It was the day of the swimming festival.

​ In the email, it was stated that we were supposed to enter via the back entrance of the public pool. Even though our school had its own pool, the diving boards and male change rooms were going through renovations, so they decided to host it at the local public pool instead. Obviously, they booked th entire pool, so there weren't going to be any members of the public in here. Still, we were forced to enter through the back 'entrance', which looked more like a run-down storage gate than an entrance.

I was one of the first ones there, and it took me a while to figure out that I was meant to enter through this weird entrance. There were several tents set up, one for each of the house groups. I slowly made my way towards the tent of my house group. Each house was given a colour; green, yellow, brown, black, light blue, dark blue, red and purple. Each student is assigned to a house as soon as they attend school. I was in the green house.

I walked around, doing some stretches and warming up as I waited for more people to arrive. There were a few teachers who were strolling around, setting up various pieces of equipment. I decided to put my bag down and take off my jumper. It was a chilly morning, with a light breeze brushing against my arms, enough for me to realise that it was in fact cold. I still decided to take off my jumper so my body would start adjusting to the colder temperature. It wasn't like I was going to swim in a sauna.The pool was very large. It was a standard 50-metre pool with eight lanes separated by some hard colourful lane ropes. There wasn't much sunlight, so the water looked quite dark and eerie. The area around the tents was also not completely covered by a layer of grass, there were significant sections of dirt with only scarce strands of grass sticking out. It was likely to become a muddy puddle as soon as students started walking around whilst still wet.

More and more people gradually arrived. Students began speaking to each other, yet I was predictably left out. Not that it mattered to me. Being alone is not the equivalent of being lonely, after all. I can't help but feel as if this specific part of my personality is what's holding me back. I didn't really speak to anyone aside from a quick roll call. I checked my phone, 8:58am, there was around ten minutes until the start of the first event, which was also one of the events I was in. The 200-metre individual medley consisted of 50 metres each of backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle. It was definitely the most skill-requiring event of them all and also the only event which did not limit by age.

This meant it was going to be the most difficult one for me to get a top-three position in the race. I wanted to get a first-place overall rank at the end of the day, which just means getting the most points out of all the students in your year level. You get a certain amount of points in the race for coming a certain position (8 points for first, 7 points for second etc...). The points are also scaled based on the skill level of the heat. There are A, B and C heats which scale to 2x, 1.5x and 1x, respectively. The house rankings at the end are just a cumulation of all the points of the students in the house.

Despite it sounding like some meritocratic ranking system, in the end, it was all just a bit of fun with no real consequences in the end. I checked my phone again, 9:04am, there were just over five minutes before the race, so I decided to take off the clothes I had over my bathers and began heading towards the benches which lined up by the side of the pool. "One more minute until the race begins. If a house does not have a member participate, they will receive zero points." I looked around and saw that each spot was filled, meaning I would have seven opponents in total. Usually, the medley relays would begin with backstroke, but due to the fact that the school wanted students to dive in, breaststroke and backstroke were swapped.

The final order of strokes for the individual medley was breaststroke, freestyle, backstroke and finally butterfly. It resulted in an awkward order of strokes which is almost completely different from the standard.

They were all the very best swimmers in the school. I would likely not be able to come first in this race however that won't stop me from coming first at the year level. Not only that but this race, in particular, was scaled 3x the normal score. I put myself into all of the highest scaling races as our house didn't really have any incredibly good swimmers, so everyone was fine with me doing the maximum which was six in total, including four individual events and two relays. We stepped up onto the diving blocks as we waited for the signal.

"On your marks." I bent down and grabbed the front of the diving board. I could feel my heart rate rising in anticipation of the beep. The moment of silence seemed to last an eternity before the loud beep finally sounded.

I threw myself off the board as hard as I could, using my legs to launch myself. I felt like I did decent on the dive although the entry into the water could've been better. My body was under so much stress that I couldn't even feel the supposedly freezing cold water. All I could think about was moving my arms and legs faster. With each movement, I pulled the water towards me and raised my head just very slightly above the water. I could see a brief view of splashing just a little bit in front of me. It seemed I was not very far away from the first place. However, the 200m race is generally more like a marathon than a sprint, so it all depended on endurance.

I was already feeling a little bit of fatigue as I completed my first 50m. I did a split stroke straight into freestyle off the wall. I was still able to concentrate and push off the wall as hard as I could, darting through the water. As I took my breaths once in a while. It seemed as if I was at the front of the pack. The swimmers to my left and right seemed to be just barely behind me. However, the freestyle really took a toll on my energy level, it is naturally a more tiring stroke than breaststroke, but I managed to push through without slowing down too much. I tumble turned off the wall and went into backstroke.

This time, I couldn't see swimmers beside me, but I tried to focus on the direction I was swimming from the corner of my eye. The main problem that many amateur swimmers face when doing backstroke is swimming into the lane rope or swimming in a zig-zag. I kept the lane rope in my view from the corner of my eye and tried to swim as straight as possible. I was really feeling the pain in my arms and legs now. Each movement was now a forceful push, instead of the relatively natural unconscious movements at the beginning of the race. I was telling myself to keep going, swinging one arm after the other. It seemed like hours before I saw the row of flags. I counted, one, two, three, four, five, six strokes before I spun onto my front and tumble turned off the wall.

It was now the final 50m. However, this would be the most difficult. Butterfly is already the most tiring stroke of them all and I was significantly exhausted from the first 150m. Every single arm movement out of the water was like heaving a hefty spade through clay. My arms were seriously straining, they felt as if they would break at any moment. My movements gradually became slower and slower and I was beginning to lose some of my technique. It was at this point that I noticed that the people beside me had caught up and we were almost neck and neck with each other. I could see the finish within view, just a few more strokes. I pushed as hard as I could, telling myself that nothing mattered except getting to the end. One heave after another my two hands slammed onto the wall, finally completing the race.

My entire body was so fatigued that I couldn't even pull myself out of the water. I looked around and saw that there were people handing out ribbons. Eventually, I found of that I got third place in the race, which was a decent position although I would've liked something better. I swam under the lane rope and got out via the stairs.

My entire body was practically trembling from the aftermath. I quickly made my way over to my bag and wrapped a towel around myself.

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