Junior Zoe Hopkins, a distance swimmer and sports management major at Hillsdale College, weighed in on the swim team’s performance at the GLIACs in Jenison, Michigan last weekend where the Chargers took sixth place overall.
How well did the Hillsdale College swim team do?
Our team did really well—we had some really fast swims! It was really a pretty average GLIACs for us overall and I think next year we’ll do even better. My favorite race of the whole meet was the very last one where we had a really good 400 free relay. They ended up placing third overall. It was a very exciting race and afterward we had a whole giant team group hug.
What are you hoping to improve for next year?
I think next year I am going to try to have more fun with the season since it’s my last year of being an NCAA athlete. This year it was a little more stressful because I was more concerned with trying to make nationals than anything else. So next year I’m just going to have fun and enjoy being with my teammates while we have the time together.
What’s your thought process before you dive into the pool for a 500 or 1000-yard swim?
A few minutes before your race, you have to pump yourself up with music and get in the zone. You just stand there thinking about what’s going to happen—especially for distance swims you have to prepare your body to be tired for a very long time. After that you walk up to the block, visualizing the race and seeing it go well in your mind. You take calm breaths before the whistle blows and you shut everything else out, trying to clear your mind. Really, you try not to overthink it, control your thoughts, avoid giving yourself anxiety.
What advice would you give the average Hillsdale student interested in begging lap swimming for just fun or exercise?
You just have to swim. There is no alternative. If you want to get better at swimming, then you’ve just got to swim. Even if you’re a runner, that’s not going to necessarily correlate with an improvement in your swimming. You may be in better overall shape, but you’re not going to be a good swimmer without swimming. It’s its own special world. Swim as much as you can before you tire yourself out and do that every day. You’ll learn to love it as long as you have the discipline to get yourself into the pool often enough.
What do you think about while you’re swimming?
Honestly, it can get a little boring because you’re just staring at a black line at the bottom of the pool. We have roughly about two hours we spend in the water every day, and two other hours of conditioning. You can think about a lot in two hours. Usually, you start off thinking about your day. Then your stroke or your technique. Personally, as a distance swimmer, I focus and think a lot about my distance per stroke, having good technique, being in a tight streamline position off the walls, keeping my head down. It’s important not to let your mind wander so far that you lose focus in a set because you have to do a lot of counting. But by the end of a really long swim, you’re really just thinking about food.
Why did you choose to be a swimmer?
It’s a lot more dynamic than people realize—there’s so much more to swimming than going back and forth in a pool. I feel like swimmers don’t get enough credit and swim teams are overlooked a lot. Swimming is challenging and rewarding at the same time and to be good at any sport requires a lot of hard work. Honestly, I’ve always been a swimmer. I’ve been swimming since I was four when I started my first winter and summer league. Then when I was eight I started club swimming, which was year round. Then I did high school swimming and my club team, and now I swim at Hillsdale College. There’s no off-season for me and no time for anything else really—it’s a year round sport. I just really love our team and coach and it’s just a really good sport.