By Marshall Tempest
Reporter
Keira Druck had never swum an open water race before, but that didn’t stop her from diving in with some of the nation’s best at a recent competition. After more than an hour in the water at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, she looked at her time and couldn’t believe what she had done.
“Finishing 23rd in the nation and fifth in the state was shocking,” Druck said. “The fact that I did so well and placed so high is honestly crazy to me.”
Last month, Druck, a 13-year-old Wolf Lake Middle School eighth-grader, qualified for the Open Water Junior National Championship because of her 17:29:47 one-mile swim at the Florida Age Group Championships on March 6 in Ocala. She said that when she first found out she qualified for the open water championship, she was excited but nervous because of her lack of experience in open water.
“My immediate reaction after I saw my time was just happy because I knew I dropped time but had no idea I had achieved so much with my new time.”
Druck’s nervousness was also fueled by the distance. Going into the Florida Age Group Championships, she had only swum a 1,650-yard race once before. She smashed her previous personal best by 45 seconds.
“I knew I was going to do well no matter what time I got,” she said. “I had never expected to have that good of a time.”
Druck is a member of the Patriot Aquatics swim team and would look at the record board every day, wondering if she would ever make it up there. With a time of 17:29:47 in the one-mile swim at the Florida Age Group Championships, Druck broke a team record that had stood for more than a decade.
“Breaking a record that has been held for 12 years just felt unreal cause I had been waiting my whole life to break a record,” Druck said.
After that, Druck joined 47 other 15-and-under swimmers from across the United States at the Open Water Junior National Championship in Sarasota, where she competed with 45 other swimmers in the junior women’s 5K. Druck landed right in the middle of the pack, finishing 23rd with a time of 1:09:33.
The winning time was 1:05:29, meaning Druck was just over four minutes off the top spot—a solid showing, especially considering this was her first time racing in open water. She held her own against some of the most experienced young swimmers in the country.
Druck told me that knowing she was racing against the best swimmers from around the country was exciting but nerve-racking. Although she had never met any of the competitors, she said they were “all so nice and extremely talented.”
“If there’s one thing I learned from the race, it’s that even though something might seem scary, you should always be willing to try new things,” Druck said.
Druck qualified to join the Zones Championship to represent the Southwest Region with her finish at the open water championships. The Zones Championship is a high-level regional meet where top swimmers from several nearby states compete. It’s one of the last significant steps before national-level competitions.
Even though Druck qualified for the Zones Championship with her impressive and record-breaking finish, she has opted not to compete. Druck’s mother, Kristin S. Herman-Druck, told me that Druck and her family had made the decision because Druck is focused on the upcoming state championship.
“Keira was very excited to qualify for Zones and represent the southwest region,” Herman-Druck said in an interview this week. “Over the past few days, the tough decision was made.”
Druck said the other swim meet to which she is entirely committed is one of three that lead to the state championships in July. Herman-Druck said her daughter has high expectations for herself for the state championship, so she determined that skipping the Zones was necessary for her long-term goals to come to fruition.
Druck said that her parents, her sister, her coach, and her friends at the pool motivate her to push herself in the pool every day.
“But the main thing that motivates me is knowing that I have something special and knowing that if I keep working hard, I could be like the people I’ve been dreaming of almost my whole life,” Druck said.
