as fast as he could manage. The challenge with the IM was that every swimmer had a strong stroke—his was breaststroke—and a weak stroke—his was butterfly. The lead in the race would change hands four or five times, probably. The trick was to not fall too far back in the first two weaker strokes so that he could make up the time in the last two stronger laps.
He plotted out his strategy while one of the Australian swimmers with a goggle problem stalled the proceedings. Racing was as much about strategy as it was about strength, speed, and stamina. Swimmers had to calculate when to conserve energy and when to push it, and Isaac had made a lot of wrong guesses in his career that had cost him races.
He did not want to lose today.
Winning five medals was nothing to sneeze at, and the 200 IM was hardly his best event. He’d earned a shitty lane assignment thanks to his barely squeaking through the semifinal, so here he was at Lane Eight, all the way on the edge of the pool. It meant he couldn’t take advantage of the wake of the swimmers on either side of him—strategy and physics—and he wouldn’t be able to see the swimmers who would probably capture the lead. Harvey, a swimmer from the UK, did a fast butterfly lap, and he’d likely maintain some kind of lead for the first hundred meters, but Isaac wouldn’t be able to see him.
Maybe that was ideal. Maybe it was better for Isaac to swim his own race.
He was better rested now, he reasoned as he got up on the blocks. He’d gotten a solid nine hours’ sleep the night before. He’d done a workout with Adam earlier that day, but he hadn’t raced, so his body felt good. Tired, but good.
The beep of the race starting spurred him into Pavlovian action, as he threw himself off the block and started to swim what felt like the butterfly lap of his life. His arms and shoulders burned as he got to the wall, making the backstroke feel like a fucking vacation. He followed the lines of the beams that ran the length of the Aquatics Center ceiling to make sure he was going straight, and he hugged the rope a little to get some of the kick from his neighboring swimmer, and then he saw the little flags that indicated it was time to turn.
Then it was the breaststroke lap.
For whatever reason, this combination of arm and leg movements was the one his body was ideally suited for, and he glided through the water. He sprinted, only surfacing to breathe once in fifty meters, though when he popped his head out of the water, he heard the crowd screaming their heads off. He imagined he could hear Adam screaming too, and his mother and sister, and maybe even Tim.
So when he made the last turn, he wanted to win. He wanted his fifth gold medal of these Games for everyone who had believed in him when he’d been on the bottom, for his mother, who’d put him in swim lessons, for Adam, for seeing his potential and agreeing to train him even though he was an alcoholic, and for Tim, for making this week the best week of his whole fucking life.
For the first time in five years, probably, Isaac thought his life might have taken a turn in the right direction, and nothing would signal that better than a win here.
He told himself it didn’t really matter as he reached for the wall. He’d already accomplished so much.
Except it fucking did matter. And when he finished the race and popped up to look at the scoreboard, there it fucking was: Gold: Isaac Flood.
He shouted. Just noise, nothing coherent, but he shouted and slapped at the water. He looked back at the scoreboard to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. His body pulsed with adrenaline, with tingly giddiness, and he looked around, seeing other people bearing witness to this too. He accepted the congratulations of the swimmer in Lane Seven, still not completely convinced he’d done it.
He was out of the water before he even knew what he was doing. The officials were trying to clear the pool to get it ready for the next race. Isaac got pulled aside by Mindy Somers again but didn’t hear her first question because his ears were ringing so much.
“What?” he asked.
“You just won your fifth gold medal, Isaac, and your