Swim Relay Quotes

Jones, the personification of the gritty mid-level swimmer, was a 100 and 200 freestyle specialist. That’s one of the toughest combinations in swimming because it requires both bursting speed and endurance. Few can claim to be equally good at both. A 100/200 freestyler is also the most desirable swimmer for a collegiate program because he or she can score points in the widest range of events: the individual 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle, plus three relays (4 × 100-yard medley, 4 × 100-yard freestyle, and 4 × 200-yard freestyle). Additionally, the swimmer can be used in a pinch in the 50-yard or 500-yard freestyle. In contrast, a distance freestyler might only specialize in one event, the mile, while a single-stroke swimmer like Grote can contribute in no more than three events, the stroke’s 100-yard and 200-yard races, plus the 4 × 100-yard medley relay.

And then there was Dara, the most talented one of us all, swimming on the “B” relay team, in early heats, battling it out with — and often losing to — girls who may have had two arms but didn’t have one-tenth her strength and skill. If I’d been her, I would’ve wanted to get as far away from swimming as possible. But she clung to it as if it were all there was in the world. And maybe for her, it was. And the thing was, she was still good — not the best, but better than many, even if she was technically handicapped.

The children had been returning from the river, having spent the morning there swimming. The oldest, Iteri, had said that somewhere along the path, Aya must have fallen behind. They hadn’t noticed this at first, but then from somewhere deeper in the forest her screams had risen and in fear, the group had turned and run home to summon the adults. This was the story Iteri and the other children had relayed, and yet Mbambuk was unsure.

If your long path is short-circuited by stress, and your brain is using the short path instead, you might be so alarmed at the mere thought of a shark that you have a panic attack just thinking about taking a swim in the ocean. All the body’s machinery of FFF then gets engaged by this imaginary threat, just as if you were nose to nose with Jaws. Your gut clenches, your heart races, your breathing becomes fast and shallow, and your focus narrows to the point where you can’t think about anything other than the threat. This takes a huge biological toll on the body. High adrenaline produces dramatic reductions in life span. Stressed people have much more disease and live much shorter lives than unstressed people. Whatever form stress takes—depression, anxiety, or PTSD—correlates with higher rates of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The deficits in the life spans of stressed people are measured in decades rather than years. In meditators, the amygdala is quiet. It becomes even quieter with practice. The difference in amygdala activation between the longest-term meditators and their less-experienced peers has been measured. The adepts show 400% less reactivity to stressful events. But even in novices who practice mindfulness for 30 hours over 8 weeks, decreased amygdala activity is found. Other structures within the midbrain or limbic system work together with the hippocampus and amygdala. One of them, the thalamus, is like a relay station. Close to the corpus callosum, it identifies information coming in from the senses like touch, hearing, and taste, and directs it to the consciousness centers of the prefrontal cortex. The thalamus typically becomes more active during meditation, as it works harder to suppress sensory input (like “that buzzing mosquito” or “this chair is too hard”) that pulls us out of Bliss Brain. With the hippocampus regulating emotion, the thalamus regulating sensory input, and the long path in good working order, stress-inducing signals aren’t sent to the amygdala. In turn, all the body’s FFF machinery remains offline. This produces corresponding biological benefits. Heart rhythm is even. Respiration is deep and slow. Digestion is effective. Immunity is high. That’s why so many studies show pervasive health and longevity benefits among meditators.