While most of her peers are still sleeping or enjoying a summer of relaxation Tara Stevens is in the pool working to achieve her goals.

Stevens trains as a member of Area Tallahassee Aquatics and five days a week she is in the pool training by 5:30 a.m. They work out for three hours and then four days a week are back in the pool at 3:30 p.m. for another two hours of work.

“We’re on race pace, we’re working on endurance, we’re working on technique, we’re working on sprinting,” Stevens said. “Its a variety of different things.”

Stevens competes in six events, the 100 and 200 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 100 and 200 backstroke and the 200 IM, but her favorite is the 200 backstroke.

“That’s what I train to do and I love that event,” Stevens said. “Its the last day and its a challenge.”

With Area Tallahassee Aquatics, Stevens has competed in three meets this summer. In the first she finished as the runner-up in her age division. She then won her age group at the Sunshine State Games in Gainesville and finished second at her club’s home meet in Tallahassee.

“You get points for every event that you swim and the higher you place the more points you get,” Stevens said. “They calculate all the points that you accumulate over the weekend and its spits out a big number. Who ever has the highest number wins.”

Although she has found success this summer, Stevens has her sights set on bigger and better accomplishments.

“I want to go to the Future’s Championship,” Stevens said. “That’s going to be my ultimate goal this year. That’s the next level above where I’m at now and those time standards are a couple seconds away from where I am now. I just got to keep training hard and do the best that I can to get there.