Chapter 32

Eighteen Months Later...

“Heels! Heels! I want to see your heels, Owen!” I yelled. A moment later, I silently chided myself for being so stupid. The kid couldn’t hear me - he was twenty metres away with his head in the water. As he approached the blocks, I chirruped three short blasts on my whistle signalling that Coach Connor wanted him to hold. I jogged to the end of the pool while Owen pulled up and caught his breath.

“What’s up, coach?” Owen was a good kid. He listened, which put him above most of the other prospects in the club’s training program. He also worked hard which meant that he had a better chance of getting somewhere than the naturally talented kids who relied purely on their innate abilities. I crouched down so I didn’t have to yell over the sound of the other swimmers and staff that echoed around the aquatic centre.

“Heels, Owen. Remember we talked about the swing? I can see you’re working better from your core, kicking from your hips. That’s what we want to see, but don’t forget to keep those ankles a little loose to get the flick going through your foot. I should see your heels breaking the water at least, but don’t bring the rest of the foot out - point those toes. Make sense?”

He furrowed his brow for a moment as he ran through everything in his mind. Then he looked up at me, grinned and nodded.

“Sure thing, coach. Want me to go from a block start again?”

“Nah, stay in the water. Do another six laps, taking it a little easy while you feel it out. You’re doing much better than last week. Just try to dial in the sense for the kick and keep it in mind. More squats in the gym will help strengthen that core, but once you get the power built up, you need to know how to use it.”

“No problem, coach.” He pulled his goggles back down, took a few deep breaths and then kicked off from the wall. I stood up from my crouch and watched him go. He was doing pretty well for a fifteen-year-old. His discipline and work ethic would certainly get him to the state level, and with a bit more development and finessing he could be a contender for a national title, if I had anything to do with it.

As I walked along the side of the pool, eyeing Owen’s attempt to put all my directions into practice, my mind wandered a little. If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be wearing shorts and a coaching staff polo shirt with a whistle around my neck, I’d have told you to cut back on whatever whacked out ‘supplement’ you were taking. Of course, if you’d told me eighteen months ago my professional swimming career was going to be ended just as it was beginning, I’d have told you the same thing.

After I left Germany (and left my folks to continue on their European vacation), I had another month of regular physical therapy while my doctors tried to work out a medication regime to help stabilise my rheumatoid arthritis. I responded really well to the initial steroid injections they gave me until after a month or so the anti-rheumatics began to work. I had no pain, and I could move around as easily as I could before my collapse. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t regain the endurance and power I’d had prior. And even if I had been able to return to my previous condition and form, although there was a legitimate therapeutic reason for the medication I was on, occasional flare-ups requiring acute treatment with various steroidal anti-inflammatories meant that there was very little chance of me being FINA clean for competition.

Physically I was recovering, but emotionally was a different matter. I wasn’t afraid of hard work in the gym or the pool, and the physical therapies were just an extension of that. Being able to fall back onto a gym routine, albeit a lighter one than when I was in full competition mode, was very helpful. When I was focussed on form, I could forget about all the other things running through my mind. But of course, I couldn’t hide in the gym forever. Whilst I didn’t really contemplate anything really drastic, there were some pretty dark clouds scudding by as I grappled with the reality of my new situation.

Luckily, both the national team and my swimming club were incredibly supportive. I had more than a few sessions with a therapist who specialised in athletes coming to terms with career-ending injuries. Dr Harmer listened a lot more than she spoke. It was quite awkward at first. She’d ask a question and I’d answer it and she’d say nothing, but sit and wait. And inevitably I’d spill more and refine and qualify my original answer, and sometimes change it entirely. But she made some really good points and provided an interesting perspective.

“So, assuming you hadn’t eaten the nuggets and gotten sick, and developed RA, and ended up hanging out in my office twice a month, what would your career have looked like?” She was sitting back in the overstuffed armchair she ‘worked’ from, while I sat across from her in another mismatched armchair. It reclined but I thought that felt too much like a shrink’s couch, so I had my feet up on an ottoman instead.

“What do you mean? Like, I’m pretty sure I would have made the freestyle final at least.” I looked over at her. She looked back at me. She never took notes during the session, which I found unusual. But it meant that sessions with her felt more like a conversation than therapy, which is maybe why they worked so well.

“Not the rest of the Games, your career. You know, would you have come back and finished your degree, kept training, aiming to return in four years to defend your record? Then what? Would you have kept going, and then either made it to a third Games or transitioned over to a sports commentary role, or corporate speaker or what?” She let that hang in the air for a moment. She was pretty close to the mark for a textbook elite swimming career. Dr Harmer spoke again. “Surely you knew you couldn’t just swim fast until the age of sixty, then pull the retirement ripcord?” The way she said it didn’t sound rude or derisive or incredulous. It just sounded like she genuinely wondered what I’d planned for life after the pool.

I sat and thought. In the back of my mind, I knew there was a reason why I was studying. It wasn’t an obligatory exercise to get a sports scholarship - I genuinely enjoyed studying sports science and I got pretty decent grades too. After my experiences in Germany and coming home, I had even thought about adding a second minor in rehabilitation with an idea of specialising in professional athletes. It would work well with sports science and my current minor in physiotherapy. I certainly had the time available for extra study now that I wasn’t spending five to six hours a day in the pool or the swim gym. But I had never pictured myself without competitive swimming as the main focus of my life. I knew, academically, that I would stop swimming eventually, but I never imagined it happening so suddenly. I realised I hadn’t said anything for a while. I looked over at Dr Harmer who was regarding me with a neutral expression.