*All photos taken by Makenzie Cool

From August to November, the Fenton girls swim and dive team works to prepare for the Metro meet. And within that season, one week, referred to as Hell Week, pushes these swimmers to their limits as they work harder than ever before for Metros.

“The purpose of hell week is to prepare the girls for the Metro Meet,” varsity swim coach Brad Jones said. “The girls work hard this week so they can taper off into easier practices next week, putting us in a better position for doing well and the meet.”

During the week, the girls have to wear extra drag, including tights and wearing an extra swim suit to make them slower.

“I like having the drag for hell week and taper,” senior Lauren Sawle said. “I really like the end result of having all that extra drag; at Metros, when we finally take off the extra drag, we swim faster than before and I feel that our improvement is amazing.”

Working hard two times a day, for five days, it seems like the girls can’t get a break. But, after a hard morning practice, the girls were rewarded with a delicious breakfast provided by the swimmers’ parents.

“Receiving the breakfast after practice is a wonderful reward,” junior McKenzie Mead said. “My favorite part is having the chocolate milk after practice and my favorite thing that we had this week was probably the breakfast burritos.”

After a long week of hell, as some swimmers would call it, the next week is what they would call taper week; a week with no morning practice, semi-difficult workouts; it ends with a shortened practice and a pasta party following it.

“I like how coach Jones splits up the girls into different groups during taper week,” sophomore Grace Lee said. “Jones puts me into the distance group. and I really enjoy swimming distance. I can’t wait to swim the 200 freestyle and the 500 freestyle on Friday.”

The girls will have their Metro Meet on Nov. 6 with diving preliminaries, on Nov. 7 with swimming preliminaries, and on Nov. 8 with swimming and diving finals.