EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third article in a series by Noblesville Swim Club seniors Brianna McBride and Rachel Tat about the club’s annual Senior Trip.
Rachel: Last full day here in Savannah, GA and we had plenty of fun to go around today.
Brianna: Once again, we started the day with an early wake-up call followed by a hard but invigorating practice.
The team split up into three groups: sprint, mid distance, and long distance. Each set was very challenging and some of us (also known as me) struggled through as we were sore from the workouts throughout the week.
We pushed through the tough workout while keeping in mind our previous words of the day—integrity and grit. Each of us took the responsibility of working as hard as we could and pushing through the pain of either sprinting or swimming long distance.
After practice we once again feasted on waffles then continued on to our rooms to wind down and prepare for another day in Savannah. We were given the option of going to the beach or visiting the shops in downtown Savannah again instead of rushing around from site to site in the Amazing Race.
The swimmers that went to beach lounged around and played in the sand. The swimmers that went downtown surfed the local shops that included a cookie shop, candy store, and various souvenir and apparel stores. Some of the shoppers splurged too much on nonessential souvenirs but the trip was definitely worth the experience.
Once our morning was over, we arrived back at the hotel for more food. Shocking, right? Then we had some chill time to relax before our last afternoon practice of this training trip. It’s strange to think that the trip is coming to an end; time definitely flies by when you’re having fun.
Our afternoon practice consisted a lot of individual times races. We each had to swim a 100-yard freestyle and try to get at most two seconds within our best time. If someone didn’t make the goal, their lane had to do some 25-yard swims of butterfly. Luckily, my lane all reached the goal and we cheered each other on during the whole set.
My lane also successfully made it through the test, despite having someone with a slight injury. I don’t know about everyone else, but I really didn’t want to be the one to mess things up for the lane, so I knew I had to ignore any pain and do it for my teammates. And this leads us perfectly to our discussion over today’s word: character.
Character is essentially the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. We have to be disciplined and have the right morals to quite an extent to be able to jump into a cold pool at an ungodly hour of the morning. We always finish the hardest of sets that definitely build onto our attitude and ability in swimming.
And character does not only apply to swimming. Everything we do builds our character, impacting who we are and how others perceive us. For example, even though we are always hungry swimmers, we somehow ended up with leftover food after dinner; we decided to bring it to a homeless camp on the side of the road and our eyes were opened. Our real life experiences help to impact our character, shaping us to be better people as we grow in gratitude.
We are sad to say that we already leave for Auburn tomorrow after a morning practice. We have been so grateful for this training experience in Savannah and we wish it would never end!
As we transition from training to competition, we will be sure to keep integrity, grit, and our character in mind. Even though the trip is almost over, it is only the beginning.
See you in Auburn!