Beep! Beep! Beep!

Percy groaned as he turned off his alarm. One of the hardest parts of being a great athlete was all of the time it consumed. He especially hated

waking up early. He pulled on his Speedo and put on sweat pants and a muscle shirt. Grabbing a blueberry protein shake, he headed out the

door. Today was going to be a long day.

Percy briskly crossed the street, taking a swig of his shake. He nodded at the lady at the front dest of the REC center. She smiled back, a little

star-struck. His coach, Chiron, was waiting by the Olympic-sized pool.

"Okay, Perseus, today we're going to start with you swimming a mile. Then you'll do ten 50s, all under 50 seconds. Then we'll move on to the

butterfly kick. We'll end with five 400s and a ten minute cool down. Then you can hit the weight room."

Percy cringed on hearing his full first name, and that caused him to zone out a little. ADHD will do that to you. Oh, yeah, I guess it's important

to mention that he was training for the Olympic Trials, which were taking place in 5 days. Percy, at only 17, was just that talented. He was an

excellent swimmer, and people were already placing bets on him winning gold in many events. Percy closed his eyes, fantasizing the crowd-no-

the country chanting his name. With that thought, he dove in.

After his workout, Percy headed over to work. With his talent and popularity, one would think that he could get a better job than, say, a garbage

man, but that isn't the case. Due to the killer combo of ADHD and dyslexia, he was kicked out of more schools than he could count. So Percy

was left hauling stinky garbage bags around town and barely had enough money to scrounge up a decent organic meal. But that would all

change if he made it into the Olympics.

"Perce snap out of it!" Grover, his garbage man buddy, said, waking Percy from his reverie. Grover had a limp (which he refused to explain) and

was a bit of a green-freak. He hated seeing people throw away plastic when it could be recycled.

"Sorry man!" Percy apologized, dumping trash into the truck. "I was thinking about Wednesday."

"Yeah, that'll be great! Just don't forget to give the old G-man a shoutout when you win every freakin' event!" Grover said, hyped.

"Haha, okay, okay!" Percy chuckled.

After work, Percy went back to the pool. Chiron had assigned him an hour long swim with 5 minute pick-ups. Nothing too hard, just a chance to

loosen his tight muscles. When Percy hit the water, it was like another world opened up before him. He loved the way all his muscles worked

together. He loved the way it felt like he was skimming over the water. He scarcely had to take a breath. This was a rush Percy would kill for.