On February 26, sophomore Valentina Angulo competed with NHHS in their statewide swimming competition, without having any history with the sport.

     Prior to her involvement with NH, Angulo had no experience swimming on a team and had never taken swim classes. “I knew how to float and the basics of swimming to not drown, but that’s all I knew. It was crazy to me that I was able to catch on quickly,” she says. 

     Angulo says she joined the swim team because the cross country season had just finished and didn’t want to get injured before the outdoor track season began. Her friends encouraged her to join swimming and she wanted to participate in something new and fun. 

     Angulo was challenged by the first few days of swim practice and says it “wore [her] out so much. It’s about showing up everyday even when [her] body was not in [shape],” she said. She enhanced her skill level by implementing crossfit training, running, swimming, and lifting in her daily routine. She says she works out the “muscles needed to get [her] arms moving fast and legs kicking harder in the water.”

     The day before a meet, Angulo takes a break from her rigorous crossfit workouts and only goes to swim practice. Afterwards, she does “carb loading and rolls out [her] legs, [her] back, and [her] arms, and then [she] would take a protein shake to help my muscle build and recover.”

     “The most physically demanding part (of the sport) was the arms and the back. I did the 50 freestyle as my main event so I was always working on my arm and my kick which had to do a lot with my quads,” she explains. During the season, Angulo focused on her nutrition, which helped her to gain muscle and train without getting injured from possible overtraining. “The good nutrition allowed me to recover fast so I wasn’t sore for the next day of training,” Angulo says. 

       Angulo shares that keeping the motivation to train everyday and maintain her nutrition was the most difficult part of the season. However, her inspiration came from the “great feeling of accomplishing something that [she] never thought [she] could possibly be good at.” “I felt that rush of adrenaline I loved and that’s what pushed me to get better and train harder,” she shared. 

     When Angulo found out she was going to the state level competition, she said she couldn’t explain how excited she was. “As soon as I found out the news I screamed and ran outside to show my parents. It was so rewarding that after all the work I put in it was being put to this amazing experience,” she expresses. “Nothing beats hanging out with my swim friends. I had so much fun going there,” Angulo shares.