Courtsey of Brian Beard

At last weekend’s home meet against Tufts University, swimmer Natalie Garre ’28 broke the oldest women’s team record in the 1000 yard freestyle by thirteen seconds with a time of 10:07.48, having never raced the event before Saturday.

The meet was the first of the season for the swim and dive teams and the first collegiate meet of Garre’s career. Despite being in a new setting and racing a new event, Garre thrived in the pool, winning both the 200 freestyle with a 1:54.90 and the 200 backstroke with a 2:05.33 in addition to her 1000 freestyle record smash.

400 individual medley and 200 backstroke, mid-distance events, are Garre’s favorite events. And despite never racing the 1000 free, she used the confidence she gained from other events and training to do well.

“I know what I’ve done in training, so I try to put it into action,” Garre said.

Team support was on full display at Saturday’s meet, where the coaches and captains compiled the schedule of events, so that swimmers knew where they could find their teammates competing at a given time. Furthermore, the men’s team created more energy by making a human tunnel for the women’s team to run through, encouraging the team to cheer throughout the day.

“Just looking around and seeing how excited my teammates and coaches were, it meant so much to me,” Garre said.

While cheers from spectators can be hard to hear for swimmers since they’re underwater most of the time, Garre’s teammates made sure they were heard.

“I could hear all the people standing behind the blocks, cheering for me on the turns,” Garre said. “Everyone moves their hands and screams, ‘Go, go, go, go.’ I feel like I could hear that when I was swimming. And that was so motivational.”

Garre has been competitively swimming since she was ten at her local swim club. She joined the school team when she got to high school. The overlap between high school and club swimming marked the beginning of the sport being a consistent part of her life. Garre said navigating relationships with both her high school and club teammates made her well-equipped to bond with her college teammates.

“I think something that I was really excited to carry through [with me from high school] was forming friendships,” Garre said. “I realized that something with club swimming is that it tends to be more individual, but something I loved so much about high school swimming was getting to bond with the lower classmen and upperclassmen just through relays. I think that is how you get really close.”

Her mutual respect for her teammates allows her to swim for the benefit of the team and not just for her personal success.

“I want to be there for my teammates as much as they were there for me to give them the same energy that I’m getting, because it helped me so much,” she said.

Besides training and the support of her teammates, Garre attributes some of her success to pre-race rituals.

“I try to visualize the night before in my head how I’m doing [in the race],” Garre said. “I try to force myself to be positive. I think what I’ve learned is mindset is so much of [swimming].”

With a great start to the season under her belt, Garre is looking forward to carrying this excitement into the rest of the season.

“[The meet] was an awesome reminder of how important having a good mindset is,” she said.