It was so humid by the indoor pool that I could hardly breathe, or maybe it was just from my nerves as I stood in my new blue bathing suit at the edge of the water, looking around myself at the lean swimmers stretching by their lanes. It was my first day on the swim team, and I was fresh from the swimming lessons that our local YMCA offered. I had been the fastest swimmer there and it had been my old instructor, Coach Allison, who had encouraged me to join the swim team.

I had been feeling a little c***y, thinking that if I had been the fastest during swimming lessons, then it surely couldn’t be all that different now, but looking at some of these kids I realized that I might have overestimated my ability just a little.

Standing awkwardly by myself, I looked at the lanes, trying to assess where I should put myself. Lane one had the fastest swimmers and lane four had the slowest. Closing my eyes, I reminded myself that most of the others here were new as well, and that I was just as fast, if not faster than a lot of them.

Some of my confidence regained at that thought, I walked up to lane one. Everybody was about my age, so I couldn’t tell who was stronger or more experienced, and I thought I would challenge myself a little by putting myself in the fastest lane.

“I don’t recognize you. Is it your first time on the team?”

I looked over to see a girl maybe a year older than me smiling kindly. I nodded, pushing my hair further underneath my red swim cap, trying to look like a long-time swimmer, as if I knew exactly what I was doing.

“My name’s Shreya, and if you have any questions you can ask me,” she said enthusiastically. “This is my second year here, and I’ve had a great time so far. You must be a little nervous, I sure was my first day! What’s your favorite event?”

She was still smiling brightly, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet and pulling on the straps of her pink racing suit. I could tell Shreya was thrilled to have a new kid to mentor.

“The individual medley,” I replied cautiously. To be honest, I had no idea what my favorite event was since I had never been in a race before. Individual medley was a safe answer because that was the one event that had all of the strokes in it.

“Ooooh, nice! I like that one too, but really I’m more of a breaststroker.”

One of my new coaches hollered something.

“That means it’s time for us to get ready to go! Got all your equipment? Great, let’s line up!”

I was a little confused. Didn’t we have to be in the pool to start swimming? Then, as I watch the girl who was first in line crouch as if she was about to jump, I realized that we were about to dive right in and immediately begin our warm-up with no time to be idle.

My eyes widened. In my swimming lessons we had at least had a minute to get used to the temperature of the water.

“Alright kiddos, we’re going to start with an easy warm-up today for the start of the season! You’ve just got a hundred fifty yards freestyle! That’s only six laps!” the coach said, raising her voice to be heard over the chattering group.

“A hundred fifty freestyle? Huh, that is easy. Usually it’s at least a two hundred,” Shreya said with a shrug. “I guess it’s because there are a lot of new kids around.”

I was incredulous. Only six laps? The farthest I had ever swum in one go was four, and here Shreya was saying that this was an uncommonly easy distance?

Nobody else seemed to be affected by the same wave of panic that I was currently trying to fight down, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on the monstrous warm-up as the coach shouted more instructions.

“First person! Ready, go!”

The first girl in my lane sprung off the edge of the green tiled floor in a graceful arc that ended with a small splash in the pool. For a moment I watched her powerful underwater kicks send rolling waves of water up to the surface, wondering if I had made a serious mistake by placing myself here.

The line quickly shortened as more and more kids leaped into the water and soon it was only Shreya and myself waiting to get in. She gestured for me to go on ahead of her and I shrugged before moving up. She would probably pass me in a moment anyway.

I padded over to the end of the pool, feeling the cool water lap at my toes and hunching over in a clumsy imitation of my teammates waited for the coach’s signal.

“Ready, go!”

I thrust myself forward like I had seen the others do, but I could tell that my form was all wrong. My knees stayed bent and I couldn’t quite bring myself to keep my head down between my outstretched arms. Where others had done an elegant dive, I had done an awkward hop, hitting the water with a loud thwack!
I was grateful that Shreya couldn’t see my face, as I was certain that I was beet red.

Quickly, I started swimming before she could jump in behind me. If she was going to pass me, I wanted for it to at least be something of a challenge for her. To make sure that I didn’t fall too far behind, I focused on the feet of the boy ahead of me. I could barely see them in the white cloud of bubbles that surrounded them, but I tried to make sure that the cloud was always the same distance away from me.

Having completed my first lap and feeling rather victorious, I completed my turn and put on a burst of speed. A moment later I found myself tapping  the toes of the boy ahead of me. I proudly watched as he pulled over to let me by, grabbing on to the lane line to stay afloat and gesturing for me to continue.

The fact that I had managed to pass anyone at all in lane one on my first day thrilled me, but the excitement I felt was dampened considerably when I realized that I was already feeling tired and that I had about five more lengths of the pool to go.

It was only when I started to head onto my third lap that I really started to slow down. I was beginning to really regret the fast swimming I had done so far in the beginning of the warm-up. This was only the start of practice and I was already taking deep, heaving breaths when I turned my face to get some air. I could almost feel my stroke get shorter and less controlled as my muscles started to ache and my shoulders began to twinge.

“Coach Allison never prepared me for this,” I thought.

It was then that I felt the first light touch on the pads of my toes. For a moment, I tried to pick up my pace and stay ahead, but as the other person’s touches moved up from my toes to my heels and ankles as they gained on me, I stopped swimming to let them go ahead of me, almost happy for the chance to rest.

I saw that it was the girl who was the first in our lane, taking strong strokes as if the six laps we had to swim were nothing. Maybe they were in her eyes. I couldn’t help but feel that it wasn’t quite fair that someone would be able to swim an entire two laps more than I had in nearly the same amount of time.

I decided that no matter what it took, I would be as good a swimmer as she was, even if I felt like I wasn’t going to even be able to finish the warm-up right now.

Of course, my determination almost disappeared when I started moving again, exhausted as I was.

Soon, I felt someone else tapping at my feet, and I stopped to let Shreya and the boy go around me. The rest of warm-up was spent similarly, with me starting and pulling over periodically as I let other kids pass.

It felt like an eternity, and by the end of the one hundred fifty yards, I had lost whatever ego being the fastest in my swimming lessons had given me. I finally stopped swimming at the end of the pool, chest heaving.

Shreya, now one person in front of me, gave me another smile.

“Nice job! You should be proud of yourself, you know. You kept up pretty well, especially for a kid on her first day on the swim team.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed that I kept up at all, but I was proud that I hadn’t completely been left behind. Grateful for the chilly pool water for once, I leaned back with my eyes closed. Honestly, that was enough for day one.