4 Reasons Why Swim Friends Are the Best of the Best
By Nicole E. Johnson
Having a best friend is one of the greatest feelings in the world. They’re someone you’ve grown up with and been able to experience life with. As a swimmer, an even better feeling is having a swimmer best friend.
When your best friend is also a swimmer, you just get each other. You have someone to wake up with early in the morning and get a few thousand yards in before school. They know better than anyone else what kind of mood you’re going to be in when you step into the locker room before practice. And most of all, it makes you feel like you’re not doing it all alone.
Sometimes swimming best friends start off as rivals and eventually figure out that they have more in common than they’d like to admit. Other times, they click right from the start.
My best swim friend and I are a healthy combination of both. We first started swimming together when we were nine years old. At that point, the only thing I knew about her was her name and that she was the only other girl in my lane that was basically the same speed as me. We quickly became friends once we started carpooling to practice every day. Ever since then, we’ve been best friends on deck and in the water. From lane buddies to medicine ball partners, we always have each other’s backs.
1. Accountability
Photo Courtesy: Evan Pike – USA TODAY Sports Images
Since my best friend and I are around the same speed in most events, we were able to help push each other at meets. I can still remember the look on my coach’s face when he saw that my best friend and I swam our race within .02 seconds of each other. He always jokes around with us that we drive really far away to compete at meets and that we end up just swimming next to each other and almost getting the same times we do in practice.
2. Encouragement
Photo Courtesy: Allen Rich
No one is able to push me like my best friend does. She has her own unique way of keeping me motivated and encouraging me to do my best. She knows the right things to say to me before a race and it means much more than just a parent yelling “good luck” from a few lanes down.
3. Entertainment
Photo Courtesy: Emma Schoettmer
She keeps me entertained during practice with occasional laughs at the wall in between sets. We joke about always having to be in the same lane at practice or else we wouldn’t be able to function, and sometimes that has a little bit of truth to it.
4. They just get it.
Aside from things related to practice, I’ve also really enjoyed being able to have someone who understands why I’m never available to hang out and why I eat more than the average human. She doesn’t notice when I smell like chlorine because she’s just as immune to the smell as I am. She knows that if I don’t answer her text message after a few minutes that I most likely already fell asleep because practice was exhausting. She’s the only friend of mine who doesn’t have to ask me if I “won my swim meet” or if I’m as fast as the Olympians. She just gets it.
If I didn’t have my best friend alongside me throughout my swimming career, I honestly don’t know if I would have made it through. That’s cliche, but it’s true. With the thousands of hours that swimmers put into the pool, it’s been so rewarding to have someone who has done it all with me. Now after our first year swimming apart in college for the first time, nothing has changed. I’m still so blessed to have her as a major part of my swimming career.
Jamie Chree
Lucy Stonefield
Shared history, commitment, mutual respect, support in overcoming disappointment & in enjoying success…
Amy this was us ???
Best years of my life! Bff’s! Fee ❤️
I wouldn’t have got to the end of swim season without you! Anita Garbo
I wouldn’t even have tried swimming without you!
Amy Sambell Jessica Matthews
Tessa Meyer
Yess.
Shirley Menes Sinche
Reinhilde Goethals
Emily Bedford
Miss you!
Katie Maul miss you so much! So proud of you graduating!!!
We need to catch up or something! Thank you very much I will still be sending you an announcement. Should go out soon
Marilyn Peck Hall & Susan Ortwein. My swim best friends!! Love you guys!!
Damini Gowda Rhia Singh Malavika Vishwanath Shraddha Sudhir xD
3 and 4 are LITERALLY US OMG
Yea?
❤️
????
Emma Siddle ?
Kelli, Spot On!
Fatimah Mahmood????
<332
Adriana Garcia Beatriz Costa Ana Espingardeiro Beatriz Silva Vejam o último ponto, em especial eheh
As best das best <3
Adriana Garcia paneleira
Tens grassa linda <3
Mariam Okasha
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Amy Davis Between “I feel Good” and the “Ick” we never would have made it through 4 years of NU without each other.
Absolutely! Best memories though!
They understand your “dietary needs” ?
Shannen Kay the third one’s the best??
#3 is soo us ❤️❤️ Farida Barakat
Pau BeauregardDiego Beauregard
Cierto cierto
Jajaja si !! ??
Alexandria Marie
Omar Marie Nadia Abujbarah
Lindsey Krause Genevieve Johnson Kathryn Pound
You’re cute
Shanice Hope Robbins
Chloe Louise Thompson
Salma Shabana Taymour Riad
soooooo cuteeee
Nawel Benmeziane une pensee pour vous Mes Belles
Rym Guendouz Cherrak
Dacyl djebbar
Lets become swim friends Nargis 😀
why not 😀
Carlos Almeida Carolina Albuquerque
Line Gertz Josefine Bladt Wichmann Natascha Alexandra Mäkelä Green
Haha❤️
Kunne ikke være mere rigtigt, haha ❤️
Hahah enig??❤️
Lisa Schøn??
<3 <3
Marie- Ève Landry
Mike Jafari Graeme Baldwin
Madeline Fedora
Maddison Berry number 2 is so us ??
Hahaha yes
Us (until you abandoned me ?) Julianna Thomas
No regrets ?
?