Tougher Than Triplets at 41, or Breast Cancer: Karen Einsidler's Journey to World Champion, EP 210

Speaker 1: Welcome to the award-winning Champions Mojo, hosted by two world record-holding athletes and health life and leadership coaches. Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions And now your hosts, kelly Palace and Maria Parker. 

Speaker 2: Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast. I am your host, kelly Palace, and, as usual, i am with my co-host, maria Parker. Hey Maria, hey Kelly, it's great to be with you here today. Yes, and Maria, this is a special edition of Champions Mojo from the pool deck, and we have a great interview for you today. It's brief, it's short, but it's powerful. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, and we. I wasn't there, but I was able to listen to the interview and some great takeaways. 

Speaker 2: Yep, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways. And here we go, On deck inspiration with Karen Einsidler while we are at YMCA National Championships in Fort Lauderdale, florida. Karen is a multiple national champion, national record holder and an inspiration to me. Karen, i don't know if I've ever told you this, but you are about seven years ahead of me and I watched you in the 60 to 64 age group, swim great. But then what really inspires anybody aging up is that you have gotten faster in the 65 to 69 age group. So tell us a little bit. How did you do that? 

Speaker 4: I think a lot of it has to do with spending more of my time in Florida and not up in New York, and I really enjoy working out with the sharks and I think they've done a lot for my swimming. 

Speaker 2: And it also might have been harder to train when you were younger and you even in your 40s you were a first time mother. Tell us the story of like, where you were an attorney in New York a later into motherhood and you overcame breast cancer. So give us just a little background on that, because that is the inspiration on deck we're looking for here. 

Speaker 4: I was a lawyer in Manhattan, which is tough, and so I fortunately changed to be in house at Guardian Life, which was a much more stable kind of environment, so made it a little easier. But then at 41, we had been trying to get pregnant since I was 38, and at 41, I finally got pregnant with triplets. 

Speaker 2: Wait, triplets, did everybody hear that? Okay, so you had two genders. 

Speaker 4: I have two boys and a girl, which meant I got it all in one shot and it was a blast. I really was very lucky with them and I remember nationals at Cleveland where they were all with me because I didn't want to go without them, so we put them in the minivan and drove all the way to Cleveland and it was great. They were just wonderful. They were on the side of the pool when I broke the 1650 record and it was great. I always refer to them as my entertainment. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, just So. Were you swimming through the entire time that you were raising these triplets? 

Speaker 4: Yes, actually, my husband, john, is unbelievable and we basically alternated who was going swimming. I remember one morning I was so tired and I said, oh, i'm not sure I want to go. And John said why don't you stay and rest, go to sleep. And I said they're going to be in here in about a half an hour, so maybe we'll go swimming. 

Speaker 2: So obviously you must have a tough mindset to swim. 1650, it's a hard event, arguably. We always ask what's the hardest event in swimming. I'm going to say the 1650. What are you going to say? 

Speaker 4: I used to also be a 400 IM or before breast cancer. That's a heart of it. I actually love the 400 IM, which I actually found as a master summary as an age group where I was a drop dead sprinter. 

Speaker 2: Wow. 

Speaker 4: And, as a master summary, i switched and I really just I missed the fact that I can't because the breast cancer of my fly has not come back. So I still do the 400 IM, knowing that the fly, i'm just going to give everyone the lead, and then I got to try to make up in the last three strokes. 

Speaker 2: How long ago was your breast cancer? 

Speaker 4: That was actually 15 years ago. I had gone through the double mastectomy reconstruction and I rushed it all because I was trying to make it back, for I don't remember where there was nationals or worlds that were in Stanford And so that it was a rough situation because they back then they put the implants behind your chest muscles. 

Speaker 4: So, first they have to expand your chest muscles and they, being an athlete, that was tough and but I actually swam through most of it. When I had the last surgery I was it was a year I was trying to make long distance all American and the 3000 and 6000 were left but I had done the five and the 10 K in between surgeries. 

Speaker 2: Oh, my God. 

Speaker 4: And so I'm like I don't know if I can do this. And I was back swimming and the coach I had at the time was Paul Fortul and he said Karen, you look pretty good, maybe you should do those. But I had checked and I really didn't need to do them to get the all star. And I finally I said it's painful, maybe I should just check with my doctor. So I called them up and I said it's a hurting swimming. And he basically said what You're swimming, you need to shut that down. And I said to him you know what kind of swimmer I was when you said I could go back in the water, you thought I was just what going to do, dog. So I basically shut that down and used fins and did a lot of kicking and one arm drill, but I kept my range of motion which is tough. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, they say you know that swimming is the best recovery from breast cancer. It keeps people from getting lymphedema And I think I'm a breast cancer survivor as well. But my surgeon did not know that I was a swimmer at all And after the surgery he said do you know how to swim? He asked me. So I think it's funny. But yeah, so I think you know that when you went back into that, did going into that surgery in shape help you recover. 

Speaker 4: I'm sure it did. I am sure it did. So I think most people that aren't in shape. It is going to be a harder recovery And I at that time I was swimming at Asphalt Green and, oh my God, i had the most amazing teammates. They had gotten me a charm that actually looks like an upside down heart or upside down hooves And they were just amazing And they all. Let me draft off of them for a while Oh my God It was, they were great, So that really helps. That really helps. 

Speaker 2: All this tough stuff you've been through, what's your mindset Like? what are some mindset keys for the champion attitude that you have? 

Speaker 4: It's the joy of swimming for me. A lot of people say I probably over train And my reaction is I just, i really just love to swim. So I think for me, having that mindset makes it really easy. At one point when I was younger, in my 30s, someone finally said to me you know, karen, you should take one day off. So I stopped swimming seven days a week in Zoom 6, but I just loved to swim. 

Speaker 4: I also love swimmers. They're all just wonderful people and an eclectic group. So that's what keeps me going. And I also look at some of the swimmers that are older, that are amazing. When I was in my 30s it was Aileen Wigginsoul, who was just this amazing woman who I found out had gotten the first gold medal in diving, springboard diving in the Olympics, and I forget I'm not sure if it was a bronze in the Hunter Batch show, and she was amazing And she lived in Hawaii. I'd see her once a year And every time I saw her she knew my full name, karen Fong, and I said, okay, so it may not be just your body, it may keep your mind. So I think if you've got all that going for you, it just keeps you inspired to keep going. 

Speaker 2: Yes, so you are one of those people to me. 

Speaker 4: Oh my. 

Speaker 2: God. Not like you do, when I know getting old is tough and I just I have a little diary that I keep and I have like little bullet points before I go into a meet. What am I going to be thinking behind the block And I worry. Am I not going to be able to get faster as I age? And I have your name with a star by it, oh my. God As my bullet point for I can do this because Karen did it. 

Speaker 1: Oh, my God. 

Speaker 2: Thank you for being my inspiration and we're going to finish up with the question. I always love that swimmers have, So when you dive into that pool and it's not necessarily in a meet but when you hit that water, what goes through your mind? 

Speaker 4: Pure joy, pure, joy Pure joy Perfect, i agree. 

Speaker 2: Thanks so much, karen. 

Speaker 4: You're welcome. 

Speaker 1: Stay tuned for the takeaways. 

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Speaker 2: So, maria, karen Einsidler definitely wow, what an incredible life story she has, and I didn't talk about this with the time that I spent with her there, but I know you would enjoy this and I hope our listeners will. So, karen, one of the things that I didn't mention and in these short interviews we're not doing a huge introduction on people but Karen has been swimming all her life, which you're going to talk about, but she continues to get faster And that is such an inspiration to anyone listening. In her 60s, 60 to 64, she's very fast, swam tons of records, tons of national titles, but still she's even faster at 65. Then she was at 60. And so that is something that I have like on my vision board. I have little post-its with things that inspire me. I have the name Karen Einsidler and I told her that She's oh, wait a minute, oh my God. So she's a real inspiration and just not just swimming well, but swimming faster at 65 than she did at 60. 

Speaker 3: That's pretty amazing to think about when I think about out my performances. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, it is One down from 55 to 60, to think that she's got faster And she has her reasons. She talked about why she's swimming better, swimming more, but the thing that my main takeaway is just how much she loves swimming and how swimming has been a constant in her life, through a lot of really tough times. She was a Manhattan attorney. She got pregnant at 41 with triplets, she had triplets, she took care of triplets, she swam and she brought the kids to the swim meets and she's swimming now And she had breast cancer, very serious breast cancer. Apparently It's impactor swimming And yet she continues to swim And I love that thread in her life. 

Speaker 3: That's obviously brought her joy and sanity. Just whatever happens, i'm going to keep on swimming And I love the story of alternating with her husband and thinking, oh, i'm too tired to swim. Oh, if I don't swim, the kids are going to be in bed with us in 30 minutes. Anyway, i want to go. I just I really can relate to that. That's sanity, that's how you stay sane. You go out there in the morning and you work out. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and does that bring back any memories raising four kids when you were running marathons? 

Speaker 3: I think absolutely. That got me through getting up early and having that big physical chunk behind me before I hit the tedium of being a mom. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, karen is just an inspiration. She's not just a great pool swimmer, she does open water all the time as well. Not surprising. 

Speaker 3: Not surprising. When I listened to that, i said to you this is a tough woman. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. That was Maria's takeaway, because when she listened to this interview, karen Ion Siedler is tough, and that's what we need. We need to be tough in life sometimes. So anyway, maria, thanks, thanks, love you. 

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