While Claire Garvey’s teammates practice at Lantz Natatorium, she goes to work.

When they are walking to their classes in the morning, Garvey is jumping into a park district pool. Eastern athletes don’t have to deal with full-time jobs very often, but Garvey is putting in 40-hour weeks at Fit Club for her personal training internship in Springfield.

She is doing all that while also maintaining her role as one of three captains of the women’s swimming and diving team and competing in every meet.

“This semester I have just tried to stay focused,” Garvey said. “I have been training by myself but I really wanted to finish out the season and do a good job as a senior. I wanted to stick with (swimming), so I have been trying as hard as possible in my practices.”

Head coach Ray Padovan has tried to keep things as familiar as possible for Garvey. He sends her the same training regimen for the week as the rest of the team uses at Lantz.

Garvey would then hit the pool with a couple of old friends to put in the work needed to keep her at a top level.

“I either give her the workouts over the phone or in an e-mail,” said Padovan. “Then she gets over to the pool with her older brother and her old high school coach. I think it really helps her just to have some other bodies in the pool, people to push her through the workouts.”

Working at a fitness club does have its advantages. While she mostly trains at a park district pool with some other ex-college swimmers, she can use the fitness club pool if she is running short on time.

She also uses the weights and exercise equipment to keep up with the out-of-pool workouts Padovan assigns.

Even after putting in all the time and effort in the pool, Garvey has to then worry about getting to the meets.

“My shift at work is from 2 to 10 Monday through Friday (nights), so I can’t make it down and take the bus with the team,” said Garvey. “My mom has been real good about waking up in the mornings and getting me to the meets, I owe a lot to her.”

Her mom insists that the pleasure is all hers.

“Family and work commitments kept me from making it to a lot of her meets her first three years,” Elaine Garvey said. “It’s been nice for me to help her out. I will get to see her whole conference meet for the first time.”

While her physical education major has caused some headaches for her this semester, it might be responsible for her successes the last two years.

To prepare for her internship this year, Garvey had to start working and getting some personal training experience her junior year.

“She started teaching aerobics classes in the Rec a couple of hours everyday,” said Padovan. “I attribute that to some of her success. Her endurance improved and muscularly she got a lot stronger.

“You put in an extra 6-8 hours of work like that a week and it will pay some benefits. Her swimming time was actually reduced because she missed morning practices because of the classes but that didn’t hurt her at all because, mechanically, she was already real sound.”

Garvey started out her freshman year as both an individual medley and butterfly swimmer. It was during her junior year that coach Padovan decided to make a change.

“She did the butterfly for us her first two years out of need. I always wanted her to do the distance and her junior year I convinced her to get into the mile and stay with it.”

Combine the change to distance swimming with her increased endurance and strength and EIU records were soon to fall. She broke the school records in the 200 IM and the 1650 freestyle that season.

She has continued that success this season taking multiple first place finishes in her three main events: the 200 IM and the 1000 and 500 freestyle.

She had a great meet against IUPUI on Jan. 26. She took first in the 500 and 1000 free and placed second in the 200 IM. The Mid-Continent Conference Tournament is taking place this weekend and will be the last chance for Garvey and the other seniors to showcase their talents as collegiate athletes.

There is no scholarship that is keeping Garvey on the team. When asked if she ever thought about quitting when taking on her internship she replied bluntly, “that was really never a possibility for me.”