KEY POINTS:
Liz Coster probably would have punched the air in delight if she'd had the energy. Instead, her head gently rested on the side of the pool, her fatigued arms collapsed over the red lane marker.
She had just pipped her North Shore clubmate, Hannah McLean, in the 100m
backstroke trials and qualified for next year's world championships in Melbourne. At that moment Coster was probably experiencing what she calls the "highest of highs".
A far contrast from the last two months where she suffered the "lowest of lows".
It started with a shoulder injury. Then there was a virus and the flu and, worst of all, the extracting of her wisdom teeth.
"I was like, 'Oh it's just a little bit of dentistry'," she said.
"They were all impacted and sitting on nerves. I was like, 'Whatever, it will just be a matter of letting the swelling go down'."
What resulted was everyone's worst nightmare.
"The anaesthetic didn't really work, I wasn't really out. I had my eyes closed because I was like, 'Make it go away' but I could hear him. He had his foot up on the bed and was saying to the nurse, 'I can't get them out, what is wrong with them?'
"I was like, 'I can hear you'."
It took her a good couple of weeks to recover.
"With swimming, the time you have out on the water, just the awareness you have for the water goes really quickly. We train on a Saturday morning and then don't come back until Monday morning .
"Often on Monday you feel like rubbish in the water because you have lost the feel for it. It is not until Monday night you start to feel a bit better and that is after just one day off. So you can imagine what a week does."
The two-month period was so trying she considered quitting.
"I was really down and thought, 'Do I really want to do this sport? It's too hard'."
But her passion for racing persuaded her to stick with it.
"I get so much enjoyment from it. The highs and lows you experience, versus if I wasn't doing swimming, are just magnified.
"You just go to the highest highs and the lowest lows, it's horrible because it really is a rollercoaster.
"Just at this meet, every day you are trying to get yourself up, you are saying to yourself, it's going to be good, it's going to be good - then you have a bad race and boom, you are on the floor.
"Then the next day it's going to be good, then boom you are on the floor.
"It is really hard but it is really special. Also there is such a short window of time you can do it."
Coster's window, however, may be slowly closing. The intelligent 24-year old, who talks as fast as she swims, is considering a career in medicine.
"My dad is a doctor ... that is something I am interested in. It is going to be such a long road and wouldn't be possible while I am swimming. So I am just looking to finish my Bachelor of Commerce this year, then, I guess, finishing swimming after the Olympics in 2008 and then maybe start med school in 2009."
While Coster - who has two older siblings and has lived in the same house in Remuera her whole life - shares an interest in medicine with her father, the pair differ in their athletic prowess.
"He has done the Coast to Coast and around 15 marathons. Those are sort of ultra endurance events whereas I am a sprinter who dies. I don't know where those genes went but it would have been nice if I'd got a few," she laughs.
With the 2008 Olympics possibly her last, Coster is undecided whether it will be the backstroke or butterfly she will try to qualify in. The two clash at the Games so it is a case of putting all her eggs in one basket.
Coster has always been a backstroker who has dabbled in butterfly, but leading up the 2004 Olympics it was clear she was not going to qualify in the backstroke. So she worked on her butterfly in an effort to help New Zealand qualify a women's medley relay team.
It worked. But rather than returning to backstroke, Coster continued with butterfly, making the 50m final at last year's world championships. But in her own words she plateaued and had a "mare" in this year's Commonwealth Games, failing to make the final.
Gutted, she went to the world championships two weeks later and made the finals of the 50m and 100m backstroke - that's right - backstroke, in events she had barely trained for.
"Often, when you take the pressure off something and you work on different things, the times just start to come down."
She went on to make the final of the 100m backstroke at the Pan Pacifics in August. She finished fifth, one place behind McLean. Their times were both within the top 10 in the world.
And the plan now?
"I think I'll keep the focus on the backstroke but have a little bit of butterfly in there.
"I think in terms of the medley I need to keep a little bit of butterfly training going.
"It is good to have the variety - with the amount of hours you spend in the pool if you have just one stroke it is so boring."
LIZ COSTER
Born: Auckland, December 12, 1982
Club: North Shore
RECENT NEW ZEALAND TEAMS 2006: Pan Pacific Games, Canada
2006: China world championships (25m)
2006: Commonwealth Games
2005: Montreal world championships
2005: World University Games
2004: Athens Olympics
BEST PERFORMANCES 2006: Pan Pacific Games, 5th 100m backstroke
2006: China world championships (25m), final in 50m and 100m backstroke.
2005: Montreal world championships, 8th 50m butterfly
