Summary: As Luc nears thirty still smarting from an old injury, he feels the end of his swimming career approaching, but his retirement is the least of his worries when what started as a simple rivalry with a confident, up-and-coming younger swimmer turns tide.

--

It was race day five years ago.

Which really wasn’t an astounding or profound as it sounded as it was simply one of many, although that wasn’t to say that it wasn’t important—it certainly was. But I couldn’t help but believe that today felt different. For whatever unknown reason, I had an especially positive feeling about this one, which rather defied logic as I didn’t consider backstroke to be one of my stronger suites. And yet, the feeling was still there.

With the Norwegian to my right and the American to my left, I readied myself for the back start in the water, nerves surprisingly calm but ironically excited at the same time. I wasn’t in the centre lane but I was close enough, so I considered myself in decent standing so far. Otherwise, I’d be swimming nearer the outer and that just wasn’t where I expected myself to be at this point.

And so we were off.

My mind was a blank for the entire duration of the race; I didn’t focus on anything in particular; just swam as well and fast as I could. Monitoring other swimmers was obviously important, but I didn’t like to spotlight others when I should be spotlighting myself, so I did it little. Maybe I was too sure of myself, I don’t know.

My earlier feelings weren’t ill-founded; I did do much better than I had hoped. I came feeling good and left feeling better. I’m sure my ego purred a little.

We were getting out of the water when the American at my side spoke to me.

“Legaré, huh?” he said, his eyes bright and his smile sure, and I realized that he looked much younger than I thought he actually was.

McAdams was his name, I think. His face was vaguely familiar but it was the first time I had raced with him.

I wouldn’t have been being boastful if I said that I was at the top of my game at that time, because I was. After all, I was twenty-four, known as a formidable Canadian swimmer straight out of Montreal and hitting all the right marks. I didn’t suppose I knew too much about the American, but I knew enough to discern that he was an eighteen year old who had just entered the game—a name with no reputation yet. I probably scoffed a little inside.

“Luc Legaré, yes,” I replied, extending my hand out more out of habit than anything.

He glanced down at it, then dragged his gaze back up at my face. He ignored it, didn’t take my hand, and I felt rather like an idiot, standing there with my hand out, insulted too that he was acting so disrespectfully, especially with my status as an esteemed swimmer and he just a nobody, un unknown.

Again, maybe I was too sure of myself then, I don’t know. Too cocky for my own good.

I dropped hand just before he began speaking again.

“Lorne McAdams,” he said at last with a confident smile, one that didn’t seem to match his lack of seniority and reputation in the sport, but it didn’t look like he cared at all. One of those people who probably couldn't give a fuck even if they tried their damn hardest. Bet that got him into spitfire trouble sometimes...but he'd probably welcome it.

Nevertheless, I could not help but marvel at his self-assurance; when I was eighteen, I was as insecure as ever and wasn’t even sure if I would amount to anything substantial in swimming. You know, the typical little sob story of the kid with no confidence, just a blind passion for this one thing.

“You did well just now,” he continued. Some eighteen year-old newbie, I thought with incredulity, was trying to pay me a compliment, while we both knew that I was the much more seasoned and experienced one between the two of us. I didn’t know whether I should have laughed or glared at him, his ego. Which in retrospect, might have matched my own at that time, as much as I wouldn’t have liked to admit it.

“Well,” he started up again, dropping the smile, “see you around.” He turned his back on me dismissively and made his way to the showers.

Who, I thought both irately and bemusedly as he walked away, did that cocky little shit think he was?

I didn’t have to know him very well to see that he had determination and probably a hell of lot of ambition then. I guess, back then, I just didn’t know how much and how far it would go.

--

We took our marks at the edge of the pool, ready to explode at first cue.

Twenty-five years of swimming later and still the same excitement I felt immediately before a race was undiminished, only strengthened by the experience of years.

I tensed, waiting.

However, I was beginning to increasingly feel that that very same experience I had was becoming more my downfall as I watch all the younger swimmers queue up at these races, year after year.

I wouldn’t have given my age another thought had I another profession other than as an athlete. The truth though, and it rather frightened me at times, was that I really couldn’t see myself doing anything else. Way to limit myself.

When I was a kid, I quickly found that I wasn’t great at much; not academics, not art, not music. Couldn’t remember how many membrane-bound organelles there were in a cell, couldn’t recall the periodic table mentally at will, couldn't tell you who wrote Ozymandias, couldn’t tune a violin or any instrument for the matter in band class, couldn’t paint a bowl of fruit without a paint-by-the-numbers diagram.

In fact, I wasn’t even decent in phys ed, which may seem surprising now, but I really didn’t care too much about it either, and I didn’t usually do well in things I didn’t care about. Then, as simple as it sounded, I tried swimming and found something that I could care about…and was good enough at.

The familiar beep sounded, and we were off.

Sometimes, you start a race and you just knew right away that it was working in your favour; this was not one of those times.

I knew before we were even half way through that I couldn’t make the strides a few in the very lead were making, and that I wouldn’t be able to catch up to the speed in time either. Ignoring the dull muscle pain in my back, I tried my best regardless to push these thoughts behind me and continue on with as much energy and power as I could muster.

And then as fast as it had begun, it was over.

He heaved himself easily out of the pool, glanced briefly at me to the side, and gave not even a smile but instead a small stretch of the lips that teetered on a combination between cool indifference and boastfulness.

Lorne McAdams.

The “one” to keep an eye on, the young rising star of international swimming from the United States—he was just beginning the pinnacle of both his youth and career. Blue eyes, brown hair, all-American look, hell of a lot of attitude. I saw him as the coverboy of one or two sports magazine in these recent months when I queued up obediently in line at my local supermarket. Needless to say, it was rather irritating to see.

I heard that his state university was funding his entire training program. I surmised that he was probably the big man on campus—top student with the big, shiny sports scholarship and the string of fanclubs. Rolling my eyes would have been appropriate; after all, when I was in uni, I lived off of shitty campus food, worked two jobs just to scrape by with tuition, and had to pass some utterly stupid initiation ritual just to join the swim team.

And of course, I stood in stark contrast as I, on the other hand, was acutely feeling the end of my career nearing, as difficult as it was for me to accept and realize it.

I finished the race third, him second—admittedly a very good personal result for myself, but my back was pounding with such pain that it was difficult to find any pleasure in the fact. Even if I didn’t want to admit it, there were always these reminders jeeringly telling me that I was no longer in my prime and perhaps wasn’t so well fitted for the sport anymore.

Adding salt to the wound, I had to put my all into scarcely placing while I knew McAdams barely tried. If he had put more effort in, he could have gotten first, easy. But I guess that was just part of his personality—too cocky to try harder than he really thought he had to, never gave his all because whatever he wanted to give was always good enough to shut people the hell up.

I saw him a handful of times every year for five years so far at races and such, and I knew that if he wanted something bad enough, he would get it. Guess he didn’t really care about being the first today.

As good of a swimmer as he was, sometimes I didn’t think he deserved to be where he was. You didn’t hold back because you thought yourself better than everyone else; that did an unfair disservice to all the other competitors giving their everything. I’m fairly positive that McAdams understood this concept; he probably just didn’t give a flying fuck.

It was impossible for me not to feel, at the very least, a slight sense of bitterness, and his being almost seven years younger than myself did not help things either. But I tried to tell myself that that was how things worked. I was once twenty-three and starting the prime of my career as well, and…it didn’t last forever. Before you know it, the tables have turned, you’re out of the game, and all that shit, right?

Five years ago, he didn’t even register on the map, and now, I’m the one to be cast out, the aging athlete. Younger talent, a new generation, always came along and you just had to move on.

It made it no less difficult to accept though.

Regardless, I was twenty-nine years old and I was getting ready to retire, as strange and foreign as it sounded. One more year and I decided I would walk away at thirty.

Of course, I knew that some swimmers persevered even when they were well into their thirties and even forties, but I knew that I couldn’t. My old back injury never did completely heal, affecting everything it seemed, from the expected physical aspects to my self-confidence; I just didn’t—couldn't—have the same vigor as before. More power to those who continued on, but I felt that I didn’t have “it”—whatever “it” wholly entailed—to do the same.

And well, even if I couldn’t deal, well…I would just have to force myself. I knew what this sort of career was like when I started it; I just didn’t think I would have to consider all this so soon.

Besides, I was too old for little games. Too old to deal with that shit anymore, and past my prime to care what others thought. If they wanted a seasoned swimmer, they would get one, but if they wanted a star with hidden potential and with at least seven or eight more years in, well, I was done. They could just hit up McAdams for that. He’ll even give them attitude for free, I’m sure. What a deal.

Sighing, I lifted myself out of the pool, standing to the side.

McAdams pulled off his cap, freeing his mussed brown hair as he walked in my direction to the showers.

“I’ll let you win next time,” he whispered to me as he was passing, and I could almost hear the smile in his voice, “…if you blow me.”

Perhaps one would have expected me to be rendered too shocked and speechless to do or say anything, but I wasn’t because this was probably the third time he has said the same line to me.

It seemed to have become his way of mocking me every time we were in the same race and he placed better, which was an occurrence that has been happening more and more frequently recently; he seemed to improve every time I saw him.

I didn’t consider it to be sexual in nature, even with its not-so-subtle implication because I knew it wasn’t, or it wasn’t meant to be. It was just locker room talk to McAdams, and of course, I knew he liked to rattle me.

Well, congrats to him because he was successful if that was indeed his goal. I was thoroughly pissed, as I was every other time he’s dropped such jeering, mocking comments.

I couldn’t help but recall the way he would speak to me throughout the years. He never spoke to me in any way that made it seem as if I were his senior, in both age and seniority in sport. As if I wasn’t almost seven years older. As if I wasn’t an accomplished athlete when he wasn’t anything yet back when he was eighteen. He has always spoken to me forwardly as an equal and it rather annoyed me then because I felt I deserved the respect, but now, I found I was strangely caught between being thankful and bemused that he treated me just the same—not as an aging athlete whose career was at an end while his own was flourishing, having the international swimming world at its knees, begging, moaning for him like someone whipped.

After the first race I ever had with him five years ago, I didn’t hear from McAdams until the summer nationals that same year, where I placed first in all the events I qualified for. He had flowers sent to me with a simple card that read congratulations in French, my first language. He probably had someone translate it because I knew for a fact that he didn’t know any French.

Then I saw him on and off for competitions for a bit before I had my injury, after which I secluded myself for half a year before hitting the competitive stream again. Maybe I made it sound easy—it wasn't.

When I did re-enter the competitive swimming world, he slowly began to consistently place better than me when we did race together. Sometimes I tried to blame it on the injury, but of course I couldn’t deny that he was also a more than impressive swimmer.

Once it became clear that such a pattern was formed, he would say something—one line—to me after the race. Like this.

Gritting my teeth as hard as if my jaw would detach and fall off if I didn’t, I shook my head, pulled off my cap and dragged a hand through my hair, tried to push it all away. As I said, I was too old for little games.

--

I caught up with my coach, Michel, after and we discussed my performance. He let me know that he was proud of me for placing and I know he thought me better than I actually was; I never told him about the continual bother of my old back injury.

He didn’t know the third place was got from a lot of physical pain on my part. I did feel guilty withholding that and I was probably doing some huge no-no when it came to the whole healthy coach-athlete dynamic with just that. Certainly, I knew that I should tell him about it, but I didn’t think I could bear his disappointment if he knew the whole story about the injury.

He wouldn’t set the same standard for me then and I wanted more than anything now to be treated the same. Therefore, I never told anybody about it. Save my doctor and physiotherapist, of course, and that was out of sheer necessity.

We both returned to the hotel we were staying at afterwards as it was already the drawing end of the day and we were too spent to do much else. I tried to think of other things once I carded in and got to my room. Exhaustion didn’t need guilt for company at the moment, or ever, actually, thank you very much. I also made an effort not to think of what Lorne McAdams said either or of my impending retirement—uncomfortable things in general.

Once we flew back to Montreal, I was back to my regular training routine and it was more gruelling than I would have liked, being so close to leaving the sport soon. Another guilty point was that I had yet to tell my coach of my wish to retire next year, especially since I knew he thought I still had a good few years left in me. Another huge, flaring no-no, I was sure.

But of course, if I told him, the issue with my back injury would come up and everything would just come spilling out. I guess that was why I was putting it off for so long. I knew I wasn’t acting wise, but I still preferred to keep things under wraps for just a few more weeks before explaining to him.

So I simply kept on with training in the meantime, which was what I did most of the time, anyway. Swimming, running, weights, and so on, sleep. Repeat. I did enjoy it, though; training was fun when you thought about the fact that you were doing what you love and not sitting at a desk, pushing buttons or writing down people’s appointments or some other shit. But it was definitely hard work as well, therefore, I guessed it was easy to forget about all that sometimes. With everything aside, I loved to swim, and anything that would help me do just that better was welcomed.

I had another race coming up soon, and not wanting for my back to act up again as it did in my most recent race, I visited physio more frequently than I usually did. Nothing too entirely different or deviated from my usual routine.

You know, most athletes swim to recuperate from back injury. I had a friend in high school who did gymnastics competitively until she injured her back; doctor told her gymnastics was no longer an option, but well, what about swimming? So she gave that a try, became a lifeguard now.

And here I was, swimmer with a back injury from the sport.

Hell, wasn’t I ever ironic.