PBs: Personal Bests
Jumping right in…I have always been fascinated by swimmers. Not the leisurely lappers, but the people who swim for sport. Swim for time. For these people, the smallest sliver of a second can become an obsession, a fragment of time that none of us doggy paddlers or dolphin divers would even notice. But for a competitive swimmer, it is the make or break nanosecond of a champion. And so, every hundredths of a second becomes a personal quest for a personal best.
When we moved to Tokyo, both my kids joined a competitive swim team. They had always taken lessons and were confident in the deep end, but swimming for sport, for time, wasn’t something we did. In the beginning, the TAC team was a diversion while we got settled in our new country, sorting out school schedules and navigating new metro lines. And so, I didn’t really take it seriously. Silly mama. Swim moms take swimming seriously. First lesson learned. But perhaps a more important lesson was how critical this team of millisecond minded kids, ranging from 6 to 16 from different schools throughout Tokyo, buoyed my children’s experience in Japan for the better.
This year, Sebastian has decided to get serious about swimming, and it has been a long road. You see, Seb turned 13 this year, and that is when you move up an age bracket — all of the sudden these little boys are swimming against grown ass men. It’s intimidating and humbling, especially when you are diving in from the pre-pubescent plateau. Nevertheless, he persisted…he persists. He attends practice five days a week, seeks his coach’s guidance, sets goals with his buddies, considers optimal nutrition (but sometimes the burger wins), and this past weekend at a swim meet in Hong Kong, he had personal bests in every single one of his individual events. In the 200 meter breaststroke, he shaved 14.77 seconds off his time! That’s a lot of hundredths of a second!
He was pleased without pomp. He still feels he has a long way to go. But, this weekend, he swan dived from that plateau with perseverance and purpose, and he bested himself. That’s the funny thing about hundredths of a second and competitive swimming. Sure, it's about beating the swimmers in the other lanes, but it is also about diving deep within yourself and staying committed, especially when progress is static, so that the incremental achievements, those hundredths of seconds that others wouldn’t even notice, that might not win you the gold, can be a source of personal growth, personal pride and ultimately, your personal bests!
Way to go, Seb! It was an absolute joy to watch you swim!
