World Record Holder Zena Courtney's Dual Talents for Pool and Open Water, EP 249

Welcome to the award-winning champions mojo, hosted by two world record holding athletes. Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions and now your host, kelly Palace and Maria Parker.

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 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, yeah and we.

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

Yeah, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways. And here we go. We are here with a road trip inspirational interview. I am driving down the road being very careful while I interview is Zena Courtney, who is a world record holding master swimmer, multiple time national champion, multiple time over a dozen national US master's records. She's also a tremendous open water swimmer. She's the American record holder in the two person English Channel crossing and she's done the straight of Gibraltar. She's both an open water champion and an in the pool champion. And Zena, we have just driven over to Orlando to watch Katie Ledecky swim summer Macintosh in the 800 free. Now granted Everybody's in different places, training cycle wise, but first, how'd you like that?

race. It was exciting. It was amazing to watch those two girls swim. They'd learn a lot from their strokes.

Yeah, what did you learn from their strokes?

Summer made it look so easy and you thought she was going fast. And then she found another gear or so I don't know how she does that. A lot of pace work, that's what I suppose.

Yeah, yeah, it was really fun to watch and it was just the southern zone sectional championships. And Katie came down from Gainesville and summer Macintosh is training over at Sarasota and these are two of the top four women swimmers in the world. They just swam, swam, just ranked the top 100 women. But we're going to talk about Zena, because we are a master's swimming podcast and this is super exciting because Zena has been referred to on our podcast several times. Zena is a fellow master swimmer with me on the Swim Melbourne Masters, a fellow world record holder on our 800 free relay, and the big thing that I wanted to talk to you about Zena is this year you're about to transition it to a new age group. You're the youngest one in your age group, but you've done this a lot of times. But what are some of the ways that you're preparing? I notice you're a young woman. You've lost about 12 pounds. You're doing some things as you approach this new age group of 65 to 69. What are some things that you're implementing now that you might not have before? Kelly is my inspiration and biggest cheerleader.

So don't let you think that it's all my idea. But no, it was my idea to go on this, my pure health plan, and lose that baby fat that I've never lost from my second child and see what I could do. So I'm doing hangy thanks to Kelly, and that I do have a torn labor on, but that seems to keep it at bay and upping the workout quality training with the USA swimming. So those are the things I'm doing. Hopefully they'll reach fruition with the new age group records.

Yeah, so we've noticed within the Champions Bell Joe podcast that a lot of top master's members do train now and then not every day, but at least maybe a time or two a week with USA swim teams, and then they train the rest of the time with their regular master's team because they may need a little bit more. So, zina, you are a premier backstrucker Swam at Stanford was an all-American backstrucker there, and so you really do arrange from the 50 all the way to the 200 backstroke. What are some sets that you like to do for backstroke that keep you fast?

200 backstroke is a plethora of 50s on pace and it's a challenge. Set right how many 50s you can hold on your 200 pace. I've noticed that I've been slacking in the higher 60 to 64 age groups. We're going to get back on that this year.

You won the 50 back two years ago in San Antonio. What kind of stuff do you like to do for a 50 back?

That is pure chance.

I think it's a rock and start and a really great turn, too Short course. Yeah, your target kind of this summer is the Long Force Masters Nationals in Mission Viejho. What other goals do you have for this summer?

This summer I want to have fun. We're going to go after Mission Viejho to Oceanside California and do the open water down there. I can't wait.

I know you're making me do that. I'm just hoping the water is somewhere above 65. I think the last time Mark and I tried to do it it was 51. Really, it was truly frigid. Okay, so you know, we know we've talked a lot of X's and O's here, so we like to just talk with champions about some of their routines and rituals, things that make you just a successful person. It doesn't even necessarily have to be swimming, but what are some things that you need in your daily routine that keep you being successful?

So I'm very goal-oriented, so I need a goal. I need something to train for, focus on. We moved across the country, brought a house in Florida, remodeled it and picked out all the finishes. I don't have an interior design background. I'm constantly learning on what to do, how to do it and keep you young, keep your brain active.

Being a close friend of yours, I do notice, mark, and I always say you're a researcher, you like to do your research on a lot of things, so that's really cool. And, zina, what is a big obstacle in your life that you have overcome, and how did you do that so?

I'm guessing the biggest obstacle was coming back from multiple shoulder surgeries, so I had three shoulder surgeries, two knees, just every time you got to come back. You got to focus on getting back to where you were before it happened and then see what happens and my goal is to try to slow the aging process. We were looking at these times long-course meet-and-rease girls were doing and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm trying to do that Short course yard. It all puts it in perspective.

One thing that I know about you that I would love to hear some of your secrets. To me, it seems like when you get behind the block, you are just a fierce competitor. If we're swimming a relay together, I can always know that you're going to bring your best. If I see you behind the block, you're very focused, you're ready, and I was wondering if you have pinpointed what you're saying to yourself or what makes you be able to step up. I've really never seen you swim horribly. Just wow, that just was awful. You just always seem to swim above where one might think you would be. So how do you do that?

Well, that's a good question. Maybe it's because I grew up in a family of four. In order to get noticed, you had to go above and beyond. It's just been great to me. So that's just how I live my life.

And when you're behind the block, are you nervous, are you scared? What's going through your mind when you're back there behind the block?

So, nurse, maybe a little bit of nationals, but you can only focus on yourself. You can't control anybody else's race. So you just remember all the little tricks and the techniques that you've perfected for 60 years of swimming and you got to trust that it'll come when you need it.

And you are a certified coach US master's coach, certified lifeguard and one of the things that I do notice about you a lot, zena, is when we're done with swim practice, you're often helping newer people. They may have been triathletes and they've come out to try swimming, or they might be swimmers that don't necessarily have a division, one swimming background and will just want to get better. What advice might you give to newer master swimmers that want to get better, that just maybe they are in a plateau right now and they just don't feel like they're getting any better? What advice might you give them?

Well, first of all to join a master's team. So if they're with a master's team, then they need to leverage the people around them. So everybody has a different eye. Everybody can pick up on how to make your technique a little bit better. So swimming is surrounding by water, so technique is highly important because one little false positioning of your hand could cause shoulder problems, could cause you to get beat. So with the new folks, it's an awareness in the water. A lot of them don't have a body awareness. So giving them drills and explaining maybe four different ways on the technique that you're trying to introduce to them seems to work.

Yes, I'm in agreement with you right there. That technique is so important with all levels of swimmers, just whether you're a lead swimmer or whether you're brand new. I think everyone can always get better with their technique. All right, zena, so just a fun last question what goes through your mind when you dive in the water? And this is more of a spiritual question, it doesn't have to be technique.

I love swimming, so when I dive in the water it's just a Zenfili, If you could say aha.

Yes, I like that. Thanks for joining us on Champions Mojo today, zena. You're welcome. Great to be here, kelly. Takeaways, takeaways, takeaways. We've heard from you that your favorite section of our podcast is the takeaways. Thank you so much for that feedback. But before we get to the takeaways today, we wanted to ask you if you would please give us a five star review. That way, more people will be able to find our podcast. Also, if you could subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or Spotify, you'll never miss a podcast episode if you subscribe. And please share our podcast with your friends. And now the takeaways. So, maria Zina Herman Courtney she doesn't go by that anymore, but a lot. Some of her accolades, amazingly, were under the name of Zina Herman, but Zina Courtney and Zina obviously, as you can tell, is one of my best friends, certainly one of my best swimming friends, and she's so humble. She's just so humble that even trying to pull her accolades out of her, we were just blown away. She's fast in the pool, but talk about her open water.

Yeah, that was a surprise too, Because I met Zina. She's extremely humble and of course she wouldn't boast about anything, but I was really surprised. When you're talking about her, the amazing thing she's done, the world record she's hold especially to me, open water is just oh, how do people do it? So, yeah, that she has two person world record for English Channel Crossing and open water swimming, that's amazing.

That is. It's truly amazing. In swimming the straight of Gibraltar, yeah, she still has a real passion for it. She's trying to organize a swim here in our area in the ocean and it'll be fun to do that race with her in Oceanside California. But anyways, we're only going to do one takeaway. It was such a short interview. What was your first takeaway?

There were actually several things and even though it was a short interview, I think the thing I'm going with as one of my favorites is Zina apparently is a really good newbie swimmers and people who are just trying to be comfortable when the water again. And one of the things she said just really stuck with me. She said sometimes you have to explain things four different ways. And so true, for me, somebody will explain something I don't get it, and if they just say it again louder, it's not going to help me. This is a great takeaway for parents.

I'm sorry, that just cracks me up If they just say it louder.

Sometimes I've been in that situation where somebody said, ok, do it like this, do it like this. I didn't get it the first time, so you need to come at it from a different direction, and so I think that's a great takeaway for all of us who are in coaching or teaching roles, as parents or as bosses or whatever. We need to think of at least four ways to explain what it is that we need done, especially as something that's technique in the water, it's esoteric, it's hard to change those things, it's hard to feel that. So explain me in a couple different ways. It's great.

They say some people are visual learners, some people are oral learners. So I love that and I do see Zena after practice so often with somebody that's brand new. She was on the NCAA championship team at Stanford, besides all these other things, and she's a highly certified coach, but I do see her after practice helping people, so I know she's living that. Like you said, there were a lot of takeaways, but the one that I think is a takeaway is that if we want to be more like a champion, what can I do to be more like a champion or to get the mojo from champions? I think that Zena is like I said she's always able to be relied upon. So if I'm going to be on a relay with her, or even if I'm going to meet her for swim practice, I know she's going to be there. I know she's going to step up. Even if she may not be feeling well, or maybe her shoulder's hurting or maybe she's not where she wants to be, she still stands up and gives it her 100%. And here's the key, without complaining, without whining, with just this aura of I'm going to get this done, and that I think is a champion, Because I know she doesn't always feel like getting it done and she does.

Yeah, I love that. I love that she's reliable and that is a really important aspect of champions. Like you said, you're going to do that and you show up, but you do it and no excuses and no complaining.

This is definitely an area that I can work on. You're married to my brother, so you know that we Parkers can change our mind, but I will say if you put me on a relay with you, I'll do my best.

I know you will.

All right, kelly, yeah, love you too.

Bye-bye.

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