'Me Blog Pretty One Day' Presents: Charles Feutz's "The Moment"

Even after the end of my competitive swimming career, I can still clearly remember the first time I broke the two minute mark in my 200 yard freestyle event. The two minute mark is something akin to running a 4 minute mile. The 200 freestyle is a very tough event requiring a swimmer to have both a large amount of endurance as well as speed. I trained incredibly hard to reach this milestone and it will be an event not soon forgotten.

The crowd was already at a fever pitch. The first event, the 200 medley relay had just ended in a close race. My team won, but barely. I could still see my teammate Jeremy's arm as it stretched out the last two inches to touch out the other team for first place. The crowd went wild screaming and chanting “Eagles! Eagles!” It would be a hard performance to follow. Pushing the roaring fans and foes out of my head, I went through my usual pre-race regimen. I rolled my neck around like a top, wincing slightly as the sharp staccato of my vertebrae loosened. I took a deep breath, inhaling the sharp smell and bitter taste of the highly chlorinated pool air. The noise from the crowd disappeared as I relaxed further into my swimming mode. Next, I slapped my thighs to warm up my tightening muscles. The noise of this reverberated in my mind, like a thunderous drumbeat in an otherwise peaceful place. The echo from the sound died away and was replaced by a pulsing beat from the music I had stored away for these moments. This time, Chris Cornell and Audioslave pounded my ears with 'Like a Stone.' My body synced with the rhythm of the song and I heard the referee speak the only words that broke my pre-swim trance.

“Swimmers step up.”

I casually took the small leap up onto the top of our starting blocks, looking down into the waters of the fourth lane; my lane. I pushed my goggles over my eyes as tight as they would go and took my stance.

“Take your mark.”

These next words almost scared me into the pool. My heart was beating intensely, desperately, trying to escape my chest. My mind no longer streamed music into my conscience; in its place came thoughts of how fast I would have to swim, how tired I would be at the end, how fast my competition was, what would it be like to lose this race, and scariest of all, what would the crowd think if I lost? All of this and more assaulted my resolve in the final seconds before the start. Then, the electronic beeper went off. I leapt for my life off of the blocks. One thought finally settled in my head in the instant before I hit the water, ‘I'm in this to win.’

For what seemed like an eternity, I soared through the air, inching my way towards the calm surface of the pool. Out of personal habit, I closed my eyes just before impacting with the surface. Everything switched back to real time after I entered the water, and my thoughts once again turned hectic. The first thought was of relief as my goggles sealed correctly and were repelling the torrent of water rushing past my face. This relentless passing of water mirrored the passing of my thoughts. Flicking in and out of focus were thoughts such as, “where was the competition, where was my teammate, how fast should I start out, when should I push for the win, when should I hang back, and when will my opponent push?” While my mind raced, my body had already set its own pace, cruising on auto-pilot, and sustaining itself through pure instinct. This only lasted until I actually think about the fact that I'm swimming. The instant that happened, all the information from my body rushed into thought. My arms pulled the crisp, cool water with easy, clean and long strokes. My legs pounded with the previous rhythm of 'Like a Stone,' but with their own adaptation to fall in line with my arms. My lungs expanded and contracted explosively as they struggled to keep my body supplied with the oxygen to function.

I reached the half-way point of my race when everything shifted into overdrive. I always strategized to push out the second half of the race harder than the first half, so as to account for my level of fatigue. I allowed myself to check the position of the rest of the swimmers in the pool as I made my flip turn. I turned head over heels, scanning the rapidly spinning pool to find myself almost two body lengths ahead of the entire field. I never allowed myself to use the extra space to slack off on my pace, so I pushed my body further. I willed my arms to pull faster, to pull stronger, to make a cleaner stroke, all while increasing the tempo of my already speeding legs. I forced my lungs to expand larger and larger to take in as much oxygen as they could. My body protested. My arms; instead of staying strong, began to turn to rubber. My legs, instead of speeding up, stiffened and seemed to drag through more water than what they should be kicking. My lungs seemed to catch fire in my chest and didn't seem to be taking in any of the lifeblood my body needed. All this only made me want to stress my body further than what seemed healthy. I wanted to push my limits so far they would have to call professional help to get me out of the pool after I finished. I wanted to push myself and beat my body down to nothing so in the end, I could emerge on top. So I did. My arms pulled harder, faster, cleaner. My legs kicked faster. My lungs ballooned to the point where it felt like everything else was getting shoved aside to make room. My mind shut down from the stress, and did what I needed it to; motivate me. My song came back ten times louder, drowning out all other noise as I made my last turn to finish the race. One small thought briefly passed through the beats of the music. I thought that I had never felt so good, that I had never felt so happy, so content, so…relaxed, as I did swimming that race. Before I knew it, I was stretching out the last inches, pushing that one last time to the wall. My hand slammed into it with a force I don't think I could ever match again. Exhausted, I turned to look at the timing system placed high on the wall on the opposite side of the pool. I'll never forget what I saw.

Lane 4, first place. Time: 1:59.3.

I think that if I had had the energy I would have yelled in victory, maybe fisted the air with a triumphant arm, but the only thing I could think of was holding onto the wall so I wouldn't sink to the bottom of the pool. Luckily, my teammates rushed over to my lane, and did the yelling for me, though I didn't hear it for the first few seconds over the pounding of my heartbeat. The beating soon subsided and the noise of the pool area crashed into my ears. I heard my comrades congratulating me, the crowd cheering and chanting, and just barely above the din, the noise of the other swimmers finally finishing. I noticed then that I had finished almost half of a pool length ahead of everyone else. That brought out my first reaction. I pushed off the wall and threw both of my fists into the air, yelling triumphantly. The referee signaled for the swimmers to warm-down to the other side of the pool. I sighed and laid my head back into the water, once again silencing the world around me, entering back into my own state of nirvana. My mind had only one thing in it; one minute fifty-nine point three seconds. It was the first time I could remember any swimmer I knew of breaking the two minute mark. I almost couldn't believe what I had done. But at the same time, I knew I had done it because there was no way I could ever feel this tired and broken from swimming in a dream. I was brought back to my senses when my head gently bumped into the wall at the far end of the pool. My team was waiting there, and they refused to let me get out of the pool under my own power. I was dragged, almost brutally, from the water and discarded on the deck, all to my pleasure. Everyone congratulated me once more and turned their attention to next race at hand. After all, I wasn't the only Thurston swimmer that got in the pool. I stood on wobbly legs and drudged my beaten body to the stands to earn more praise from my friends and fans, but most importantly from my parents. I told my dad that I had finally done it. He looked at me, smiled, gave me a hug and told me he was proud of me, and that everyone was proud of me.

I hope this memory never fades from my mind, even as age takes its toll on me later in life. The emotional rollercoaster that I experienced swimming that race, the reactions of everyone around me, and my own pride is something I cannot imagine not sharing with my children, and hopefully grandchildren. I understand now that one must break one's own boundaries mentally and physically to truly feel most alive.