters worse, a lot of the time I would not even get a personal record or reach the qualifying time I needed for the next big meet. At that point, I would have to get over the frustration and find the patience to go back to the pool and continue training to make sure I could do even better the next time. Overcoming obstacles is the last thing I will address. In the middle of my third year on my competitive team, I started feeling pain in my right shoulder. At the time I was unaware that this pain would stick with me for the rest of my swimming career. Over the next four years, I visited a plethora of doctors for this shoulder, ranging from orthopedic surgeons to acupuncturists and everything in
Whether it is waking up at 5:30 every morning over the summer or swimming two practices a day during the school year, commitment to the sport and my team is something I learned quickly as a competitive swimmer. Next, there is patience. All of the training in swimming leads up to one race that lasts less than a minute. To make matters worse, a lot of the time I would not even get a personal record or reach the qualifying time I needed for the next big meet. At that point, I would have to get over the frustration and find the patience to go back to the pool and continue training to make sure I could do even better the next time. Overcoming obstacles is the last thing I will address. In the middle of my third year on my competitive team, I started feeling pain in my right shoulder. At the time I was unaware that this pain would stick with me for the rest of my swimming career. Over the next four years, I visited a plethora of doctors for this shoulder, ranging from orthopedic surgeons to acupuncturists and everything in