By Sarah Frohnapfel

Photo Courtesy of Dana Purdy ’13

Lafayette’s five-week winter hiatus usually leads even the biggest homebody to count down the days until classes begin again. For the Lafayette Swim Team, this break is cut short by a season that does not care how much snow is on the ground or that the holiday spirit is in the air. Tis’ the winter sports season.

The swim team had two-a-days nearly every day of the interim following their early return to campus January 2. They lifted, they conditioned and they swam. A lot.

“We literally eat, sleep and swim,” said Laura Savatierri ’13. “Life is centered around two practices a day, so that’s all you really have time to do. It helps though, focusing all of our energy on getting better.”

While this may seem like torture to many of us, the swimmers say that not only is interim not miserable, it is also the highlight of their season.

“We bond so much as a team over break. We practice a lot, but there is a huge amount of downtime as well. We have to make our own fun, but we always manage to have a good time. It’s what I look forward to most about the season,” said Molly Gondolf ‘14. This makeshift fun includes catch phrase, bananagrams, board games and a lot of TV and movies.

If you have still failed to capture where the “fun” is in all of this, it’s important to understand that it is less about what they are doing and more about doing it together. The most important part of this experience for the team, besides the swimming, is that it allows a team of 50 or so individuals to come together as a unit.

“We just get so close. It’s really hard to do that during the school year because there are so many other distractions,” said Abby Floyd-Jones ‘14. “But over interim, we only have each other. It creates a bond between the team that helps us in upcoming meets.”

This three-week marathon was broken up by a special treat in the form of a training trip to sunny Florida. The team packed their suits and flip-flops and headed down south for a week of mostly swimming, but also a little fun. Strength coach, Spencer Brown, accompanied the team and led the group through multiple beach workouts to go along with their two-a-day practices.

“We did push-ups, ab workouts and we ran,” said Floyd-Jones. “The beach was a great place to work out.”

The team went to the beach twice for pure relaxation, had dinners out, had a senior night celebration, and a few members even braved the dark to go on a nighttime deep sea fishing trip. “It was mostly guys who went, but a few girls went too,” said Gondolf. “They actually caught enough fish to cook for some of the team so we were very impressed.”

While the masses of students flocking back to Lafayette bring back the distractions of noise, social life, and academic stress that the team has grown accustomed to living without, the progress made over interim will not go to waste. The team is physically and mentally stronger, and as they head into the Patriot League Championships, the recently acquired strength will be sure to pay off in the most competitive time of the season.