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3 Minutes Ahead: How Powerhouse Shirley Loftus Charley Does It, EP 223
3 Minutes Ahead: How Powerhouse Shirley Loftus Charley Does…
Get ready to take notes as we sit down with Shirley Loftus, a 71-year-old swimming powerhouse who is smashing records and redefining the li…
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Aug. 22, 2023

3 Minutes Ahead: How Powerhouse Shirley Loftus Charley Does It, EP 223

3 Minutes Ahead: How Powerhouse Shirley Loftus Charley Does It, EP 223

Get ready to take notes as we sit down with Shirley Loftus, a 71-year-old swimming powerhouse who is smashing records and redefining the limits of age. She's not just keeping up with, but outpacing, her competition by a staggering three minutes in her age group - after recovering from a shoulder surgery. Shirley's secret? An intensive, well-rounded training regimen of six days a week, including working with a sprint coach and a mid-distance coach, and pairing up with a fellow distance swimmer for grueling sessions with little rest. Listen to how she's transformed her performance by incorporating these sprint workouts into her routine.

In the second half, we delve into Shirley's motivations and goal-setting habits that keep her striving for more than just records. She reveals her desire to swim all 18 events in a year, and her enduring hope of excelling in another stroke, a testament to her never-ending pursuit of challenges. Discover which she thinks is the hardest event of them all and why. This is an episode that beautifully captures the spirit of persistence, the power of setting incremental goals, and, above all, the sheer joy of swimming. Tune in and let Shirley's incredible story inspire you to reach for your own athletic summits.

Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Transcript
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00:00:00.722 --> 00:00:10.952
So we are here with more on-deck inspiration from the last chance meet in Richmond, virginia, at the Nova Aquatic Center, and I'm with Shirley Loftus.

00:00:10.952 --> 00:00:19.849
Charlie, my personal hero, shirley, is exactly ten years ahead of me and swims all of my events, so I get to try to break her record.

00:00:19.849 --> 00:00:21.420
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:38.011
But, shirley, you have done something this year that blows me away, and I just want to talk about the fact that you are almost three minutes faster than the next person in the rankings for the 1650.

00:00:38.011 --> 00:00:43.444
Like you are like you're doing something at your 71.

00:00:43.444 --> 00:00:44.365
Right, okay.

00:00:44.365 --> 00:00:51.851
So what are you doing at 71 that is making you three minutes faster than other people in your age group?

00:00:52.734 --> 00:01:10.530
Well, I don't really know, but I had shoulder surgery about three years ago and I finally feel like I'm recovering and I'm swimming pain-free and it's just such a pleasure and joy to be swimming without any pain at all.

00:01:11.915 --> 00:01:13.439
What does your training schedule look like?

00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:16.125
I usually swim six days a week.

00:01:16.125 --> 00:01:30.591
I work out three days a week with a sprint coach, one day a week with a mid-distance coach and then twice a week with a friend who is a distance swimmer, and we sort of kill each other.

00:01:31.615 --> 00:01:33.540
Okay, so I want to break that down.

00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:39.861
So you, a distance swimmer generally, are doing two sprint workouts a week.

00:01:39.861 --> 00:01:40.823
What does that look like?

00:01:41.063 --> 00:01:42.046
That's brand new.

00:01:42.046 --> 00:02:02.347
With the Charlotte School Masters, we had a sprint coach who I like a lot, greg Bauer, and I just started swimming with them and started working on my sprinting a little, even though I have a two-beat kick still in the 53, which is it.

00:02:02.347 --> 00:02:09.087
Oh my gosh Isn't too fast, but my times have gotten a little bit faster in my shoulder events.

00:02:10.150 --> 00:02:11.861
And so what is the sprint workout?

00:02:11.861 --> 00:02:16.860
Like Five fifties on five minutes from the block, or all 25s, or what is it?

00:02:17.342 --> 00:02:23.135
It's a mixture between 25s and maybe 150s, but it's not very.

00:02:23.135 --> 00:02:28.206
It's very short stuff for me and we will.

00:02:28.206 --> 00:02:33.413
We will go off the block some and it's just different and I enjoy the people I'm swimming with.

00:02:33.996 --> 00:02:35.662
Are you trying to kick more Like?

00:02:35.722 --> 00:02:36.263
are you trying?

00:02:36.282 --> 00:02:37.847
to add a four-beat or a six-beat.

00:02:38.328 --> 00:02:43.588
I am trying and I found that when I take a breath, sometimes I can get four beats in.

00:02:43.588 --> 00:02:47.486
Okay, okay, I've been working on that Now.

00:02:47.927 --> 00:02:52.627
So then two days a week you're doing a middle distance, or one day, one day, one day a week.

00:02:52.667 --> 00:02:53.489
What does that look like.

00:02:53.489 --> 00:03:02.711
Well, we get it at about 4500, and it's just longer, more like hundreds and two hundreds.

00:03:04.436 --> 00:03:09.109
And then what is when you said you're killing it in distance.

00:03:09.109 --> 00:03:10.292
What is killing at me?

00:03:12.276 --> 00:03:15.346
My friend Ted and I get in and we just do.

00:03:15.346 --> 00:03:21.110
You might be doing three hundreds or two hundreds or five hundreds, but we have very little rest.

00:03:21.110 --> 00:03:26.973
It's on very tight intervals and he's a little faster than me and he will never let me beat him.

00:03:26.973 --> 00:03:33.532
So I'm just always trying to hang with him and I get a lot less rest than he does.

00:03:34.756 --> 00:03:36.901
So what might be a set in that distance workout?

00:03:46.681 --> 00:03:59.420
It might be like five, two hundreds, and we might do like a sort of a five, two hundreds, descending time intervals and then ascending intervals.

00:03:59.420 --> 00:04:06.882
Or we might go the other way, where we start out faster, have more rest and then back to fast.

00:04:07.909 --> 00:04:22.699
So when you're going like you're swimming in a lot of meets but it doesn't seem so much like you're just chasing records, what is it that gets you into these meets and gets you to practice and has you like swimming all this?

00:04:24.029 --> 00:04:37.975
I just have a lot of little goals Like my goal for this meet was to finish up swimming all 18 events and I so I had six events today, but none of them were my favorite events.

00:04:37.975 --> 00:04:39.562
So it's sort of different.

00:04:39.562 --> 00:04:47.891
But I always have this hope that one day another stroke will emerge, but all of a sudden my breast stroke will be great, or my back stroke.

00:04:47.891 --> 00:04:50.156
So I just always have that hope.

00:04:50.798 --> 00:04:58.158
So we in Florida, in our Florida LMS, we have the Leather Lung Award, whereas if you swim all the events during the year, you get this little award.

00:04:58.158 --> 00:05:00.487
Is that all 18 events?

00:05:00.487 --> 00:05:01.290
Is that what you're doing?

00:05:01.290 --> 00:05:02.115
Every single event?

00:05:02.797 --> 00:05:06.672
Well, we don't have right all 18 events, but we don't have any awards.

00:05:06.672 --> 00:05:07.954
It's just my own personal.

00:05:07.954 --> 00:05:09.937
Do you do that every year?

00:05:09.937 --> 00:05:11.903
I do try.

00:05:11.903 --> 00:05:20.959
I normally don't make it, especially like in long course there's less meets and less opportunity to get all 18 strokes in.

00:05:21.942 --> 00:05:31.593
So you would be a good person to ask what do you think, because you swim all the events, what do you think the hardest event is by far the 205.

00:05:31.612 --> 00:05:33.334
Wow.
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