Jacqueline Pena is a sophomore student at Lindbergh High School in girls swim. It’s been two years since she’s joined swim and she says she’ll most likely be on varsity soon.

The most important training aspects are warming up and cooling down. Pena explained it helps her prepare muscles and manage lactic acids. Proper warm-ups before races and cool downs after help swimmers perform their best in competitions.

Pena’s biggest challenge was overcoming negative thoughts, especially in her freshman year. She struggled with mental barriers like “I can’t do this.” But she changed it to “I can do it” and saw challenges as growth opportunities. Pena said swimming provides mental clarity and stress relief. Practice is more of her “decompression time” where she heals. 

Pena said that balancing swim and school requires a strict schedule. She doesn’t get home until 6:00pm or 6:30pm in the afternoon because practice runs late. Afterward, she immediately showers, eats dinner, and does homework. She keeps a checklist to stay organized, since she doesn’t have free time during the season.

Pena said her favorite part of swimming is the team because everyone is really close and makes practice enjoyable. She described it as “your own little family.” Unlike other sports, swim stays close despite having a large team.

Pena’s favorite memories are team dinners before postseason meets. Everyone including coaches bring food. They eat together the night before each meet. She said these gatherings were about bonding and having fun. For team bonding they eat at one of the girl’s homes, watch a movie, and make slime. 

Pena believes that swimming is an essential part of her life and thinks it should be the same for everybody else saying, “If you’re in the middle of the ocean drowning, yeah, you’re gonna need to know how to swim.”