1. You have absolutely no shame in being nearly naked around your friends and teammates.
2. While hard to believe, there actually is no limit to the amount of food you will eat after practice.
3. Putting on a Fastskin suit takes at least twice as long as you think it does.
4. There is nothing you dread more in the world than a long course practice.
5. If you're a guy swimmer, you secretly like the feeling of shaving your legs for championship season.
6. But if you're a lady swimmer, you have VERY mixed feelings about not shaving your legs for several months.
7. No matter how old you get, Sharks & Minnows will forever be your favorite pool game — and a great excuse to end practice early.
8. Timing your relay starts perfectly still makes you very, very nervous no matter how many times you've done it.
9. Tugging on the lane line while swimming backstroke is a delicate art that you have mastered.
10. Swimcest is a very, very real thing.
11. You'd rather have your goggles totally fall off than start leaking, to be honest.
12. You totally identify with your stroke/event. You're not just a swimmer; you're a breaststroker, or a sprint freestyler, or an IMer.
13. And you feel like a total hot mess when you swim something other than your main events. Being a sprint freestyler trying to swim a 400 IM just doesn't end well.
14. Sometimes, you feel more like a mermaid or a fish than a human being.
15. You've totally swallowed an unhealthy amount of chlorinated water.
16. Tapering is absolutely, positively your favorite time of year.
17. Getting up for morning practice, while painful, is actually a badge of honor.
18. You can wear a cap, and use special shampoo, but your hair will always feel chloriney.
19. Unless your intervals are on 30 seconds or a minute, you are GUARANTEED to lose track of where you are in the set.
20. It feels not weird counting things by 25, 50, and 100.
21. Unless you are a butterflyer, you will do absolutely ANYTHING to get out of a butterfly set.
22. You can try as hard as you want, but you will ALWAYS smell like chlorine.
23. By this point, you've gotten used to your coach yelling at you. No matter how loud their voice is, you can tune it out.
24. Once you learn that peeing in pools is totally acceptable, your life changes forever.
25. You HATE when you are confused with divers. Like, what is their deal anyways?
26. Weird tan lines are just something you've gotten accustomed to.
27. You actually feel no shame in deck-changing, because it's all about efficiency.
