Swimming their lifetime best performances, swimmers deserve a pat on the back after the exhausting weekend invitational at Cuesta College.

Amanda Atkins shaved 7 seconds off her 500-meter freestyle event and received a new personal time of 5:46.

“I really did not expect to swim as fast as I did or swim my lifetime best. I’m not sure if I can, but I hope I can do better next week,” Amanda Atkin said.

Swimming a 100-meter freestyle heat with a lifetime best score of 50:49, Nicholas Timko could not be more proud.

“I an satisfied with my time and I hope to keep getting faster at every meet. The coaches workouts are definitely paying off because I am in the best shape of my life,” Timko said.

The swimmers swim about 10,000 yards a day coach Corey Stanbury said. They are pushed to work as hard as possible, without much rest, and the swimmers still manage to swim their lifetime bests.

Chloe Rodriguez excelled in her 200-meter freestyle heat with a time of 2:11 and in her 500-meter freestyle heat with a time of 5:51.

“It still feels like the season is just starting and the workouts are wearing me out,” Rodriguez said. ” I know the coaches know what they are doing so I just try to do what they say, even if that means warming up before the race.”

Earning an outstanding time of 52:30 in the men’s 100-meter freestyle, Kyle Atkin has a new unshaved time to beat.

“I didn’t think I would do so well because I was put into a faster heat. I thought I was going to get my butt handed to me,” Kyle Atkin said. “Being put in that heat pushed me to swim faster but I don’t think I can do better next week.”

The meet was not as big as it usually is and it might be because of school budgets affecting students’ modes of transportation, Stanbury said.

The invitational was still an opportunity to swim, see different people in the same category of expertise and to be able to focus on the swimmers’ progress as of now and learn from experience, Stanbury said.

As for the diving team, Jose Bahena won first place on the 3-meter diving board with a point total of 224. Bahena won second place on the 1-meter board with 208.10 points.

“Although Jose (Bahena) was struggling a bit that day, he still placed in second,” Stanbury said elated.

Representing the other half of the diving team, Jacque Periaswamy dove off the 3-meter diving board for the first time in her life. She received a point total of 66.

Maybe the sunshine brought good luck because this was the first time in about 7 years that there was good weather at the meet. It was the first time in years that it did not rain on us, Stanbury said.

“The team did amazing and most of them swam their lifetime best performances,” Stanbury said.