When asked why they swim, the majority of responses from those interviewed related to a love for the sport and a desire to succeed. As Bruce commented in his interview:
I want to be the best. So, when I’m in those sessions, when I’m racing Ben and Luke and I’m up against Logan, I want to be the one that beats them, and they want to be the ones that beat me (Bruce Interview, 19th October 2017).
Bruce continues saying “I mean, I love swimming, I love being in the pool, I love the speed sets that we do, I mean I love pushing myself”. In doing so he highlights not only his love for ‘doing’ the sport but also for swimming allowing him a space or vehicle through which to ‘push’ himself. This is a common thread throughout the sports literature, where athletes aim to train through and triumph over fatigue and pain in order to go faster and harder for longer, pushing their bodies to, and sometimes past, their limits. For example, Atkinson (2008a, p. 296) when discussing triathlon, reports how one participant, a Canadian varsity swimmer, would use triathlon as a way to supplement her winter swim training by “rigorously challenging her body’s own limits” and how she enjoys “going redline in training and competition”. Andreasson and Johansson (2019) note a similar position in relation to bodybuilders, triathletes and MMA fighters, where a ‘pushing the limits’ discourse is prominent in the narratives they present in their book Extreme Sports, Extreme Bodies. Although the ‘limits’ for each of these sports is different (e.g. bodybuilders increasing muscle size, triathletes pushing through physical endurance limits) the narratives are constructed through the athletes embodied ways of enjoying their body and sport; a discourse built on and produced by each individual athlete’s desire to “shape, feel and live the[ir] body” (p. 216).
135 Additionally, Hanold (2010), notes how ultrarunning emphasises being tough, pushing the limits of the body, and accepting the inevitable practices of pain and injury in the pursuit of completing events equal to or in advance of 50km that can sometimes span several days. The performance narrative in ultrarunning for the majority of her participants is therefore shaped by pushing one’s physical limits to ensure finishing, irrespective of placing or time, and is reinforced through the participants’ actions, attitudes, and practices. For those who are interesting in winning, for the elite ultrarunner, their discursive construction was still first and foremost grounded in the pushing of one’s body beyond its perceived limits but was aligned with a desire to win races and set records. Furthermore, and specifically germane to the swimming lifeworld, Throsby (2016, p. 10) refers to marathon swimming as an extreme sport not because of the obvious risks that, for example, a free climber or BASE (Building, Antenna, Span and Earth) jumper would take, but because of “its commitment to excess and to the testing of bodily limits”. Marathon swimmers would complete swims that would leave them exhausted, with a view to increasing their capacity for suffering and raising the threshold at which suffering, and exhaustion are experienced. Similar to Bruce and these accounts from other sports, Eddie also comments on his love for the sport but adds a further dimension in regard to how the physical effects of pushing the limits make him feel (See chapter 7 for further exploration of discomfort, fatigue, pain and enduring):
…last year was such a big year for me, because all I wanted to do was just swim. I literally put everything aside, like even uni. [I] didn’t go into class like that much, I literally just wanted to swim, and it was my biggest year that I’ve had just because I loved it. Like, I would be up for every morning, I would be up for every night. I just, I love feeling sore. I just love feeling like shit sometimes…like in my home club, it was cool not to care about swimming. But I wasn’t like that, [I was a] bit of an outcast, if you know what I mean. Because I was like, “I fucking love this shit” (Laughing) (Eddie Interview, 2nd
November 2017).
Eddie continues and develops his position further by mentioning how the sport also helped him with some weight issues when he was younger and provided him with the opportunity to satisfy his ‘competitive nature’, both of which helped solidify his love for the sport at an early age:
136 Eddie: Yeah. Well, it helped me with a lot of stuff, like when I was younger. I was kind of a big kid, so like it, swimming just helped, and I just loved the competitiveness of swimming, and I just loved swimming. (Laughing) I literally just loved it.
GMC: So, you found that being in water, and being able to race and compete against other people in water was like a perfect –
Eddie: Yeah, I just loved it (Eddie Interview, 2nd November 2017).
These are just two examples that highlight the swimmers’ expressed love for the sport and their desire to succeed. This stance was equally evident in the swimmers’ actions during training. The following fieldnote from the 24th October 2017 shows the desire and
commitment of both Charles and Scott to their particular set10; a gruelling combination of
light or ‘white11’ aerobic 50 metre freestyle repeats on 50 seconds and 400 metre Individual
Medleys on five minutes 40 seconds (5:40), a time that they themselves agreed upon. The plan for the set was to keep the 50s comfortable but the 400s had to descend in time each round:
The first 5x400s went off without any real concern. Scott on number six was only slightly faster, but when he heard his time he thought he was slower, and the disappointment was evident on his face and in his “fuck sake” comment. I repeated his time and told him it was still faster by 0.5 of a second but he still wasn’t happy. “That one hurt” he says! Charles was pretty metronomic in his set. In the first six reps, the 100m of butterfly at the start was basically the same time and then he just worked the remaining three strokes that little bit harder each round consistently dropping from 5:04 to 4:42 over the six. [At this point] Charles asks if he and Scott can go head to head on the last rep. I head off to ask Nick [Director of Swimming] if we can have another lane. Luckily there is one spare, so we shift over from lane seven to lanes one and two. The boys get a little extra rest because of this move but then they both step up and deliver a great last 400. Charles says he wanted to go under 4:40 and goes 4:32. Scott was just hoping to go faster than number six and goes 4:38. They are both glowing red in the face, Charles even glowing red around his chest and back (Fieldnote, 24th October 2017).
When asked about this set during his interview later in the same week Charles commented: I really like doing sets like that, especially when you're feeling good like, cos like no matter like how hard the set is, well if it’s a hard set I'll always like push the last rep just to see what like I can do like. Just see where I'm at…Tuesday morning was different because I think I started off too hard. Normally I'm
10 Set is the term used to demote a block of work that the swimmers complete during a session
11 The coaches at ANP Swimming use a colour system to denote various swimming intensities. The full range
137 quite good at like holding back and then like building into it. But err, like Tuesday morning I got to the second rep and I think my heart-rate was like 165 or something. It was, it was just hard like, I remember I think it was the fourth rep every time I took a breath on the breaststroke like, I just thought I was gonna pass out. I remember finishing it and thinking like 'shit, we've still got another like 3 rounds of this' (Charles Interview, 26th October 2017).
Despite this initial feeling, Charles’s desire to succeed carried him through. This is not an isolated incident either. Most of the swimmers observed and interviewed showed this desire to succeed. I asked the swimmers about this during the group interviews, asking if they had a desire to succeed or a desire to improve. Emphatically the response was to succeed, with Hope commenting that “if you succeed you have improved” and Frank followed this with “we are all in competitive sport so we kind of want to succeed in some way” (Group Interview 2, 10th July 2018). Additionally, Stephen in his interview commented
“…there’s nothing to compare to that feeling when you win a race”, placing success above all other. He goes on to say in reference to a particularly impressive set he did one evening:
…in the prep-set I wasn’t that fast cos I couldn’t fly kick properly. So, in the back of my head, there’s a voice going, you know “you can’t, you’re not going to swim fast this session, cos that’s that”. But I ended up pulling and just doing what Nick said was, “an incredible set”, cos you just, it’s all completely mental. And the buzz you get, so you can be having the worst day ever and I don’t know, girlfriend dumped you, you can be having a terrible day and you get a big set like that, then you smash the set, well for me personally I’ll smash the set, I’ll do something that they say, I don’t know, say is incredible or you’re a machine and I’ll just be buzzing. It just changes you. That’s probably why I swim, just for that. You are someone when you’ve done that. You’re like, like, do you know what I mean. That’s, you can’t get that anywhere else, that just absolutely beasting it. You’re going towards your goal, you just, the adrenaline buzz just from smashing a set. What’s even better when you’re at a competition and you, so in the summer I went 54.7 in the relay and in the same session went 1:59 200m back, so it was, like the buzz, the buzz after that, after the years of being disappointed and knowing that you’re capable of times like this but then actually, you can’t get that anywhere else, if you know what I mean, that, that, erm, unstoppable feeling. That’s why I swim (Stephen Interview, 17th October 2017).
Even in times of adversity, the swimmers’ love for, and desire to succeed in the sport was notable, keeping them motivated, keeping them hungry, as Mary-Jane shows in the following extract recalling a particularly tough period that included dealing not only with an injury, but a breakdown in her relationship with her coach:
138 …I think having an injury and having, being in the position where I was falling out with Tony and, I didn’t know if I was gonna swim after [champs], but even before he like erm like said that and like threatened it, I think it shows, it just like reminds me how I like love swimming and that, because I so could of quit after my injury and I so could have easily quit when things got bad with Tony, but actually it re, I guess it like reminded me how much swimming actually meant to me and how much, I wanted to, I want to swim (Mary-Jane Interview, 3rd November 2017).
As each of these examples illustrates, these swimmers are not simply doing what they do for the sake of doing it. Being a swimmer at this level and putting themselves through the volume of training required, for what is often very limited financial reward or opportunities for international selection, indicates a much deeper affiliation with the sport. I now proceed to highlight how the sport acts back upon the swimmers, giving rise to a salient swimming identity. How it inhabits them. How each of them has a look that ‘screams’ swimmer: lean(ish), muscular physiques with broad shoulders and often unkempt and chlorine bleached hair. The sport has not only shaped them physically but emotionally and socially as well. As a result, these athletes firmly identify themselves as ‘swimmers’, claiming a swimming identity that is fundamentally grounded in what they do, as the following extract from Jean’s interview shows:
GMC: One thing that comes across very clearly is that there is a big emotional attachment to swimming for you guys.
Jean: Oh yeah definitely.
GMC: It’s a big part of who you guys are as people…
Jean: Yeah massively, I'd say, I'd say with any swimmer as well, but like especially me like at school, I was 'the swimmer' like that’s, that’s, that’s your identity, erm to a lot of people, like you are a swimmer. Erm and if I’m honest, I think that’s why a lot of people continue swimming for as long as they do. Even though they say they hate it, it’s because they are scared of what their identity will be after swimming. Erm, so for me, when I stopped swimming, I was scared, I was like, what, like, what do I do now (Jean Interview, 2nd
November 2017).
Jean in her final sentence is referring to when she had a break from the sport for a period of time before coming to ANP Swimming and re-engaging with swimming. The following passage shows how on her return she felt she had a much more balanced approach to the sport, with the final few lines illuminating what such an all-encompassing sport can mean to these athletes on a personal level:
139 I feel like I've got a really balanced mind-set and I’m in a very good place at the mom(ent), very good place, cos I'm just content with swimming and knowing that, I’m not going to be a swimmer forever, I've accepted that and, there is no kind of like pressure or expectation to perform because I’ve seen the other side of, of life really. Erm, and eh, at the end of the day, even though you are so emotional, I am so emotionally attached to swimming, erm, it’s only swimming. It’s not the be all and end all. I think you get caught up…in it so much because it’s like a full-time job, really, like, you put so much time and effort in, erm and emot(ion), and you put your emotion into it. You push yourself so hard. You definitely love it as if it was like a physical being, I think. So, erm, yeah, when it, when it, so when I stopped swimming, it was, it was a bit like a break-up [laughter] (Jean Interview, 2nd November 2017).
Logan shares a similar point of view when discussing his relationship with swimming while attending private school and his subsequent involvement with ANP Swimming. He recalls how he never envisaged a time when he couldn’t picture himself not swimming and how the sport is linked to his identity. Something that he feels also extends to the wider swimming community:
Logan: It’s sort of, it’s a sense of like it’s my identity, do you know what I mean? If someone asks me, “Oh, yeah, I’m Logan, I’m a swimmer”, like it’s part of who I am, and I just couldn’t picture myself, “Oh I’m Logan and I’m a… what?” Do you know what I mean? What am I?
GMC: Okay, that’s interesting how you sort of use swimming as a sort of an identity thing as well.
Logan: Yeah. I think quite a lot of people actually do that and that’s the reason why quite a lot of people when they stop swimming, they really miss it because…they feel a bit lost (Logan Interview, 12th October 2017).