Testing the Waters by Kate Barker

Rating: ***

This article is about a girl who loves swimming and pushed herself to go further into her dreams to achieve a goal she set a while ago but couldn't pass until she truley believed.

Kate Barker is a competitive swimmer who trains with the usual 100 laps, serveral times a week. She wanted to do something beyond her usual lap-lap-lap so researched some stuff and signed up for a competition. Since the competiton was not in a pool and was in a lake which was quiet cold, Kate wanted to try her swimsuit and wetsuit out for the competition to get a feel of what it would be like. She didn't like the wetsuit at all because it was heavy and uncomfortable, so she took it off and got a reall feel of what she would be dealing with tempurature wise. The night beofre the big race, Kate didn't know how she would coop with all the wailing arms and legs but the next day when she started the race, she was in dead last. Spotters kept asking her if she was okay or if she needed to stop, but she kept going until a loud rumble of thunder came in and the race was cancelled. Kate signed up for another race hopeing to do better but the waters that she was going to swim in were infested with sharks so they all had to be careful. The day of the race Kate stuck with Richard a guy she meet a little before the race and she didnt leave his side until they were told to jump in and set off. It was raining hard and everyone was worried the race would be cancelled. Kate was almost at the end when she heard the loudest most terrifying thunder ever. Not wanting for the competition to be cancelled again she swam as fast as she could to the finish line with a time of 1:03:02 , and she didn't come in last this time.

I really enjoyed reading this article, but I thought it would be about how a swimmer who lost a leg or something to a shark attack but they really didn't talk much about sharks which kinda threw me off.

Testing the Waters. Barker, Kate. Explore, July/August 2010. Issue 164. Print.