Date: 2014 to Present
In 4th grade, we were playing NitroType in a computer lab. Around that time, I was at roughly 40-45 words per minute (wpm).
I would race against friends fairly frequently;
to get better I would practice regularly. One day I even logged 100 NitroType races in a session (at most 30 minutes
between two races). In middle school I hit 100wpm for the first time, and in high school I got better at typing
simply because I was around a computer more often, and especially everything went virtual for awhile due to COVID.
At this time the main website I was using was 10fastfingers.com. I remember plateauing at 140wpm for awhile.
Eventually, I decided to do some research on how to get faster. I found that focusing on accuracy helped a lot, and using
multiple sites like typegun (RIP I miss you), keyhero, typeracer, and monkeytype kept practice interesting. This last site,
monkeytype, was pretty nice in particular because it had time and word variants to train speed and endurance separately.
Being able to type 10 words at 200wpm+ was the first piece of evidence I had that I was capable of more.
As I got faster,
two goals I have always had were 200wpm in 15s and 180wpm in 60s. Although I achieved neither in freshman year of college,
I did get pretty close, with a 196 in 15 seconds on 5/21/24 and a 174 in 60 seconds on 6/14/24. Since I was closer to
200wpm on 15s, that's what I tried to achieve. Around this time, I got mind-blocked. I did not make progress
for half a year. In the latter half of 2024, I had a variety of instances of holding 200wpm+ for 10-13 seconds before
making some costly mistakes in the final few seconds. It was really frustrating -- my nerves just had to hold for a
few more seconds but failed time and time again.
The turning point for me was when I started viewing these 'chokes' as progress, as evidence that I was capable of achieving
my goals. I saw some progress, with the following scores: 199 (1/19/25), 193 (1/24/25), 198 (1/24/25). Never had I
gotten so close that many times in such a short period of time -- usually it'd be one 180+ or 190+ at the peak of a
good session, roughly two or three times per month.
On 1/26/25, 8 months after my first near miss, 10 years after I started typing, I finally achieved 200wpm on 15s.
I cannot adequately describe with words how euphoric that moment was. I screamed permutations of "Yes!" and
"Oh my god!" and "It's finally over" and "I did it" at least 20 times while crying happily. 10 years of hard work
coming to fruition, 8 months of pain replaced with pure, unfiltered bliss.
One goal did remain, 180wpm for 60s. Typing out 30 more characters than my previous personal best, which still remained
at 174, seemed like a daunting task at first. However, with the newfound confidence boost from finally achieving my first goal,
I made steady progress. I even went back to 10fastfingers.com to train on a different word set and work on accuracy.
Notably, in my 177 on 3/29/25, I held 207 through 15 seconds and 190 through 30 seconds, setting two
unofficial personal bests. On 4/11/25 I got a 179, and for a moment I couldn't help but wonder whether 180 would
take another 8 months. I'm delighted to say that as of writing this on 4/13/25 that on 4/12/25,
I got 180 on monkeytype's 60s test, wrapping up this chapter of my typing journey.
Looking forward, I think I'm going to take a break for now. Although I love this hobby a lot, typing is only as useful as my ability to think of what to type, and that's what I'll be focusing on for now. Should I come back, I believe with some well timed 220bpm+ bursts that 215 would likely be possible for 15s. As for 60s, 200wpm remains a hyper-exclusive club and for good reason -- currently it's out of reach unless I find some significant improvements in endurance and consistency.
4/15/25 Update -- I guess I couldn't resist leaving that 202 there knowing I was capable of more. Looks like my new personal best rounds out my website rankings quite nicely!
