Swimming

Background

I have been swimming for as long as I can remember. My parents wanted to make sure I knew how to swim at a young age, especially because of a drowning scare that involved me. Our family typically swam at various indoor and outdoor pools by our house that were open to the public. When I reached the age of 6, I joined my sister on the Whitmer Lake swim team, which allowed children the opportunity to learn swimming in a more structured environment and compete with other kids. Since the school we went to at the time didn't have a swim team, we decided that this would be a good alternative. Around this time, we also had a private swimming instructor named Kate, who helped us with our strokes and in learning ways to speed up. She also showed us how to count our strokes for backstroke so we wouldn't hit our heads on the wall.

I had to quit the Whitmer Lake swim team in 2nd grade because we moved, so I didn't swim competitively again until 6th grade. Throughout middle school, I did swimming, since it was a winter sport that didn't interfere with my running in the fall and spring. I didn't have many events that were 'mine', but I usually did a breastroke event, a freestyle or backstroke event, and a relay or two. Swimming let me meet more people in my grade that I usually didn't talk to, so I also benefitted socially from it. In high school, I had to stop swimming competitively again because my school doesn't have sports.

Photo Gallery

Here are a few pictures of my swim meets

These are a few pictures of the scoreboard (I'm Schmidt)