001hi I'm Brady Johnson I'm a junior at West Chicago High School I got first at state in the hunter backstroke I've been swimming for roughly 10 years now I started in this pool actually when I was like six or seven years old then I took it out competitively and I've been doing it ever since I've always wanted to be at the top competitively I've always been wanting to race the best people be at the top starting from a pretty young age about nine or ten is when I got my first state record and when I achieved that my coaches and everything told me that I could be one of the best here post covet it was just really hard for everybody to stay in the zone and get back into the swing of things and
002what helped me was thinking about my end goal and what I wanted to achieve I started making goals for myself throughout the season and practices and pushing myself every day and winning state was definitely a goal for me if you're struggling with motivation set a goal it's going to take sacrifices and effort to get there but in the end the satisfaction relief you're going to get out of that will be worth it touching the wall and seeing my name first on the board was an amazing feeling for me especially after the hard training we had during the season looking up into the crowd and seeing my parents and even other teammates screaming I had a little smile on my face towards the end even after my race I got out of the pool I walked
003over my coaches they gave me a big hug I looked up at the screen and I kind of gave myself a laugh and it was kind of just like that feeling of relief being able to be state champion being first in the swimming program to win state for guys was definitely a really good feeling especially looking up as I was little looking up at this record boards over there seeing all these names and my name being up there is just life-changing I still haven't really gotten over it laughs [Music]