Lane One

I yawned, my breath tightening in my chest as nerves zinged through me. I could feel the adrenaline spreading through my body, almost like pins and needles. I took another breath, blowing it out slowly. I watched the water lapping at the edges of the pool. Glanced at the crowd, my competition.

I focused my attention back inwards, my mind a strange mix of racing and still. A hundred thoughts raced through my head, but none permeated the bubble my mind floated in, playing through my coach’s words to me beforehand. It would be my last opportunity to think about them.

To this day, I still cannot recall a single one of the words my coach said. All I knew was that I'd dropped significant time to get into this final. I was in an outside lane. There were no expectations.

The whistle blew. The pool quieted, and I dropped in, water engulfing me as my feet hit the bottom. A moment of silence pressed about me, complete calm blanketing me as my focus stilled to the present. Only the here and now.

My head broke the surface and I reached up to grasp the block. I breathed in. out. That calm silence flowed through me as I settled into the starting position. The second whistle blew. Another breath in. out. Just 200 metres.

Take your marks. The starter went. I don't remember the race. I don't remember the burn of my lungs as I forced air in and out of it. I don't remember how much it hurt, my mind having blocked it all out. All I remember is the feeling of the water slipping over me. The feeling of cutting through it like it was nothing. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to me. I remember how good those eight laps felt.

Nothing went through my mind as I touched that wall. Nothing but the rush. All I could feel was the pulse of my heart. My breath pulling much needed air into my lungs. When I looked up at that board, it took some time for the information to sink in. Doubt crept in, sweeping out the rush as confusion at what I was seeing settled into me instead.

Maybe there was an error with the board? Had I counted wrong? Something had to be wrong. I looked back at the pool. I watched as the rest of the field touched the wall. Watched as the swimmers in the middle of the field came in after me.

I had won. I wasn't supposed to win. I wasn’t even supposed to be in this final. I’d already dropped so much time to get where I was in the first place. I had beaten everyone I had thought untouchable. My shock followed me as I pulled myself out of the pool. It followed me as my fellow swimmers congratulated me. The others on the podium.

I wondered if the people I had beaten held any resentment towards me for creeping in and stealing their moment. Briefly. Then I sunk back into my racing thoughts. It would take me years to look back on that moment and feel worthy of that achievement, and not as though I was there by mere coincidence. Even longer to stop chasing that feeling I'd felt during that race.

An understanding had dawned on me in those seconds after that race. An understanding of what I had been chasing all that time that I'd dedicated to my sport. The feeling of the race, and what came after were things I would never forget. Ones that would be forever ingrained in my mind and that changed my very chemistry.

I finally understood why swimming had such a grip on people for so long, such a long lasting impact. That feeling that I would never quite be able to put into words was why.

Some years later, I would read about the struggles that high level athletes went through after some of their greatest moments, and though that race would never compare to the glory of their achievements, I understood that feeling.

It took a long time to realise that the moment I'd had was the only one I would ever have like it. That even if I achieved that same thing again, it would feel different. That trying to replicate that feeling would only lead to my own ruin.

It was such a small moment in time, fleeting and insignificant to anyone else; in some ways to me too. But it caused such a shift in my view. The result of something stopped meaning quite so much. My plan was important. The execution was important. The details were important. And if I put everything into it, the result was secondary.

My first place hardly mattered, compared to how that race had felt as I executed it perfectly, put everything I had into it. And it was only much later, that I realised how that small moment had changed me so significantly.