Anyone who participates or used to participate in competitive sports can remember the tension before the start. I photographed the Washington State Girl’s Swimming and Diving Championships a couple of weeks ago and in between events I became much more interested in the anxiety, excitement, and adrenaline of the competitors before they swam: the nervous chatter and the smiles, the jumping up and down, the looks of “what if?” in their eyes, the desperate search for songs on their ipods, and that one last breath on the starting block. Even though it is an entirely different situation, the body must physiologically be responding in much of the same way that it does when preparing for war.
And for that reason, I didn’t envy the pit in their stomachs, because I also remember looking at the adults all bundled up with hot chocolate in their hands before the gun at cold, early cross country meets in high school while thinking “Why am I doing this? If only we could trade places”. But spectators will never know the level of joy and relief that comes with working through that pain and discomfort only to come out on the other side saying, “Screw that hot chocolate, “I did it, I did it.”
