Before I left São Paulo for my travels, I had - at the urging of my swim coach, Valeria - entered into a mail-in swimming competition hosted by the Associação Brasileira de Masters de Nataçao. This involved me swimming 1000m freestyle as fast as I could while Valeria timed me. She then mailed in a form with my time (plus my $10 fee) to the Association, and I promptly forgot about it.
Last week, after I had already finished my work out and was in the locker room, Valeria came running in after me and handed me an envelope saying it was my certificate from the mail-in competition. Inside the envelope was a certificate with my name, time (19'04"35), and place: 8th! I later went to the Association website and found that my name also appears there (click on the link; Under "LIVRE" click on "V. Camp Brasileiro por Correio"; In the window that opens, click on "1.000M Nado Livre Feminino"; Scroll down, I'm under "Faixa 25"). I also discovered that I was 8th out of 11 people. But, that didn't snap me out of my elation.
Sure, I didn't win anything, and, yeah, my time is nothing to write home about, but, for me, this marks my first medal for participating in a sport other than running. The medal is just a little something to symbolize all the hard work I have put in to swimming since I started going twice a week to the coached sessions at the gym last march.
No comments:
Post a Comment