Chapter 2

 

800m Dash

Under Construction....

It was finally the day of my competitive swimming debut. Past year, I worked on improving my freestyle and backstroke. My Freestyle improved by leaps and bounds, but backstroke, it sucked for me. Having a dominant right made it very difficult for me to swim straight. I tried my hands in Breaststroke too, but it always felt as if my technique was lacking somehow. I was always subconsciously comparing my breaststroke to Shruti's. I even tried Butterfly. It was same for me as for a fish trying to swim above water. It always reminded coach of fish outside water somehow. so, I voluntarily gave up on Breaststroke and was forced to give up on Butterfly.

for my first competition, I participated in long events. 800m and 1600m. because i was more suited to long events than short ones. The event was to be held in a swimming pool owned by a private school. the pool was new and it was my first time in an environment of competitive swimming. It was an indoor pool. 50m in length with 8 lanes. The event was about to start. People were already warming up in the pool. we changed into our suits and headed for the pool. It was chaotic. We somehow secured a lane to practice and started swimming in a line like a school of fish. It was so tight that every now and then my feet would hit someone's head, or someone's feet would hit me. I was in the middle of the pool, desperately trying to maintain a proper pace with my friends, to my right, I saw her.

I saw her do freestyle. She wasn't wearing the same outfit as i remembered from my first day at the pool, but I knew that it was her. Her lane was empty, not many people were present in her lane. yet she was swimming slow. A pace which looked relaxed, like she was one with the water. Seeing that, I too relaxed, all my tension was gone. The warmup was done. Events started.

The events were organized in such a way that all the events for Boys would be held first, starting from 50m to 3600m. Then it would be Girls turn. Then some Fun Events which would then end with award ceremony.

Soon it was my turn. 800m, 16laps. it is really hard to keep count of your laps when you are swimming. So there always is a person standing behind your diving board to time you and also to count your laps. There were girls standing behind us with notepads and stopwatches. As you can guess, The person allotted to me was Shruti. My luck. While i was putting on my cap and googles, She was looking at me with a strange face. I could clearly read on her face the expressions which said "I remember him, that dying fish guy, how could someone allow him to participate in this event? Can he even swim?". She then explained me the start signal, what signal she would use to notify me of my last lap. I was barely listening to her.

All I could think of was how I was gonna smash her version of me in front of her. It was time,

1st whistle, We were on the Board. 2nd whistle, we took positions to dive. 3rd whistle, is what I think it was but I jumped. My swimming careers first dive was a false start. Everyone was laughing. But I wasn't affected by that. I was affected that Shruti was laughing at me.