Once again waking up at 4 am, as usual, heading over to the CR&FC Sports Complex for Swim training with the Killer Whales national team. Today felt especially odd; I had a gut feeling, the tension in the air. The soreness for yesterday’s practices and the lactic acid still running through my muscles, my coach’s perfect conditions to give the team a hard set, to see how we would push ourselves.

My commitment to swimming and my perseverance to this experience are linked to LO4 Show commitment to and determination in CAS experiences. I am committed to this experience by going to training every day when covid was at its lowest point and pushing myself to achieve my best.

We started with our usual static warm-up, loosening our muscles from our night’s rest and activating our muscles. But today, we didn’t do our typical pre swimming AB workout, so everyone knew mentally that the set today was going to be hard.Before we knew what the set was, we started with our usual 500m swim and 500m kicking warm-up. After we finished the warm-up, the coach told us to get out of the pool. He then started sorting us out into specific lanes with swimmers around the same speed so there wouldn’t be any issues. I was with my friend Manuja. As we go into the lanes, our coach told us some devastating news.We were doing a 10x400M best average set, which means we need to be going the fastest consistent speed and told it for 10x 400m. We hadn’t done that workout in such a long time, and the soreness from yesterday’s training session just made the pain so much worse.

We started the set. The first 3 400’s were a bit tricky as I needed to get used to the speed I was going and get into a rhythm. The following 6 400’s were also smoother as I had the rhythm, but I was out of breath as the cycle was fast, and I was barely getting any rest as I need to go pretty fast to keep up with the other swimmers. The last 3 400’s were th most painful, as the fatigue and lactic acid were at their peak, and every breath felt like I wasn’t taking any air, but stopping wasn’t an option. Those last 400’s felt like a century, but eventually, it came to an end, and we completed the set.

We did a bit of cool down, and as a team, we headed out of the pool, our coach congratulated us, and we congratulated each other on completing this set from hell while not being fully recovered. It was an exhausting day, but it doesn’t stop there for me. I took a quick shower and changed as I needed to get to school before it was too late. So I said goodbye to my coach and my friends and headed to my car, and went straight to school to enjoy the rest of my day.

overall i am also approaching the learning outcome, LO7 Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.