5 weeks to a World Record Relay Swim, Karen Torres, EP 236

When 56 year old Karen Torres, who had not swum a meet in 34 years, was invited to join a relay that was aiming to break a world record she hesitated at first. But then Karen committed to the 5 weeks of training before the event and was up for the challenge. Hear her story, from the nerve-racking return to the triumph, and how she navigated from pace training to anaerobic swimming, finding her stride once again in the water.

This episode is more than just a tale about breaking records. It's about meeting fears head-on, pushing boundaries, and celebrating the sense of pride that comes from being part of the master swimming world. Karen's story serves as an inspiration, particularly to those contemplating a return to swimming after a long absence. Tune in to hear her sage advice, her lessons learned, and her journey of self-discovery. In Karen's own words, there's no such thing as failure; it's all about learning and growing. Join us for this riveting conversation that truly encapsulates the spirit of staying green and growing, regardless of age or circumstances.

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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Welcome to the award-winning Champions Mojo hosted by two world record-holding athletes.

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Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions and now your hosts, kelly Palace and Maria Parker.

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Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast.

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I am your host, kelly Palace, and, as usual, I am with my co-host, maria Parker.

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Hey Maria, hey Kelly, it's great to be with you here today.

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Yes, and Maria, this is a special edition of Champions Mojo from the pool deck and we have a great interview for you today.

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It's brief, it's short, but it's powerful.

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Yeah, and we.

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I wasn't there, but I was able to listen to the interview and some great takeaways.

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Yeah, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways.

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And here we go.

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So we're on deck at the Rodney Gaines 15th annual meet and we're with Karen Torres, who is a brand new master swimmer, Karen.

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Is this your first meet in how long?

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It was my first meet in 34 years 34 years.

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So you swam at the Division I level with the University of Arkansas.

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You had a great triathlon career.

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What brought you back?

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to Masters Kelly.

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If you really want to know, it would be you.

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Kelly is my college twin coach at Arkansas and both of us are distance swimmers and we not only hit it off as coach-simmer relationship, but then we got a triathlon together and then we've been friends ever since and she called me to call to duty and when Kelly calls, you got an answer yeah.

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So Karen's being very modest, because she was part of a world record-setting relay last night the 4x200 free relay.

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And Karen, how did that feel?

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Tell us a little bit about what it was like to just come into that kind of pressure to hey, I haven't swam in 34 years and I've been now asked to step up and try to set a world record.

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Okay, a lot of pressure and the fact that there's a big difference between swimming pace training and swimming like anaerobically, where I've got to like really push my limits, where the oxygen is not in my legs anymore, when my shoulders are on fire, and I had to put myself through that and know that I do 200 meters and it took me like five weeks to get some speed going and so it's hard work and I didn't know what to expect going into it at all.

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I was just super excited to be asked to be part of it.

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Were you nervous?

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So nervous when I was on the blocks?

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By the way, I have never done a track start ever because I'm that old and my legs were so shaky because I was worried about even doing a track start on my first time ever.

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Back on a huge relay.

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My heart was like way up there in my chest beating strong and, yeah, I was very nervous.

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What advice would you give someone that has been off for many years, maybe decades, that obviously not everybody's going to come out on their first meet and try for a world.

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Refer on a relay.

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What advice might you give to somebody who's sitting on the couch thinking maybe I should do masters after you've done now the whole meet.

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So you did that.

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Last night you swam.

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Two individual events today Describe this neat environment.

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First of all, swimming is that non-impact overall great core strength, arms, shoulders, backs everything.

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So this swimming by itself is like a lifelong sport and this environment brings all sorts of people to the master swimming world and it gives people so much pride, no matter if they're the slowest person or the fastest person.

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There's so much pride in just being part of it.

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You have your moment in that lane to be the best you can be.

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It doesn't matter.

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No one's like watching your times, watching where you rank.

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You're just there to feel good about yourself and at the end of the day you're like I accomplished something today.

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One of my favorite quotes is by Rick Walker, and I say it all the time and you are a regular listener to Champions Mocho and Rick says there's no pressure because really no one's watching.

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Yeah, I would say that's true.

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You don't even know if your competitor beside you is a guy or going to be a girl, and you don't know what age their end.

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So you're there in the moment, totally by yourself, to challenge yourself really, and that's cool in and of itself to see how you can push yourself.

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Yeah.

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So, Karen, I knew pulling you in you were going to be in pretty good shape.

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Because you do like swims.

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You swim lucky Three times a week.

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Tell us just a little bit about what your general swimming training's been over the last few years with the Lucky Lake Swim.

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So Lucky's Lake Swim is an out and back thousand meters and so I typically do that about twice a week and that's pace freestyle For a lesson, off pro paddles and pull buoy and just pace it out and feel kind of good in control.

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And then I try to swim the pool on Monday mornings and there I'll do some more interval trainings and kicking some sets, but it hasn't been anything crazy.

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I probably average like 2,000 to 3,000 yards max ever in the last 30 some years.

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So obviously you swam a great leg on a relay last night.

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We broke the world record by 11 seconds and everybody says it was because you stepped up and filled the gap there from our last year record.

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So you did do a little training five weeks out.

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Would you give some credit to?

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helping you get ready.

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I would definitely say that Brody, brody Hines Okay, brody, shout out to you because he not only gave me advice, but he absolutely did all of my workouts with me and he is pushing me and that really pulled me along too, because I was accountable to somebody, and that actually helped quite a bit.

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Yeah, accountability is huge and there is someone out there that might train with you.

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And yeah, brody is in the Orlando area.

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I've interviewed him on Champiitmojo.

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He's an MIT grad and a swan coach and he's a great swimmer and a great person.

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So, yeah, I was really glad to hear that Brody was helping you All right here in the last question, we always ask everyone on Champiitmojo it's a spiritual question when you dive in that water, what feeling do you?

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get.

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Well, there's two different, totally different things here.

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But I have to tell myself to relax and just go through the process of not racing on the first length.

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But there's so much gratitude even in the short race at an end.

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I just sometimes take a moment, even when I'm in the race, to think I'm actually doing this, when most people would never even take the chance to be out of there and be challenging themselves.

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I'm 56 years old and I know a lot of us are all settled in our ways and don't put ourselves out there, and so I guess that's probably what is this gratitude.

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And I'm thinking quotes too.

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I heard this not too long ago.

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They said if you're green, you're growing, and if you're ripe, you're rotting, and that just kind of says put yourself out there, try something new.

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There's no such thing as failure.

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It's all about learning and growing.

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I love it.

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Karen, thanks for being on Champiitmojo.

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I love you.

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Stay tuned for the takeaways.

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And now the takeaways.

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Well, you know, karen Torres is nearer to my heart.

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Yeah, I've had the good fortune of getting to know Karen a little bit, as I've followed you around.

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Karen's been a part of your life for a long time and what a terrific thing to have her swimming with you.

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You must have been so excited.

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Yes, and I'm only six years older than she is, but she swam for me when I was a coach at the University of Arkansas.

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Her spiritual mother.

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So then I got to recruit her.

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Yes, so I got to recruit her to come and swim in this world's record setting relay, and also she's been a very good listener to Champions MOJO and she always calls me or texts me on different shows that she likes, and so how appropriate to have her on the show as a world record holder now.

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Well, she's a champion anyway, yeah.

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She is, and she's had a great career in triathlon, and she's always been very, very fit and active.

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So what was your first takeaway on just a little brief conversation?

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I love that, how she had five weeks to get into shape to be on this world record-breaking team which congratulations, by the way.

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But I love that and this works so well for me she had a partner to swim with.

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She had an accountability partner.

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That is so terrific and makes getting to your goal so much easier.

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If you've got somebody, you're just going to get out of bed.

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You've got to meet somebody out there, so I love that.

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That's something that's worked really well for me.

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I haven't always had in my life but a good reminder to just get somebody who's on the same train as you and get out there and do it with them.

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Yes, and that accountability partner was Brodie Hines, who is a great friend of Mark and I's and he's been on the show and he's awesome and, yeah, I thanks Brodie.

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During the meet I was like thanks for everything you did for Karen.

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He coached her, he met her at practice, he swam with her and that was wonderful.

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My one takeaway was that Karen was a little nervous, but then she just decided to use gratitude.

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She was just grateful to be able to do it at the age that we are, that we're swimming masters and we get to do this, we get to put ourself on the line, and that she's grateful for that.

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So I always think gratitude is a foil for nervousness.

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It's a tool for pressure.

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It's a great way to think about it, absolutely, because, yeah, it's hard to be all bent up and bunched up with.

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You're thinking, wow, I'm lucky to be here, I think that's great, yes, yeah.

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So, anyway, it was great to talk with Karen.

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Yeah, it's great to hear her voice, and just yeah great to have her on the show.

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All right, we're in another great one in the books.

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Love you All right, love you, Kelly Bye.

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Bye-bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Champions Mojo podcast.

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