The moment the swimmer dove into the pool, the chlorinated air was electrified with cheers. The noise crescendoed just over a minute later as she seized the wall, and with it, a special victory. 

Yet, when sophomore Kathy Jia broke the girls swim team record for the 100 meter breaststroke in her freshman year, her celebration was mixed with reservation. 

“I could’ve swum faster,” she said.

Returning to the pool this year, Kathy was determined to make a bigger splash. On Feb. 4, she broke her old breaststroke record with a time of one minute and five seconds, along with the girls team record for the 100 meter butterfly stroke with a time of 57.97 seconds. She had no reservations this time around: “I’ve been stuck at around one minute and six seconds for the breaststroke for about two years, so this was great,” she said.

The journey there was not easy. “I started swimming when I was four,” Kathy said. “It became a part of me.”

But when she joined the high school team, Kathy became a little fish in a big swimming pool.

“When I got to the high school, I was going against faster people, and I was pushed much harder,” she said. “I had morning and afternoon practices, and I started doing weight training. I asked myself what made some people faster than me, and I worked day-in and day-out to improve.”

“Kathy is great to practice with,” said junior teammate and lane partner Vivi Vergara. “She brings a different philosophy to the sport. We train differently outside of swimming, so it’s interesting to see. During practice, she sets goals rather than just going through the motions. She puts a lot of thought into her swimming. I tried to be a mentor to Kathy, but honestly, she didn’t need much mentoring.” 

Kathy’s training paid off when she broke the girls breaststroke record as a freshman. Yet, something restrained her.

“I felt like I was swimming without a purpose. I’d be drowsy during practice because I didn’t sleep enough. Training seemed like too much extra work,” Kathy recalled. “When I swam faster times, I told myself that I could’ve swam faster. When I started shoving myself under that mentality, it was hard to get out. I was ashamed of myself, almost. I learned a lesson for anything that I do: if you can’t commit, you’ve got to take a break and analyze what’s going on.”

During a slow quarantine, Kathy decided to put in the extra work. “I started researching how I could improve. It started with nutrition: I looked through labels more and watched out for sugar. I also did research on specific muscle groups, because without concentrating on developing the right ones, you can’t really swim fast. For breaststroke, I needed my chest, arms, hamstrings and quads.”

She continued, “I also asked myself what small things I could do daily. If you look at a lot of top swimmers, they have incredible dolphin kicks under water. So I started working on my quads and core; every practice I commit to at least three kicks off the wall. It was my research that set me apart.”

Kathy also credited her success to the people around her. “I can’t really talk about myself — it’s about the people who push me further. My mom makes sure that I get the right nutrients. My coaches give me good comments and hard sets; they set a bar for me to reach for. And practicing with upperclassmen is always something to look forward to, because I like to challenge myself to keep pace with them.

“Kathy is the beast,” senior teammate Ally Vergara said. “I’m not surprised that she broke the record. I know she’s been putting the hours in. I watched the record board very closely when she was swimming, and I was like, ‘Oh my, did she just break the record?’ It was bound to happen. She’s done very well.” 

At the swim meet, Kathy had not been aiming to break records. She said, “I just told myself to do as much under the water as I could. To go fast, fast, fast. The result is just the result. Even though it’s exhausting, it’s knowing that I can physically and mentally push myself that’s rewarding.”

She offered a piece of advice that helped her in her mission: “First things first, set yourself a goal. Don’t just go with the flow. Even if you don’t meet that goal, know that there’s something you can learn. If people are faster than you, there’s a reason why. You can do so much research and put in the effort; you can’t always just follow the people around you.”

And Kathy is taking her own advice. “I have ambitious goals, but I want to get there,” she shared. “In the 200 meter individual medley, which is 50 meters each of butterfly stroke, breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle, I want to swim two minutes and three seconds. By senior year, I want to get to one minute for the breaststroke. My goal is to commit day-in and day-out, and I want to keep going in college.”