Road To Tokyo

Chapter 1:

{December 25th, 2013}

5:00AM

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

I swung my arm around and blindly felt around for my phone, and pressed snooze. Just my bloody alarm clock, reminding me about morning practice, somewhere I didn't even want to think about right now.

Morning practice came around every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Today was Wednesday's practice, and right now, I wouldn't wish for anything other than to stay in my warm, cosy bed. 3, 2, 1... I counted to myself, and quickly flung my duvet off of me, and the cold air enveloped my body.

I checked my phone and 'surprise surprise', no notifications... My swimming really put me in an awkward situation with my friends. Sometimes it would be all I'd talk about. Other times I'd reluctantly talk about other things. Some days I might have just had morning practice, and I'd practically fall asleep on them at points. I dread to think what their thoughts about me are sometimes, and I can understand why they might think badly of me at points. But I do love them, and I do try to make time.

That's the worst bit. My time. It flies away in front of my eyes. I'll either be at the pool, with a stroke developer, land training, at physio, the gym, out running, a meet on weekends, or maybe on the odd occasion having some quality family time - which is quite rare and unusual a thing.

"Soph, will you come shopping with us Saturday?" "Soph, we're all going to the ice cream parlour after school, you comin'?" And almost every time, I would have to reject them, politely tell them that I'm not going.

But oh well. I love them, but it's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make, for in the long run, it will benefit me, as I will get to the top.

And then I remembered, today was the day. The one day of the year that coach would lay off and cancel any sort of training... IT'S CHRISTMAS.

Yep, I thought, it's Christmas and I'm up at frickin' 5AM, great. Well, 5:10 now, so I might as well do something with my time, even if I forced my family to get up and 'see if Santa came', they'd probably just try and punch me... yep. What a lovely family I have...

So I did what any normal girl would do who's up early and waiting for the others to get up. I put on my running gear and my precious nikes (I saved up forever for them and absolutely luurrrvvee them!!), left a note on the kitchen counter just for the small chance that someone might possibly come downstairs, and then headed out for a run with just the sunset. 8 times around my local field minimum, 10 if I could make it. Setting off at 5:30 was a wee bit early but I planned to get back for 7:00-7:15. Off I went.

~6:55AM~

9 times around was complete, one more round and then I'd head back over to my house, where hopefully we'd begin to open some presents/stockings, and no one could blame me for waking them up at 7:15, I mean, it wasn't that early...

By the time I made my 10th lap, it was 7:00, so I quickly made the 5 minute run back over to my house.

"Darlings, I'm homeee!" I sarcastically shouted to my beloved family.

Only to see that my mum was the only one up, making a tea for my dad. I took off my Nike's, and made my way up to the shower, to wash off my disgusting; sweaty body. I got out , put on my most festive jumper that I owned and a pair of jeans, chucked my hair into a slightly dysfunctional messy bun, and made my way out of the shower room, now, I was completely ready to cause havoc.

"Guyssss, did Santa come?", I shouted as I ran from room to room of my brothers, opening their doors one by one and shouting in their ears. Gosh, I must really annoy them. Sometimes when I have morning practice I'm purposefully really loud to try and wake them at about 5:00! But I mean, it's Christmas, the season of goodwill, it's practically my duty to make sure they're up.

Oh, you don't believe me do you? But come on, I mean who isn't willing to receive free gifts from a mysterious man under the presence of a pine tree, and stuff your faces with Christmas dinner. Well, I am certainly up for that...

Especially the food part. Literally, people joke about swimmers being able to eat whatever they like, but it's true, I will stuff my face (not always with junk food as it's not a part of my training programme, but a healthy balanced meal that can taste surprisingly nice) and to be perfectly honest I don't seem to have any issues with my weight so yeepp that's good.

Finally, everybody seemed to be up, and all 7 of us made our way into the second lounge (A/N: this is a large family and this is why they have two lounges, and a dining room as otherwise it is hard to fit everybody in, especially if any of them have friends over. They are not insanely rich they just have a nice house :)), where our stockings hung on the fireplace, full with goods.

I ran over to mine and plucked it off of its hanger, excited to see what it held.

Like many other years, I realised that there was a growing theme in it: swimming.

It held: training goggles, training hats, energy bars, some random stuff, and more, I was so pleased, but still, I couldn't wait for he main presents under the tree - my favourite!

All my family were complete Christmas fanatics, so as we made our way over to the kitchen to eat - which my parents insisted we did before opening our main presents, unfortunately - every hallway was covered with festive decoration, which we always tried to get together as a family to put up, and my favourite decorations were always the ones bought/made when I was a child, instilling in me a deep sense of nostalgia.

As always, Christmas lunch in my household was delicious, with the turkey, stuffing, spuds, veg and my favourite: pigs in blankets. I sighed to myself, thinking about how I wished I could do this on a daily basis, yet sadly, my training programme restricts me.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my lifestyle and the joys that come with it, but it's hard and gruelling, and only the best succeed, which I intend to be. So, it's not everyday that I have the opportunity to stretch the waistband of my trousers and eat everything I could dream of and more.

Finally, after my brothers and I cleared all our plates and finished a heavenly Christmas pudding dessert, it was time to crack into our presents!

"Through we go to the lounge..." my mum said, causing us to dash over, excited to both give and receive gifts!

———————

Only two years later.....
Thought I'd publish this chapter that I wrote absolute yonks ago, and didn't deem shocking ahah😂
Let me know what you think :))