College Swimmer Straight to Masters: James Pokornowski, EP 227

Are you too young to become master swimmer? Join us as we chat with the inspiring James Popronowski, a competitive swimmer who jumped straight from college swimming to masters swimming. James, with his masters gold medal in the 1500 freestyle long course and an unwavering commitment to maintaining his swimming routine post-college, offers compelling insights into the dedication and passion that fuels his success.

This conversation takes us on a dive into James’s journey, from his childhood swimming experiences to his triumph in the Masters Swim program. We uncover the influential role that his parents and club coach played in guiding him towards the competitive swimming arena. Listen in and get a rare peek into James’s training regime and his motivation. His love for the swimming community and the sport itself shines through, offering an inspiring perspective on the world of master swimming. Join us for a powerful conversation that is sure to inspire all swimming enthusiasts and aspiring champions. Never say "retire"!

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

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:01.423 --> 00:00:06.232
Welcome to the award-winning Champions Mojo hosted by two world record-holding athletes.

00:00:06.232 --> 00:00:13.769
Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions and now your hosts, kelly Palace and Maria Parker.

00:00:14.942 --> 00:00:18.307
Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast.

00:00:18.307 --> 00:00:24.490
I am your host, kelly Palace, and, as usual, I am with my co-host, maria Parker.

00:00:24.490 --> 00:00:28.599
Hey Maria, hey Kelly, it's great to be with you here today.

00:00:28.599 --> 00:00:39.890
Yes, maria, this is a special edition of Champions Mojo from the pool deck and we have a great interview for you today.

00:00:39.890 --> 00:00:43.726
It's brief, it's short, but it's powerful.

00:00:44.348 --> 00:00:45.521
Yeah, and we.

00:00:45.521 --> 00:00:51.072
I wasn't there, but I was able to listen to the interview and some great takeaways.

00:00:51.593 --> 00:00:54.728
Yeah, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways.

00:00:54.728 --> 00:00:55.981
And here we go.

00:00:55.981 --> 00:01:08.609
We are on deck at the US Masters Summer Nationals and we're doing an on-deck interview with James Popronowski, who is 26 years old.

00:01:08.609 --> 00:01:13.591
He's here from Nickel City Splash Team from Buffalo, new York.

00:01:13.659 --> 00:01:14.825
James welcome to the show.

00:01:14.825 --> 00:01:16.064
Well, thank you very much.

00:01:16.064 --> 00:01:17.043
I'm happy to be here.

00:01:17.665 --> 00:01:18.046
Wonderful.

00:01:18.046 --> 00:01:22.790
This is in a younger age group, the 25 to 29,.

00:01:22.790 --> 00:01:28.668
And, james, the way that I found you was my husband was bragging to me about James.

00:01:28.668 --> 00:01:38.170
James always is the fastest guy in the meet in the mile, over the 5,800, or some of the things that you've done so far in master swimming that you're most proud of.

00:01:39.001 --> 00:01:51.828
I have to say the most proud I've been is the 1500 freestyle and long course, because that's when I've actually had one event like overall and also will win it for my age group, and I've gotten a gold medal in that, which is a pretty good opportunity right there.

00:01:52.850 --> 00:01:59.033
Yes, so a lot of people think that master swimming is for people over 40, like in masters running.

00:01:59.033 --> 00:02:01.227
So how did you find masterism?

00:02:01.227 --> 00:02:02.703
What brought you to master swimming?

00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:16.829
After I graduated college in 2019, I wanted to keep going, keep swimming going, and I may have taken a month or two away, and then I think my parents were helping me live out there with any swim programs and they recommended master swim program at the Nipah City at UB.

00:02:16.829 --> 00:02:25.287
So I just signed up and I joined the team in September, October that year, and I've just been stuck with it ever since and I'm happy to be a part of it.

00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:27.844
Did you swim in college or high school?

00:02:27.844 --> 00:02:28.924
What is your swimming background?

00:02:29.719 --> 00:02:32.710
I did swim in high school and college actually take you a little further back.

00:02:32.710 --> 00:02:37.731
I started swimming around like the age of three and four at this country club called Brookfield.

00:02:37.731 --> 00:02:40.486
There's like summer swim leagues out there.

00:02:40.486 --> 00:02:41.389
It was fun.

00:02:41.389 --> 00:02:44.128
And then I was about 10 and 11 years old.

00:02:44.128 --> 00:02:53.308
I joined this club team called the Tonawanda Titans, which is also another team in New York as well, and at the same time I also swam Kanisha's high school.

00:02:53.308 --> 00:02:59.265
Both my brothers went there as well, even though we lived close to a high school, maybe chose to go a little to the disease.

00:02:59.265 --> 00:03:09.247
And then afterwards, after high school, I also went to Kanisha's college, which is they're both close to each other, and also I knew the coach well, coached my club team.

00:03:09.247 --> 00:03:17.090
He's also the head coach of the college I went to and I also knew a bunch of kids on the team as well that also went there, and that's all.

00:03:17.090 --> 00:03:19.365
I just joined, being close, that's all.

00:03:20.046 --> 00:03:20.647
Close to home.

00:03:20.647 --> 00:03:24.947
Yeah, it sounds like your parents who encouraged you to get into master swimming.

00:03:24.947 --> 00:03:25.608
Were they swimmers?

00:03:26.531 --> 00:03:27.211
No, they were not.

00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:28.806
How did they hear about master swimming?

00:03:29.341 --> 00:03:35.725
I think we just we were just scrolling through there's any teams, and also my club coach also helped out too, so we just looked into it all together.

00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:38.807
So what type of workouts are you doing?

00:03:38.807 --> 00:03:42.028
You're obviously doing a fast 1500.

00:03:42.028 --> 00:03:43.906
So what are your workouts in general?

00:03:44.740 --> 00:04:01.609
I practice there three days a week early in the mornings, from six to seven am, and for practices there are times we would do a long swim, maybe like a three, four, maybe a little longer swim, but then we'd have hundreds of kick or swim in between, and there are times where we would do repeatedly that.

00:04:01.609 --> 00:04:10.368
Another times we'd like maybe drop, like maybe four, three, two, one, stuff like that, with hundreds in between, and other times we also tried to do some building workouts too.

00:04:11.091 --> 00:04:14.247
Cool, All right, we are off our thunder delay here.

00:04:14.247 --> 00:04:16.487
Right, we're at Nationals and we had a thunder delay.

00:04:16.487 --> 00:04:18.607
Looks like they're honking the horns for us to go back in.

00:04:18.607 --> 00:04:21.831
But the last question what do you like most about master swimming?

00:04:22.634 --> 00:04:31.901
I hope what I like the most about master swimming feels good to stay in shape and also enjoy meeting new people, people that are like my step, people are older than me.

00:04:31.901 --> 00:04:35.088
I just enjoy that opportunity and the experience here.

00:04:36.036 --> 00:04:36.778
Awesome, awesome.

00:04:36.778 --> 00:04:37.701
Thank you so much.

00:04:37.701 --> 00:04:42.899
And then the very last question we asked everybody on the show is when you dive in the water, what goes through your mind?

00:04:43.576 --> 00:04:56.968
It goes through my mind Just try to swim up smarts and also swim strong and swim efficient is also what my college coach would say to Sometimes I just as I just think of what they tell me to prepare myself, and I think it's a big help.

00:04:57.696 --> 00:04:58.377
Awesome, awesome.

00:04:58.377 --> 00:05:00.725
Thank you so much for your time and good luck in the rest of the meet.

00:05:01.295 --> 00:05:02.880
Thank you very much and thank you for having me here.

00:05:03.202 --> 00:05:03.564
Thank you.

00:05:06.654 --> 00:05:08.463
Stay tuned for the takeaways.

00:05:09.475 --> 00:05:09.997
Swimmers.

00:05:09.997 --> 00:05:13.507
Protect your skin and hair from chlorine damage with tri swim.

00:05:13.507 --> 00:05:26.240
This swimmer specialized personal care line of shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion gently removes pool chemicals or salt water While hydrating and strengthening your hair and skin.

00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:28.726
Say goodbye to dryness and itchiness.

00:05:28.726 --> 00:05:43.442
Visit sbr sports inccom that's sbr sports ink dot com and use code mojo 23 for 23 off.

00:05:43.442 --> 00:05:47.154
Hurry offerings in 30 days gift tri swim today.

00:05:47.154 --> 00:05:49.625
And now the takeaways.

00:05:49.625 --> 00:05:56.526
So maria james pokernowsky, a youngin, one of the youngest age groups.

00:05:56.526 --> 00:06:00.535
So there's 18 to 24 and james is in the 25 to 29.

00:06:00.535 --> 00:06:09.999
We don't get a lot of those on the show and even in the age group itself they're not as many 25 to 29 swimmers at Masters nationals usually.

00:06:09.999 --> 00:06:12.927
But what was your first takeaway for james?

00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:16.927
I loved how community oriented james was.

00:06:16.927 --> 00:06:18.091
He talked a lot about we.

00:06:18.091 --> 00:06:22.968
He got a lot of help from his coach, his parents, an encouragement to continue swimming after college.

00:06:22.968 --> 00:06:26.901
He's very oriented towards His community.

00:06:26.901 --> 00:06:30.074
I thought that was really nice, and what he said he loved about master swimming was the community.

00:06:30.074 --> 00:06:36.704
So I think that's a great takeaway to remind us that Community is really important, and even our.

00:06:36.704 --> 00:06:40.519
He's in his mid 20s, but he's still got some good advice from his parents, some good advice from his parents.

00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:42.384
So you 20 year olds, listen to us old people.

00:06:42.906 --> 00:06:44.555
Yes, yes.

00:06:44.555 --> 00:06:48.545
And we also said that he didn't burn out in college.

00:06:48.545 --> 00:06:50.067
He kept swimming, which is rare.

00:06:50.067 --> 00:06:53.495
Usually, usually college swimmers will at least take several years.

00:06:53.495 --> 00:07:03.120
So I love this because it ties in with a theme that I really want to encourage Young college swimmers to keep swimming, even if it's one day a week, two days a week, and then the.

00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:12.338
My main takeaway is that when you're in those younger age groups, you don't just look at did I win my age group, but you look at did?

00:07:12.338 --> 00:07:19.757
Where did I place in the whole me, like where was my 1500 time or my 200 time compared to Everyone?

00:07:19.757 --> 00:07:23.492
So some people are looking at their age group, which is great.

00:07:23.492 --> 00:07:25.288
You get a gold medal for winning your age group.

00:07:25.288 --> 00:07:37.987
But james was focused on hey, he had the fastest 1500 time at long-course nationals when they were cleveland, yeah, so I think he was second, had the second fastest overall time of any 1500 in this meet.

00:07:38.115 --> 00:07:43.858
But which is a great reason for people to keep swimming because you're strong After college.

00:07:43.858 --> 00:07:45.526
You're strong if you haven't burned out.

00:07:45.526 --> 00:07:49.500
Get out there and continue master swimming, just a few days a week and blow those records away.

00:07:50.182 --> 00:07:51.103
Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:51.103 --> 00:07:52.367
And then you never get out of shape.

00:07:52.367 --> 00:07:55.810
All right, maria, thanks for being on this journey with with me.

00:07:55.810 --> 00:07:57.014
Love you, love you kill.

00:07:58.197 --> 00:08:01.264
Thank you for listening to the champions mojo podcast.

00:08:01.264 --> 00:08:02.528
Did you enjoy the show?

00:08:02.528 --> 00:08:09.399
We'd be grateful if you would leave us a five star review on itunes to help others find us, and we'd also love to hear from you.

00:08:09.399 --> 00:08:14.451
We're on all social media platforms or you can reach us at champions mojocom.