On a hot day, inside a building with a very large pool, which smelled of chlorine and various cleaning supplies, packed with people anywhere from age 5 to 25, 8-year-old Blair was sitting on a bench at the side of the pool, waiting for his very first event in his very first swim meet to begin. All day he had watched his friends and teammates swim their events. He had done nothing but practice every day for the past week, but nothing could prepare him for what would happen. In front of the hundreds of cheering parents, family members, and friends.

He walks to where the other competitors are gathered, and sits down with them. The event coordinator walks up, and says that it’s a different event then what it’s supposed to be. And now he’s panicking because he has to learn an entirely new way to swim and what he can and can’t do for the race in less than a minute.

Then it’s time for all the swimmers to get into the starting position. He steps up and tries to prepare, and he thinks to himself, ”Well here goes nothing”. Then after what seemed like ages, “Swimmers on your mark … Ready … GO”.

He tries to dive off the block, but instead he just falls flat into the pool. There was no time for him to recover he just had to start swimming. At that point nothing else mattered, he just had to go. He keeps struggling with everything, he barely knows how he should move his arms and legs. What’s worse is that he doesn’t even know how he should breathe.

Finally he finishes the race. Once he gets out, he looks at the placements for his race, and discovers that he came in seventh out of ten. At least he didn’t come in last, and at least it was over. From that day forward he knew he just had to continue swimming until he came in first place, even if he wasn’t on a team and even if it took him forever.