Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

The feeling started last Wednesday as a faint flutter. By the time i woke up Friday morning, it was a constant, if slight, pang in my abdomen. I knew the exact last time I had felt this way. It was over two years ago, standing on a pool deck in Williamstown, Massachusetts for what was supposed to be my last race.

I had walked off that deck believing that I had just completed my last year of serious swimming. I knew I would never has as much time to train again, never have so many teammates to help me along. I knew that when I completed my last stroke that day it was my last day to be faster than I'd ever been. I should have known how wrong I was.

I had always planned to swim for life. Ever since I fell in love with swimming, I knew it was something I would do until i was physically unable. I had professed as much to my college teammates at our parent's banquet, thanking them for their support and pledging that the end of that season did not mean I was retired. I joked with some later that I would keep competing until I was 105 so that I could have a world record.

I left my final college meet bitterly disappointed in myself. I had left in my wake goals unachieved and barriers unbroken. For months I wouldn't even hazard to touch the pool. Six months after I was so sure I would compete for life, I was contemplating putting it all behind me. When I failed to get hired for even the most low-paying assistant coaching jobs, I accepted a job teaching history at a private school in western Pennsylvania. Sure, they needed a swim coach too but that would just be a side task.

When only a handful of swimmers showed up to my first optional morning practice, I decided I would get in the pool myself under some misguided attempt to show them how it was done. It was my first time back in the pool in some six months, and I was surprised by how not terrible it was. Secretly, i found myself looking forward to the pre-dawn workouts. When I returned to my high school alumni meet and swam close to my college dual meet times, one of the seniors offered this suggestion:

"Hey, you should do masters or something"

The only problem was, I was in Saltsburg, PA and roughly an hour from the closest masters team. I put the idea quickly out of my head. Still, I found myself spending way more time on my side job coaching swimming then on teaching history. I knew I had to get out. Back on the college coaching job hunt, I finally found a glimmer of hope at the University of Pennsylvania. I left full time pay with housing and benefits for a part time salary in a city I'd spent one day in.

At Penn, I expected to find swimmers that had something special that I didn't have. The truth was, it just wasn't there. Before I knew it I was working out every morning. I was finding time wherever I could to train. As a coach I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to make my swimmer's better. When I needed someone to test my ideas out on I had myself for a test dummy. Finally, 6 months back into the pool I decided to make my comeback official, but I would race in club meets, foregoing masters for now.

Along the way, I've been reminded of all the things I love about this sport and the people in it. I reunited with my high school swim coach, Sue Sotir, and remembered why I loved swimming for her. I trained with and coached a masters team full of swimmers that made me appreciate everything I had been given. At my final meet I agreed to compete for one of the other coach's club teams, New Wave Swim Club in Lowell, MA. Thirty minutes after meeting one of my new teammates, Brittany Gauthier, she was cheering for me at the end of my lane.

To be sure, it hasn't been all positive. At my first official meet back, an older coach who knew me advised me to hang it up and stop racing the kids. He told me to face the fact that I just wasn't very good anymore. In Omaha, i had the following exchange with Roque Santos:

Roque: "You look like you were a backstroker, you're uncoordinated"

Me: "Actually Roque, I swam breaststroke like you. I just wasn't very good"

Roque "Did you break a minute?"

Me: "No"

Roque: "Yeah, you weren't very good"

Two weeks ago, I went a best time. It came, as it should have, completely unexpected. I hadn't even been able to get into a pool during trials, and had spent most of the next week pushing through training and feeling tired. I immediatley made plans to do it right and shave and taper for the meet this past weekend, the New England Opens. How much more time did my shave and taper earn me? One tenth.

My experience has taught me a lot about our sport. For one thing, its not about the time you spend training, but what you do with that time. As much as you want to do well for other people, be it your coach, your teammates or your friends and family, it has to be you. Finally, whatever your level of talent is, take pleasure in doing your best.

I would be disappointed about only dropping a tenth on Friday, but I'm too busy thinking about how I'm going to be faster next year.