Teen swims the lake, trains for competition

By WALLYCE TODD
Staff Writer

Eight times a week, regardless of the weather, 16-year-old Anna Wayne can be found in the pool, honing her swimming skills. Anna is the granddaughter of Anna Jane Collier of Whiteville, and she practically lives at Lake Waccamaw during the summer months each year. In fact, she won the Jennie Stocks award in 2005 during the Lee J. Greer Labor Day Lake Swim, which is awarded to the youngest participant in the swim.

Even more notable, she was the youngest and only swimmer in 2006 to swim the well-known Labor Day route from the dam to John McNeill’s pier (approximately 5 miles) and then back to the dam, totaling nearly 10 miles.

“For the lake swim, it’s just about endurance,” says the athletic teenager. Wearing jeans, flip flops, a red shirt and pearls while relaxing at her home, the dark-haired young woman is animated as she talks about her favorite sport.

Though a reserved teen, she is modest about her talents and her accomplishments. It’s still obvious she loves taking to the water and swimming her own path. “I’ve been swimming since I was 6 years old,” she states.

“We’ve been going to the lake (Waccamaw) forever. My dad (Greg Wayne) is from the lake, and my mom (formerly Marianne Collier) is from Whiteville.” Greg’s mom is Carolyn H. Wayne of Lake Waccamaw. Anna’s family lives in Wilmington, at least during the school year.

Anna continues: “In the summertime, (swimming is) definitely at the lake. I love it.”

However, as any committed athlete will attest to, training to be terrific doesn’t happen during only one season of the year. “I started swimming year-round in third grade,” recollects Anna.

“I’m training, hopefully, for nationals in Ft. Lauderdale (in 2007),” states the swimmer, who acknowledges swimming competitively is more than a physical thing. “Swimming is all mental,” she says.

Mentally “being there” was significant to her successes in the lake swims in 2005 and 2006, Anna notes. “That was the hardest thing for me,” she remembers about this past year’s lake swim.

It was a foggy day, but she was determined to swim both ways. When she felt tired on her return swim, she thought: “I’ve already told people I was swimming it, so I told myself ‘I am more than half done. I can’t just stop.”

Now that she knows she overcame her fatigue and completed the swim back to the dam, she states: “It just shows you that you can do more than you think you can. It makes you feel good.”

She smiles as she verbalizes: “I really like challenges.”

With two older siblings, including a brother who’s “into football,” Anna finds it stimulating that both of them are competitive. “I like having an older brother. We both push each other.”

Sports to Anna “takes more than just having strong, athletic bodies. You think it’s physical until you’re doing it,” she reiterates, emphasizing the importance of the mind as the most important “muscle” involved in all athletic pursuits.

“If you don’t have it together mentally, you’re not going very far,” she continues. “You have to have priorities, especially if you want to take it to the next level in any sport.”

Discipline is required, Anna acknowledges. As for the lake swim, she believes her involvement in the annual event has been a confidence builder.

“It shows you if you complete the lake swim, you’ve achieved something.”