ITHACA, N.Y. -- Senior swimmer Blake Conway likes old cars.

The way they seem to breathe — a slow inhale through a carburetor, the slight hiccup when the throttle falls, the sense that everything under the hood is mechanical and true. In his garage, kneeling beside his 2003 BMW, Conway listens for that small, satisfied rhythm the way a swimmer learns to feel a perfect stroke.

A friend first showed him the basics. Then came YouTube videos, late nights in the garage and eventually convincing his parents to let him buy a car he could work on himself.

"There's a satisfaction to researching something, fixing it and hearing it run right," he says. "You save money, and you did it yourself."

That kind of satisfaction — diagnosis, adjustment, repetition — has shaped much of Conway's life. In the pool, his relationship with swimming has always felt technical and tactile: the ceiling tiles above him during a flip turn, the black line beneath him becoming a metronome, the subtle difference between a good underwater and a wasted one. Small changes, repeated enough times, eventually become speed.

Conway grew up in Bethesda, Md., the kind of suburban childhood stitched together by bike rides and summer-league swimming. He joined the pool at seven and never really left. Before long, swimming became structure: mornings before dawn, doubles after school, friendships built around lane lines, fogged up goggles and shared exhaustion.

The work itself became the focal point. That mindset was reinforced at home, especially by his mother, who kept insisting swimming would eventually open doors for him academically and professionally, even when he doubted it.

"I thought it was just about how long the practices were," Conway says now with a laugh.

Coaches shaped the other side of that discipline. One of the most influential was Tim Kelly, a club coach who once sent Conway home from practice for showing up late. 

"He made me understand what it meant to honor the team," Conway said.

Conway admits he used humor at times to cope with the grind of the sport, but Kelly's insistence on accountability and habits changed the trajectory of his training. The details started to matter more, and so did consistency.

Those details came into focus at the Ivy League Championships this winter. Conway entered the meet with a simple goal in the 100 backstroke: break 46 seconds.

In prelims, he touched in 45.96.

"It was such a fulfilling moment seeing 45 on the scoreboard," he said.

The pressure eased after that. In the final, Conway swam freely, touching first in 45.77 to win the Ivy League title and become an NCAA qualifier. After the race, Columbia swimmer Isaac Beers — whom Conway had narrowly beaten to the wall — walked over and offered a simple acknowledgment.

"You deserve this."

For Conway, the moment carried weight beyond the medal stand. It validated years of incremental work: going through shoulder rehab, refining underwaters, returning day after day to a sport built on repetition.

There were moments when he nearly walked away from it entirely.

COVID tested his relationship with swimming, monotony and the feeling that the sport had consumed too much of his identity. More than a year ago, Conway seriously considered leaving swimming behind.

"I was thinking about quitting," he admitted. "But I couldn't text my coach and say it."

The reason, ultimately, was the people around him.

"I couldn't leave these guys."

"I credit Coach Wes (Newman) for supporting me as a whole person and not just a swimmer, and giving me space to figure things out," Conway said.

That loyalty — to teammates, coaches and the shared grind of the sport — kept him anchored through periods when swimming felt heavier than fulfilling. He enters his senior year having taken some additional time this summer to refresh and refocus for a senior year full of great promise.

Conway has quietly managed mild motor tics since childhood, something that at times affected his stroke and required therapy, medication and patience. He speaks about it matter-of-factly now, another challenge that demanded routine, adjustment and persistence rather than panic.

Outside the pool, that same curiosity continues to shape his life. At Cornell's Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Conway studies real estate and hospitality, drawn to the human side of business and problem-solving. An internship with a residential real estate agent in Washington, D.C., reinforced that interest.

For now, though, the garage and the pool still occupy similar space in his life — places where patience matters, where feel matters, where improvement is sometimes slow and always deliberate.

Conway rolls onto his back and visualizes the upcoming race in his mind when staring at the ceiling overhead. He takes note of the little things: timing, angles, rhythm.

"It's almost effortless," he says of a perfect start. "When it all comes together, it's the best feeling."

In the garage or in lane four, Blake Conway keeps chasing that feeling — one small adjustment at a time.