Why ex-collegiate swimmers stop swimming...and why they might eventually return

Inspired by the latest post on Ben's blog I've decided to write about a subject I've been pondering for a while: why very good swimmers hang up their suits to dry permanently after their last collegiate swim meet, and why I (just a decent college swimmer) did not.

Let me begin with a short story: I was swimming phenom when I was young. I believe all my summer league records set when I was eight are still standing 20 years later. Pretty much every young swimmer dreams about going to the Olympics someday, and I was no different. But time passed and although I should have recognized it earlier, it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I realized I would never be Olympic material in swimming.

I went to Kenyon College in large part because of the opportunity there to reach both my swimming and running potential - I already had triathlon in the back of my mind. I could see myself becoming a great pro triathlete some day. But for my teammates on the swim team, swimming was their sole athletic pursuit. Undoubtedly, they all dreamed of going to the Olympics when they were younger, but those lofty goals had to be downgraded: now team and individual glory in Division III was what they worked for.

Anybody that hasn't swum competitively for a good program in their teenage and/or college years will have trouble grasping how hard swimmers work. The NCAA rules stipulate no more than 20 hours of training a week for collegiate athletes - a good college program will completely max-out those 20 hours with hard 2-a-day workouts. And trust me, it IS WORK. Somewhere along the line between age 10 and when college arrives, swimming changes drastically from a fun frolic in the water to a near-purgatorial experience where tedious, endless laps of pain may or may not be eventually rewarded come taper-time.

The team is what holds the individual swimmer together during the hard times. Everyone on the team goes through the suffering together and much deeper bonds between teammates are formed than any fraternity hazing could possibly create. There is also the fact that most college swimmers have been swimming for over 10 years - there is a strong desire to see their swimming career through to the end of college in order to justify all those early morning swim practices and weekends spent at swim meets in far-off cities.

Swimmers on good collegiate programs know that realistically, this is the best they will ever be at swimming. Soon after graduation they will have to find work - the idea of swimming the necessary two-a-days to improve themselves, without team support, is unimaginable for nearly everyone. And the idea of much lighter training, feeling the fitness and speed that you used to have in college slip away, never to be regained, is a similarly unbearable thought for any good collegiate swimmer who has worked so hard for so long to reach his/her potential.


And so nearly all of my teammates stopped swimming entirely after the final meet of their senior year, whereas I had seen that I could combine my decent swimming and running talent to succeed in a big way in the world of triathlon, and so I continued on. I've always had the goal of being the best at everything I do, and with triathlon, this is goal I can truly aspire to.

With my swimming background, I still have some of that mindset that ponders why anyone would put so much energy into a post-collegiate sport when they don't have the talent to be very good at it - isn't it just so much time and energy wasted?

But from the beginning I loved to run, and for a lot of my cross-country teammates in college, running was a way of life and a simple joy for about an hour a day. I didn't see them throwing out their running shoes at the end of their senior year. And as I continue through my triathlon career, the joy of biking and running has not diminished, even though some of it is hard work. Even swimming, now done in a much more moderate amount compared to earlier, can be enjoyable a lot of the time.

I am a pro triathlete for a lot of reasons: 1)I have the talent and desire to be the best 2) I have an extremely strong core of energy that needs to be spent on something - triathlon is perhaps the best way to expend this energy 3) there's a lot of cool people in the sport 4) I love challenging myself, and triathlon is a supreme mind and body challenge

But if I didn't love what I did for the simple joy of doing it, I would find something else. Now I can see why there are so many people dedicated to this sport not with any lofty first-place goals in mind...and finally, after a long time has passed since my collegiate swimming career ended, I am beginning to see why an ex-collegiate swimmer might wander back into the sport maybe 5-10 years later and start going to a few masters practices each week, no longer with the idea of being one's absolute best, but simply to enjoy the feel of the water, the camaraderie of good, like-minded people, and the satisfaction of accomplishing a challenging workout.