Now in their twelfth year of swimming, MG King has quite the resume. Some of their post-covid accomplishments include winning the 800m freestyle and placing second in the 400m IM at the Illinois state meet, Academic All American swimmer 2019-2020, and winning the swim to the moon 10k race in the unfortunately named Hell, Michigan. 

Q: What’s your best stroke?

A: “Well, I do the 400 IM so it’s kind of all of them, but I also do a lot of distance freestyle, so it’s probably that.”

Q: How much do you practice?

A: “It’s different during the school day and during the summer, in the summer we practice twice a day, in the morning 5:00am to 8:00am and at night it’s 4:30pm to 6:00pm… 4 out of 5 training days we have dry land – which is a lot of lifting weights, running, and a bunch of terrible, terrible stuff… But during the school day it’s only once a day, for about 2 hours… on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.”

Q: What do you do in a “typical” training session? Is there a typical session?

A: “We usually do around 7,000m in a two hour practice, the main set being a 3k to a 5k and then the rest is warming up/cooling down stuff. Since I’m a distance swimmer it’s a lot of long, moderately difficult swimming, rather than sprint work. Which has its ups and downs… it gets lonely and sad and dark sometimes but it’s a good balance.”

Q: When I did swimming, my mind would always wander during long practice sets – and as a writer I would always think of short stories to write when out of the pool – do you have anything  you preoccupy your mind with while swimming?

A: “Oh yeah, a lot of the writing I do I complete during swim practice and then happen to write them down afterward, most of the poetry I write is the product of a long swim practice. Because it’s all you have – all you have is your own thoughts. It’s nice, actually, I wouldn’t call it inspirational but it definitely gets the brain juices moving. Sometimes it’s kind of in a delirium state – you’re just in pain and nothing really makes sense – but that’s when it’s best, in my opinion.”

Q: Other than writing, what else are you doing while you aren’t swimming?

A: “I’m really into history and classics, but I don’t know how to describe what I do with that. I read and watch documentaries, which are so nerdy and silly… I’m also in a Shakespeare group and we do Shakespeare over zoom, on occasion, and have fun little discussions on that… But some clubs I’m in – Latin Club is great – everyone should join latin club – and Scholastic bowl… A lot of my learning is geared towards that trivia.”

Q: Are you thinking of swimming in college?

A: “I am, I’m still fighting my way through the recruitment process. I really wanna go D1, I’m talking to a couple colleges right now, William and Mary, Colgate, and a couple D3 schools as well, Kenyon and Swarthmore. I think my top choice right now is William and Mary… I’ve been swimming for 12 years of my life so I’m really looking forward to it.”

Q: What are some challenges you’ve faced in your swimming career?

A: “I think covid really terribly, terribly affected me… I struggled with mental illness and freshman year February/March things were finally looking up – I had a great meet at the Schroeder A+ meet – and the state meet was supposed to be really good that year. And then, Literally the day of the state meet it was canceled. Then, everything after that was canceled for the next year and a half. So that did a number on the brain. I don’t think I really fully recovered from that disappointment after disappointment. Once I finally did get back in the pool, it was so hard to get back the ten years of training I had done up to that point… I wasn’t where I was before and I couldn’t really cope with that… This summer I finally got back to my pre-covid times, just through going to practice, getting enough sleep and doing all these things I was finally able to do again… But it took a solid two years to get over that plateau – that was the most challenging thing I’ve ever gone through

Q: Do you have advice to aspiring athletes and/or classics enjoyers?

A: “That’s an interesting mix, well, my advice kind of applies to both – you need to commit to being good at something – you do have to have an element of passion, but that’s not going to carry you through all the way. It’s hard rigorous stuff, and you kinda need to learn to cope with that – It’s hard stuff but if you like doing it enough, it’s worth it!”