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As one gets ready for a race, one’s heart pounds and one’s legs begin to shake. Stepping up to the block, one tries to remember the technique he or she has put countless hours in to practicing. One hears the cheering fans and the official’s whistle, and finally, “Take your mark. Go.”

For the past four months, the exhilarating feeling has been a weekly sensation for a pair of swimmers who race for the University of Cincinnati swimming and diving team.

Six times per week in the Keating Aquatic Center, freshman swimmer Helena Pikhartová and senior captain Josefin Wede go stroke-for-stroke with the team’s 200-yard breaststroke record at stake — which the dynamic duo continues to break as they push each other to swim faster and faster.

Wede, a native of Sweden, set the pace last year when she completed the 200-yard race with a time 2:15.68.

Pikhartová — who hails from the Czech Republic — answered Wede’s challenge at the U.S. Winter Nationals last December in Georgia with a time of 2:14.76 — her current personal best. Around the same time, Wede trimmed her time down to 2:12.44 at the Swedish Nationals.

Now, as the season nears its end, the teammates will race against each other —and the clock — this weekend at the Big East conference meet in Pittsburgh.

In a highly competitive and highly personal sport, their competition — like their relationship — is both friendly and challenging.

“I always want to win,” Wede says. “But when the race is over, I know that I would much rather lose to a teammate than someone on the other team.”

Every week, Wede and Pikhartová spend approximately 18 hours together in the pool. Out of the water, the senior and freshman are like big sister and little sister to one another. Like other teammates, they train together as one.

“When [Pikhartová] beats me, I know I will always be happy for her,” Wede says, “It pushes me to work harder next time.”

In the end, racing comes down to working hard and pushing each other forward.

“In the water, I don’t think about anything, or who I am racing,” Pikhartová says. “But during practice, I watch Josefin and the others to see what I can do better.”

Wede and Pikhartová know that the two concepts of hard work and forward progression are equally important, because physical training can only take them so far. Athletes are always tested in mental and physical ways, and they are always given the choice to either strive forward or to quit.

“The team is literally everything,” says Liz Hansson, a senior on the team. “I wouldn’t be close to anything if it weren’t for the support of my team.”

Even though the team sometimes jokes about how close they are, saying, “It’s because we don’t have time for any other friends,” the team keeps on each other to do the right things and to keep working hard, because they know it is all too easy to stray off of the path to success.

A time on the board only begins to explain a fraction of the effort put forth each season.

In the water, the two might appear to be rivals, battling back and forth for the 200-yard breaststroke title, but once they get out of the water, they’re once again teammates with similar goals of success.

When the girls swim head-to-head, the race becomes more than just two swimmers competing for a record — it becomes an entire team of roughly 50 men and women, pushing each other to do their very best.

The hardest part about a race for the two — or any swimmer — is when they’re right behind the block and there’s too much time for thinking and not enough time for focusing on the race at hand.

As soon as the race begins, however, the mind sweeps itself clean of any insecurities or thoughts as the body takes over — something the members of the UC swimming and diving team can attest to.

The work has been done throughout the last six months. Now, when the team jumps into the water Wednesday night to kick-star the four-day Big East meet, it will be its time to prove just how far they’ve come through hard work and teamwork.

Editors’ Note: Maddy Schmidt is also a member of the University of Cincinnati swim team.