long day

Dear Coach O'Donnell,
This email is to inform you that I will not be participating this year in our CCS championships. Although I was able to qualify in the 100 back and get closer to my best time at WCALS, there are many other factors that have helped me make this decision. So that you know, my decision has been made and it will not change. I have discussed this with my parents, my club coach, and some of my teammates. I have thought really hard about everything that happened throughout the season and what I usually expect to get when i attend CCS. I know, for a fact, that when I am sitting there on Santa Clara's pool deck I will not be having the fun and complete satisfaction as I have achieved in my past three years competing in CCS.

This season has been a very big roller coaster ride for me. It all started off pretty bad from the very beginning with the confrontation between trollope, o'malley, and myself. I had teachers who were telling me that I was dumb for crying and making such a fuss, that I had no right to even have an opinion! They told me that I was just another student! But isn't this my high school career? shouldn't, we, students have a very big impact on how the season would be fun because these are our memories that we will never forget? I won't drop any names but there were definately a couple non-swimming coaches who were telling me this. I was heavily embarrassed and I did not like how this private information was being passed outside of our coaching staff and myself. Right then I knew that this season was going to be an unpleasant one, I almost did not come back. Why did I stay then might you ask? It is because of my teammates. These girls are the most special and pure things about high school swimming that i love the most. They are the reason why I pulled through. It was because they asked me to stay. So then I rejoined the team after not being allowed to go to Sectionals because I fell under two sinus infections and one flu back to back. Getting back into swimming was very hard especially with the workouts that were being given to us. No offense, the workouts had a good idea behind it to build the teams endurance before the racing season started, but they were the most boring sets I have ever gone through. Most of them were huge amounts of 200s or 50s that were at a way too big of a rest. And then the sets continued to be like that for the whole season until the moment we started tapering. I think that made it really hard for sprinters, such as myself, to get any sprint work in or get-up and go speed. Sprint sets need to be more complex to make it interesting. Not only were the workouts very boring, the line-ups never changed.

The first meet I swam the 200 free, which I am pretty sure I told you I really did not want to swim, and the 50 free. My 200 free turned out so bad because we were in an indoor pool that I could not breathe in and because I cannot swim events past a 100 anymore. I was also put into the B and C relays. At first this did not bother me too much because you were trying out the new team and doing line-ups for the first time. But then it continued and I was not being put into anymore individual events. See, the girls told me that I should talk to you about it and I tried to, but whenever I started to I got really scared because of what happened the first time I tried to talk to the coaches about something. I did not want more gossip spreading about me througout the faculty at our school. And what bothered me also was that I was never given a chance to even swim in the A relays. I was on the record breaking, CCS champion relay team last year! It was a huge disappointment. So I stopped caring and trying my hardest at your workouts. What was the point or my motivation? I was being ignored and I know for a fact no one ever got my splits off of the relays. This was my senior year and I was being treated like a nobody. So midseason I asked myself again, Why am I here? If I am so uncomfortable on this team why don't I jsut quit. And I almost did. No one gave me the time of day. Pretty much every person I knew from our competitive teams noticed and questioned it. The only answer I could think of was that none of the coaches liked me because I opened my big fat mouth that first meeting we had. So again, the question arises, Why did I stay? And again, the answer is because of my teammates. I stayed because I was the person most of them came to when they had a problem or when they needed someone to talk to. I told myself that I will go as far as WCALs where the points I score matter the most and I will stop there. CCS is a very individual meet for our team. We have a large group of talented swimmers but not enough to get first of second in the section and I know that I am not even close to being considered for an A relay, therefore, I decided that this is the time for me to pull out and let the rest of the team finish the season on their own. Hopefully, there is another girl who was able to qualify for the 100 back and now has the opportunity to swim it.

I regret not being able to talk to you about this after WCALs but I had to leave for church. I wish the best of luck to you for the rest of your season and the ones that follow. I am sorry that things had worked out this way and was not the experience that I had expected after last years achievements. I would really appreciate it if you did not spread this around to many of the other coaches and hopefully there are no bitter feelings. If you would like to talk to me about this in person, you may, but my decision stands.

-- Victoria Pichay


that was the long very long email that i sent to OD last night. so i guess now i am not in high school swimming anymore. today was a very long day. i had a physics test that i failed miserably. but supposedly ikezi says im fine cus i have such a high a. well idk. and today was jsut not good. i slept for lik a billion hours i feel lik ughh. my head hurts. i dont think i have any homework for tomro. so im safe. and i jsut needa do my math test and ex. sci test and then im doneski. i have the senior awards night on weds. and kyle and michelle's birthday party. i hope my paretns dont expect me to swim tomoro. im too tired. ok im out. night