The Three Words That Keep Me Going

A native of Poland, Krystyna Wieczerzak is a junior on the Wright State Swimming & Diving team, and a Swimming & Diving correspondent for the HLN Blog.

2010 is underway and so is the new quarter. Coming back to school after winter break is always hard for me, but for some reason it seems to be much worse this year. I really miss only having one thing to think about: swimming. Now, with all of the homework and the exams, focusing on practice is so much harder. There is almost no time for resting. Sometimes I wish I had a time machine, so I could stop the time and take a deep breath, but the time flies extremely fast. There are only six weeks until the Horizon League Swimming & Diving Championships and my first two exams are this Friday. What does that mean? There's no time for whining!

Fortunately, during such a hard time like this I always can count on my teammates. They support me and remind me why I am waking up at 5AM and swimming when most college students are still in bed. Believe me, there is nothing more motivating than hearing a teammate say, "Good job Krystyna." Those three words are the ones which keep me going. One day after a really hard practice, our captain, Erin Stevning said, "It was hard. I'm dead, but satisfied because I made it". It reminded me why I love swimming in the first place. It's not the winning part, it's not even the competing. Breaking my own barriers and proving that there is no such word as "can't," are the things which give me the biggest satisfaction.

This weekend is going to be really tough for us. We have two homecoming dual meets on Saturday. First we will be swimming against Cleveland State, and then against Youngstown State. Both teams are obviously in the Horizon League, so that makes these meets even more exciting. I know that it is going to be really hard Saturday, but I still believe that despite the tiredness we are going to do our best. As I said at the beginning: "There's no time for whining!"