Page 2 of Beyond the Stroke

“If you wanted some, you should have ordered some for yourself,” Logan tells Charlie.

Charlie motions to the bucket of grilled chicken pieces. “When you ordered a ten-piece bucket, I figured I could snag a piece.”

Logan shakes his head in disappointment. “It’s like you don’t even know me, man.”

“Yeah, you’re like a toddler when it comes to sharing food.” Charlie huffs.

Everyone knows Logan doesn’t share food. We burn a shit ton of calories every day in the pool and while most of us can handle going a few hours without eating, Logan is known to get hangry if he doesn’t keep his blood sugar up.

“Oh good, you’re not watching it,” Charlie says, motioning to the blank television.

“He was,” Eli pipes up from where he’s now checking his phone. “I turned it off.”

“How’d you know about it?” I ask Charlie.

“Swim-Span reached out to me for a comment. I told them you’re the GOAT and they can go fuck themselves.”

I groan. “Seriously?” The last thing I want is to add fuel to the fire with this feature.

“Nah. Vivi told me not to respond.”

I laugh because Vivi is the team’s publicist and brand manager. She’s also Charlie’s best friend. They’ve known each other since high school. She represents most of the swimmers on the team that require PR management. When Vivi told me about the feature, she’d advised me to not watch it, but I couldn’t resist. Now, I’m torn between letting their words make me question my decision not to retire, and using them to push myself even harder.

“Fuck that noise,” Logan grumbles around a chicken thigh. “They have no clue what they’re talking about.”

I chuckle at his grumpy demeanor, which Logan is known for being anything but.

It feels good to be home and surrounded by my teammates, my best friends. The guys that have been training with me for over a decade.

Eli, Logan, and I swam together at UC-Berkeley. They’d been high school teammates who signed with the Golden Bears when I was a junior there. We had two stellar years before I graduated, then when they finished school, they followed me to the Carolina Current. Charlie came from Stanford, a UC-Berkeley rival, which once we got to know him, we forgave him for.

While we know there’s always new talent in younger swimmers and the relay team can change up until the starter goes off, the four of us have battled together the last twelve years. Holding off the French by a fingertip-touch to clinch the gold in Sydney, then a world record performance in Paris that cemented all of us in the record books. I’ve won plenty of races on my own, but it’s this team right here that has made it difficult to imagine retiring from the sport.

“How’s the knee?” Charlie asks, setting down the box on the coffee table before nodding to where I’ve set the ice bag next to me on the couch.

“Stronger than it’s been in months.”

“That’s fantastic.” He grins.

“Yeah, it feels good.”

My statement is true, but there’s still the possibility of injury hovering in the back of my mind. After an MCL tear last spring, I’ve rehabbed and strength trained to get back to where I was. I lost precious training time, going backwards instead of forwards and now I’ve got to make up for that. My priority is swimming and staying healthy for the upcoming team trials.

While my body has healed, there’s still the mental piece of having been injured that takes time to reconcile. The psychological effects of returning after an injury, managing expectations, and making sure that while I want to get back to where I was before, I need to build up to it, not overdo it and chance the possibility of reinjury.

Swimming is as much a mental sport, if not more, as it is physical. With the long stretch between the summer games, you have to be internally motivated to keep showing up every day and working hard to shave what could be only a fraction of a millisecond off a split.

Outside of the games, most meets, even nationals, aren’t televised. Unlike football and basketball and hockey, we don’t get the chance to compete weekly and most people don’t know who we are until the summer games come around every four years. Even though we train year-round and there are important international meets, it’s the summer games that everyone is shooting for.

Yeah, I do need to think about how my injury has impacted my body, but more than that, it’s the loss of support from family that has been frustrating. My parents have supported me throughout my career, but since I injured my MCL, they’ve been pushing me to retire. They think I’m done with swimming and want me to pursue other things. A broadcasting gig I was offered, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but also reconnecting with my ex-girlfriend, Daphne, and settling down. I’m not ready for that commitment and even if I were, I don’t want to rekindle things with my ex.

As if she can read my mind from fifty feet away, my phone buzzes.

Mom

DAPHNE SAYS YOU HAVEN’T BEEN RETURNING HER CALLS!

I’m not sure if her all caps use was intentional, but I wouldn’t put it past her to be shouting via text message. I love my mom, but she is not known for being easy to get along with.

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