Overload

I was so eager for William to start swimming with the Creek boys' swim team.  He was going to meet upperclassmen, bond with a group, feel a deeper connection to the school, and of course improve his times and love for swimming. All has come to pass, and yet it's not as straightforward as I anticipated. Life never goes the way we plan.

The angst that Rob and I feel derives from the fact that William moved up to swim with Varsity at the invitation of his coaches. They didn't mandate his jump from the Varsity Prep group (kind of a JV+), but said they thought he could do Varsity - if he wanted to. That's all the encouragement William needed to sign up for 10 practices and five early wake-ups each week. He's never trained remotely as hard in his young life.

He had two  bad colds to start the season and one ear infection that required antibiotics. When we went to the doctor for his ear, William discovered that he has lost four pounds, despite growing and training with weights. We were mutually horrified, and I pledged to feed him more while he determined to eat fairly constantly in order to reverse the slide.

School is stressful, practices are extremely difficult, and yet he persists. At the meet last Friday, William swam a 100 back and a 100 free for the relay almost back-to-back and he needed help getting out of the pool after his second swim. He buried his face in his knees to breathe and sat on the deck for the rest of the race, prompting Rob to run out of the bleachers and down to the deck to hand him a bottle of water. William waved him off, saying only, "Please go away."

After a mellow weekend he was ready and excited to head back to training, determining that no further time off was needed and letting us know we should keep our concerns to ourselves. We're proud of his dedication, his strength, his passion, and yet we harbor lingering worries about recovery time and stresses to health and grades. William assures us it's only three - or four - weeks more of hard training, and I try to revive my excitement in his improvements, the possibilities of his taper and final meets, laughing at the irony of my mother role taking over my swimmer / coach persona and reminding me that the only important thing is to love my kids.