For whatever reason, that finally got Luke’s shoulders to drop. Luke smirked. “Think you can beat me?”
“I know I can. I routinely clocked in faster than you in practice the whole month leading into the Games.”
“We’ll see.”
Isaac went into the locker room and changed into his suit. He did a few laps in the warm-up pool before Adam told him to get ready for the race.
When Isaac got to the ready room, Luke was already sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, his hood over his head, his coat zipped up to his chin. Isaac pulled on the coat Adam handed to him. Isaac didn’t bother to zip it, but he pulled the hood on over his swim cap and sat next to Luke. The coat kept him from cooling down too much from the air; the warmth helped keep muscles loose, but also, the Aquatics Center clearly had the AC set to Arctic.
Luke grinned and said, “First.”
“Oh, you think this means something? You’re ready first so you’ll win the race?”
“There’s an old wives’ tale about children who are born early always being on time and children who are born late always being tardy. I was born three weeks early. I get to the end of the race early.”
“Is this your form of trash talk?”
An official called their heat, so Isaac moved to stand up, although Luke got to his feet sooner. “First.”
Isaac rolled his eyes.
He stood on the block a few minutes later, two lanes away from Luke.
And he decided he didn’t care what Luke did in this race. Luke could win now for all Isaac cared. Isaac’s only goal was top sixteen. He had to swim a fast race, but as Adam had told him right after his warm-up, as long as he touched the wall under 3:50, he’d be fine.
The buzzer sounded and Isaac got in the water. The start felt good, and maybe that was all that mattered. The feeling. If he felt good in the water, if he wasn’t holding back, then he could do anything. He wouldn’t swim all out in a prelim, and he had to swim two more races today so he needed to conserve his strength, but he wouldn’t slouch too much either.
Eight laps of the pool. Isaac slid through the water, vaguely aware of swimmers in his periphery. He had the sense he kept pace with everyone until, after about the second lap, the swimmer in the lane to his left slipped away. Somewhere in the third lap, the swimmer on his right slipped away too. Swimmers in more distant lanes might have had huge leads right now, but with only five heats, Isaac felt good about his odds of making the semis.
New technology on the bottom of the pool let him know how many laps he had left, which helped because he had a moment when he doubted he was really almost finished. But it said right there on the bottom of the pool that he’d swum into his last lap, so he turned it on a little, deciding to sprint the last length of the pool. He reached his hand out, touched the wall, and popped out of the water.
He’d swum it in 3:45. He came in second, behind Luke. He’d made the semis easily.
When he got out of the pool, Luke was already waiting. “First,” Luke said.
“We’ll see,” said Isaac.
As he got back to the locker room, though, a guy in a lab coat stopped him and handed him a cup. Adam stood next to him, looking grim.
“Sorry, Isaac.”
Isaac shrugged. “It’s fine. The only things I’ve put in my body today are egg whites and orange juice.”
That made Adam’s frown deepen. “You’re gonna need to eat more than that if you expect to race tonight. Should I have Carl make you lunch?” Carl was USA Swimming’s staff chef. Isaac hadn’t even realized he’d come to Madrid, but there was an odd cabal of people following the team around, including the therapist who specialized in Chinese medicine and an aesthetician who helped with body waxing and shaving.
“I… all right. Sure. I am pretty hungry.”
“I’ll get you and Luke set up. Meet me at the American Lounge after you pee in the cup and change.”
Forty minutes later Luke and Isaac had been herded into one of the kitchens where stadium concessions were prepared, where they sat on rickety stools at stainless steel tables.
“We were one and two overall in the prelims,” Luke said as Carl slid plates in