Don and Water
It was 5:28am.
I was in my dad’s car wiping sleep from my eyes and trying to figure out if this was reality. My dad suddenly stopped and said,
“We’re here”.
I fell out of the car with one eye fully closed and the other ¾ of the way closed. It was swimming training for the next four weeks. What joy! I jumped into the water and it was the biggest shock of my life. Was I in Antarctica?
“Okay everyone quiet down”.
“Welcome to swimming. Now most of you I know but for the rest of you I’m Elyzia.”
This was my coach. She had dark hair, food still in her teeth and her top was falling down. The water was a cyan colour and it was so peaceful until Elyzia started shouting the set in her booming voice.
“1km only arms
20 50m on the 50sec
Fun 500
50m dive in”.
The ‘1km only arms’, is 1km with a band around your ankles so you can’t kick and you do freestyle arms. This one is easy as long as you don’t daydream and lose count at 800m and then you have to start again. My life keeps on getting better and better.
The ‘20 50m on the 50sec’ is when you need to do 50meters in 50seconds 20 times. This one’s easy for the first 10 but then when you get the 11th or the 12th and then you feel like you’re going to die!
The joy doesn’t end there! I still need to do the ‘FUN 500’. Basically it isn’t fun at all because its 500meters of butterfly and freestyle. When you have to do about 300m of butterfly you start to feel sick. Trust me, it isn’t ‘FUN’.
At the end of the training session, I got out and did a ‘50m dive in sprint’. It’s really hard to swim your fastest because you’ve done all that training and you’re tired.
I think swimming training is fun and I will carry it out throughout my life. It is a good way of getting fit and exercising.
I have had other joyful experiences with water during an unforgettable canoeing trip. The object of canoeing is to stay on the water, ‘dry’. This is more easily said than done.
In the holidays when my mom took me canoeing in a crocodile and Eel infested river, I fell in. I had to swim upstream with my boat and try to get back in. I tried when I was in the water but when I got one leg in it hurt me too way too much. “Whose idea was this anyway?” So I had to swim to the edge of the river and climb into my boat. When I was about to climb in there was a slight problem. The boat was full of water! Now I had to go back into the river and tip all the water out of the boat, then I could go canoeing again. Finally I reached the end but instead of canoeing I swam and towed the boat.
I was really scared that day and surprised I came out alive.
By Don Menounos
GREEKS!
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