Rigorous practice yields national success for senior swimmer

Six days a week during the school year. Twelve hours per week during the summer.

This is the amount of time Anna Peterson practices swimming, and because her day is packed with school, homework and family time, swimming occupies most of what’s left over. This immense amount of time is dedicated to intense training to become a better swimmer, and it has set the stage Anna to perform extremely well at state-wide competitions.

Extensive training from a young age, combined with an ability to sacrifice time to be social, has made it possible for Anna Peterson, now a senior, to flourish as a swimmer.

At first, swimming was for comfort. Whenever Anna was in the water, she always seemed to find herself happy. Her parents knew this, and whenever she was upset, they got her in the water as soon as possible. When the Midway Aquatics swimming group opened at Lab it was the perfect opportunity for Anna to begin a close connection with the sport.

Anna currently swims for the Chicago Wolfpack Aquatic Club. Her club swimming coach, Dave Gass, has been instrumental in Anna’s success.

“We get along really well and, yeah, I trust everything that he does and I definitely have succeeded really well with his training,” Anna said.

While training has not been easy, her hard work has paid off. Anna is ranked 20th in Illinois among senior girls, and in 2016 she had the second-fastest 100m butterfly for her age group.

She is content with her recent performances at Speedo Sectional Championships, Speedo Future Championships and the Speedo Winter Junior National Championships. However, the place she gets in events is not what matters in her mind.

“A common belief I’ve found is that people think swimming is all about how you rank and place, but it doesn’t matter at all at how you rank at meets because there are so many variables,” Anna said. “It’s all about the times.”

Anna explained that since the competition she faced can range greatly in swimming ability, placement in events is extremely relative. Therefore, the most valid way to measure swimming performance are the times.

While swimming has brought Anna happiness and success, she has also been forced to sacrifice a great deal in order to reach her current level. Since she spends so much time in the water, she does not have time for other activities, such as socializing with friends. She explained she has gone to very few of her grade’s social events purely due of a lack of time. 

However, these sacrifices are done for something truly special.

“It’s a huge part of who I am and it’s definitely really impacted me as a person,” Anna explained. “The challenges you face in and out of the pool … really shapes who I am.”