Altura adjusting to life in Big Apple
Maui Prep alum wraps up freshman season at Fordham this week
Kysha Altura and the Fordham University swim team will take part in the Atlantic-10 Conference championships this week in Geneva, Ohio. Altura, a graduate of Maui Preparatory Academy, is wrapping up her freshman season with the Rams. FORDHAM UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS photos
Kysha Altura says while she misses going to the beach, she’s “grateful that I chose New York.”
Kysha Altura and the Fordham University swim team will take part in the Atlantic-10 Conference championships this week in Geneva, Ohio. Altura, a graduate of Maui Preparatory Academy, is wrapping up her freshman season with the Rams. FORDHAM UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS photos
Kysha Altura says while she misses going to the beach, she’s “grateful that I chose New York.”
Trending
Life has changed in just about every way possible for Kysha Altura.
The Maui Preparatory Academy graduate -- and the school's only two-time state champion -- will finish her freshman swimming season for Fordham University this week at the Atlantic-10 Conference championships in Geneva, Ohio, beginning today.
The academic load and routine of 20 hours per week working out -- including 4 1/2 hours in the pool and weightlifting Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays over morning and afternoon drills, and 3 1/2 hours on Saturday mornings -- are just two of the huge adjustments she has made in the last eight months.
Morning workouts run from 6 to 8 a.m.
"It's pretty rough," Altura said via phone Monday while on the bus from the Bronx, N.Y., to Pennsylvania, where the Rams spent the night before continuing on to Ohio on Tuesday. "It was a really big shock for me. It took a while to find the motivation to wake up so early in the morning."
And the sights and sounds in New York City are quite different than what she is used to at home on the Valley Isle.
"It was a lot of adjusting to, like, the noises like the train," she said. "The train is right by my dorm. It's not like back home where we could listen to the waves crashing on the shore in the morning, which is a soothing noise. It's more like waking up to train tracks and people honking horns in the morning.
"It's not a bad change, but it's very different."
Going into the conference championship meet, Altura is third on the team with a time of 1 minute, 52.09 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle, fourth in the 200 backstroke at 2:12.15, third in the 200 butterfly at 2:07.06, and fifth in the 200 individual medley at 2:10.92.
She is set to swim the 200 fly, 200 free and 200 IM along with a leg on the school's 4×200 free relay this week. Her lifetime bests in each individual event are all a few seconds faster than what she has done so far this season, but she is now tapered and ready to roll for her championship meet.
"It's been a long season, but this week I feel a lot more rested, a lot better, I do feel more prepared now," she said. "There's pressure, but at this moment I feel like there's not much we can do except swim. We trained this whole season, so might as well trust the process."
Coach Steve Potsklan says Altura has adjusted well to her new environment.
"It is a long way from home for a young lady who has probably never been that far away for that extended amount of time," Potsklan said. "So, you know, there's going to be some sort of adjustment. What we try to do, we provide very good support systems that can allow her to make that transition really well. She's done really well.
"It's been difficult at the beginning, as you can imagine from a totally different environment, from the opposite end of the spectrum from Maui to the bright lights and big city of New York. That's something that can always be a challenge for the new students, just getting adjusted. In these last two months, month and a half, she's really getting comfortable and understanding what needs to be done to be very successful, both academically and in the pool and as a person."
Potsklan expects Altura, the first swimmer he has ever coached from Maui, to go fast this week.
"Oh yeah, this is our go time," he said. "We have a very fast women's team this year and she's going to be an integral part of that. I'm counting on that, to really post some really good times. We're in a very fast conference, but the training that we've done should allow her to really get up there and compete with the best in our conference."
Altura's academic load has been demanding as well -- she said her toughest class in the fall semester was French and this semester it is South Asian history. After graduating from MPA with a 3.4 cumulative grade-point average, her first semester "was pretty bad" grade-wise, she admitted.
Altura is happy with her college choice, but she plans on coming home to work at Ululani's Hawaiian Shave Ice stores around the island this summer.
"It's a really nice change, I did want to experience something besides the West Coast," Altura said. "I do miss the beach, waking up and seeing the sunrise and the sunset, but I also do like having a lot of options. I am grateful that I chose New York."
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.