ST. LOUIS — "It's a lot of early mornings."
"Just doing it day in, day out, you just gotta accept it."
"Those are the kinds of sacrifices you have to be willing to make."
That is how three members of Clayton Shaw Park Swimming describe what it takes to keep up with the sport they love.
"It's taxing and if you're faking a love of swimming it's just a chore," said Niko Thedos, member of the Clayton Shaw Park Swimming team. "It's going to beat you. We have a really good bond together and that helps every day to stay motivated and keep going."
They say it's not just an individual sport. They're also working to make the entire team reach its goals.
"I want to get better. But I also want the person to my left and to my right to get better," said Anna Moehn, member of the Clayton Shaw Park Swimming team. "So we get better together."
They each do different strokes, different distances and stay in their figurative and literal lane.
"I'm a breaststroker," said Eric Ji, member of the Clayton Shaw Park Swimming team. "It's the stroke where you do the least because the most important part of the breaststroke is the glide. You can't rush it. You gotta stay calm. You can't muscle it or else you're gonna go slower."
"I'm a freestyler so like mid-distance, 200, 500 free. Pretty much all-out sprint from the beginning," said Moehn.
"I'm also a freestyler but I'm more 500, a thousand and mile," said Thedos.
What connects them is the similar feeling they get when they find their groove and see their name at the top of a scoreboard.
"It's just like a switch right," Ji said. "It clicks and you just get mentally focused and ready to go and just getting into the zone."
"You have the water rushing by your ear so you can't really hear anything else. And it's just you and your thoughts," said Thedos.
"You can't describe it. You touch first and you look up at that scoreboard and you see that '1' next to your name its great," said Ji.
With the Tokyo Olympics underway some are looking to go for the gold one day.
"I wish I was in the Olympics," said Thedos. "It's just amazing to see what people can do. Just see what people are capable of and sometimes I wish I was capable of that same thing. Maybe I am."