Swimming is more than just a sport, swimming is a sport that seriously shaped me more than anything in this life – it taught me hard work, how to deal with fear and time management like no other. Through the chlorine sweat and horrible sets that make my arms hurt just thinking about them, I would never change a second of my swim career.

1. You Are Always Tired.

First off and foremost, perpetual exhaustion is quite possibly the largest sign that you’re a swimmer in season. During season, we practice before the sun comes up and again once the sun has set again. Swim life is exhausting, but so worth it. Each time that 5 a.m. alarm goes off, a small piece of you dies inside and you contemplate feigning illness or saying your car wouldn’t start on the way to practice and sliding back into a deep slumber. But, as all swimmers know, this does not fly and you better your a** up and go to practice.

2. Your Hair Becomes a Straw-like Texture.

That’s right, that stuff that grows in fields and is coarse to the touch is what best resembles a true swimmer’s hair. If you’re blonde and get treatment, it may also turn green, which is really neat. If you’re a brunette like myself, the ends get kind of a crispy texture that split in about a thousand directions. Not to mention, your hair perpetually smells like chlorine, no matter what you do. You could shampoo it over and over, but save yourself sometime and accept the fact that you’re going to smell like chemicals for a few months.

3. You Will Never Shed the Smell of Chlorine.

When you're a swimmer, you basically emit the scent of chlorine at all times during the season, and you know it's true; regardless if you're fresh out of the pool or laying in your bed attempting to recover from practice on the weekends.The truth of this is that your skin, upon numerous motioning’s and attempts to salvage it, will show some signs of chlorine wear and tear. Personally, I enjoyed going to school after morning practice and being informed that I "smelled" like chlorine, or that my hair was really dry. Thank you, I noticed that. Luckily, though, it does help with acne because of the chemicals in chlorine and clear skin is always a good thing. So there’s a plus side to everything in life, and you’re always that much closer to actually becoming a mermaid. Not many people can say that.

4. We Actually Like Unheated/cold Pools.

Sure, that first dive into a cold pool (especially during early morning practice or an early morning meet) feels similar to doing a self-induced polar plunge that you have no one to blame but yourself for endeavoring in. however, being a distance swimmer myself, I was enamored with cold pools by my 15^th lap when I could feel my lungs closing and my muscles shutting down. The cold water was a jolt of energy and the cooling sensation it offered to my cramped shins will always be appreciated, even if I swore my nipples did indeed fall off on numerous occasions in cold pools.

5. Snakes Are Actually a Form of Torture.

Ah, snakes. To most people, snakes are just a slithery and disgusting creature that are found outside and very commonly feared. But to swimmers, snakes are something even worse than that. They are the ultimate form of torture. What is a snake? A snake is a drill in which you begin in lane one (going in order of speed with the rest of your team, mind you) by diving in, usually doing butterfly, and once you get to the shallow end, you do a flip turn underneath the lane lines to get into the next lane and begin backstroking, flip under the lane lines again and do breast stroke, then once you do another flip and begin freestyle, you will hop out of lane four, dive in again and do it again. During my short experience in college swimming, we had an eight lane pool, therefore, we did this cycle twice. Get out. Repeat.

6. Lane Lines are Really Important.

“DON’T HANG ON THE LANE LINES!” we’ve all heard it, but guess what? We all still did it at the end of each set. Lane-lines are the floating pieces of plastic used to separate lanes and they are also the saving grace in between tough sets when all of the gutter room is taken up and you just want to breathe without needing to exert any effort. Lane lines can also be used in backstroke drills when you’re tired and want a little extra “boost.” However, they can also be used in backstroke drills to work on technique and we all know we love technique for a certain reason.

7. Technique Days are The Proof of God’s Existence.

In relation to my most recent bullet, technique days are the days when you trudge out to your assigned lane for practice, only to see that there is no dreaded sheet of paper that lays out your demise, or practice sets. Technique days usually come the day before a meet, so that you’re able to walk and such for the meet the next day (this isn’t always the case, RIP to my muscles). Technique days usually involved zoomers, pull-buoys and kick-boards (my calf just cramped thinking of those drills, though) and they are basically the best days of your life. You will also wish you could use zoomers for all of your racers, and start to make sneaky plans in your head on how you will make invisible zoomers and wear them for every race (I've tried everything, it won't happen. Sorry).

8. Taper. Taper. Taper.

Ah, taper, how I love you. Taper is the period right before your finals in which you swim smaller sets, and carb-load. I was always really prepared for taper because I basically always carb-loaded and I honestly think I could teach a course in carb-loading because I am so good at the consumption of carbs. My high school team had a “Carbfest” before our final meet known as UP’s, (MHSAA Upper Peninsula Swim and Dive Finals, eh) and it was glorious. Noodles, bread, and desserts could be found as well as happy swimmers because not only were they getting fed hella good, but they also didn’t have sore muscles because taper is a God-sent gift. However, the practices leading up to Taper inflicted a certain pain on me that I barely live to tell.

9. Nudity is Highly Accepted.

I may only speak for the girls when I say this, but nudity in the locker room is the norm. I remember walking into practice on my first day of freshman year and pulling the curtains closed to get change as fast as I could so nobody would see me. By senior year, I could hold a full conversation with someone and not even notice that they were topless. Nothing is a secret with swim girls and if one of us knows the hottest gossip, then we all probably do. Swim girls are a savage bunch of girls, especially in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan because it is so cold and we still wander around nude. #YooperPride

10. Swimmers are Literally THE Nicest Group of People.

Before basically any race, the girl racing next to you will probably wish you good luck. When you’re getting marshalled during a big meet, you will often times become BFF’s with the girl next to you as you are brought from room to room and chair to chair until your heat is up. Once the caps go on, the love dies down a bit, but the next time you see this person at a competition you’ll probably have a conversation, even though you’re each other’s biggest competition. And that’s amazing. Sometimes, when they see you that same competition after you raced them or at a different time, they will cheer you on. This is something that I’ve never witnessed in other sports, and I always loved how happy fellow swimmers could be for one another. Rock on.

11. Swim Lingo is Real.

Swimming is a sport that uses a lot of language unrecognizable to the average ear. For example: “Did you see her suicide turn, it was totally illegal!” to most, that sounds like a morbid twist of fate. To swimmers, however, it is a total swim-gossip topic. A weak flip turn sucks and there is nothing worse than a sloppy streamline. When you talk about practice and swim lingo in front of non-swimmers, they look confused and swim lingo is something that just can’t be explained it is a part of you. Very few people will understand the trouble of drag suit.

12. Your Swim Team is Basically your Family.

When you spend multiple hours with the same people on a daily basis, they begin to become family members. They see you when you cry because you lost by a millisecond, they see you when you’re stressed during finals week, or they hold your hair when you pushed it too hard in a race and are now vomiting your guts out in the locker-room and one thing remains true through all of this: they are always there for you, no matter what. The bonds I made with my swim team members is one that can never be broken or replaced and I’ve played many other sports but stand by my belief that swim bonds are the strongest. You mess with one swimmer, you mess with all of us, especially the girls. When someone storms into the locker room after school telling us of the wrongdoing someone did them, everyone comes out from their corner, dressed or not, and prepare to back our girl up.

13. Everyone Acts like it’s not a Sport; IT IS ONE OF THE HARDEST SPORTS.

Lol, this is my favorite. Numerous individuals that are unaware of the muscle strength and mental strength it takes to be a swimmer roll their eyes and treat us as though it’s “not a real sport.” Wake up call: swimming is grueling and one of the best workouts. I ran cross country and I still think swimming is the most difficult sport I’ve ever done. Running on land is one thing, but try doing that, while in water, trying to breathe and push through the resistance. If anyone doesn’t believe me on this, meet me at the pool and try to do my warm-up, then talk to me

14. Swimming Will Stay with You for the Rest of Your Life.

Swimming is a skill that can be used for exercise, and it is a skill that comes back just like riding a bicycle. Although I hated some of those treacherous multiple mile sets I swam, I miss swimming with my whole heart and I had the best memories in this sport. It helped me form as not only an athlete, but it taught me work ethic that will never be replaced. I made unbreakable bonds and nobody will ever replace my swim family. Although my swimming career may have ended, my passion for this sport never will.