Would You Swim on Vacation? Britta O'Leary's Masters Swimming Journey, EP 265

Elite masters champion Britta O'Leary, a member of Georgia Masters, joins us to share her inspiring journey as she transitions into the 40-44 age group. Britta offers an inside look at her recent experiences at the South Carolina Short Course Meters Championships, revealing the delicate balance she maintains between her swimming passion and her bustling personal life. Despite a hectic year filled with extensive travel and family commitments, Britta's story is one of resilience and adaptability. She candidly discusses the challenges she faces and how she manages to keep her training on track through it all. Britta emphasizes the true essence of master swimming—having fun, setting diverse goals, and most importantly, listening to one's body as we age. Britta swam in college at the University of Miami, Florida.

Swimming as a lifelong sport is a central theme in our conversation, with Britta highlighting the flexibility it offers. The episode underscores that it's perfectly fine to step away when life demands it, knowing that the pool is always there when you’re ready to return. The beauty of master swimming lies in its accessibility, allowing enthusiasts to re-engage at any time, whether it's once a week or more. Britta's insights remind us of the profound fitness and community benefits that even a small connection to the sport can provide. We express our heartfelt gratitude to Britta for sharing her experiences and wish her the best in her ongoing swimming journey and future pursuits. Tune in to be inspired by Britta’s unwavering commitment to keeping the joy of swimming alive.

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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I am doing an on-deck interview with Britta O'Leary.

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She is an elite swimmer, multiple national titles for master swimming, and your age group is 40 to 44.

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You've just aged up and I've had so many people tell me that I need to interview you.

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So we were just talking before we started recording.

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Here we are at the South Carolina Short Course meters championships.

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It's a great meet and we were talking in the warm down pool and we were talking before.

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You swam at the University of Miami and both of your parents were Olympians, not in swimming.

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So tell us like how your meet is going and what kind of your swimming's been like the last year.

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Yeah, I'm happy to do that.

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First of all, thank you so much for doing this.

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This is really fun.

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Yeah, my last year, being honest, I struggled a little bit with swimming.

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You know, aging up, usually you look forward to a new age group, but for me, the most important thing here right now this weekend is really to have fun and find the fun.

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We're all master swimmers.

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This is our hobby, this is not a job, so we're all here to have fun.

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Yes, we like fast times, but overall, meeting the people you know, coming to a different state I'm originally from Georgia and now we're in South Carolina it's just super fun and I just enjoy being here and cheering people on and, yeah, seeing where I stand right now in my training.

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So one of the things that I wanted to ask you about that I overheard that we were talking about, with a few of us standing around, so you can go to a national championship and win, but if you don't hit your time, you're not happy, like it's not the place that you're going for it's it's a time right, so can you tell us about that?

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yeah, specifically this past summer, when I aged up, I wanted to go for times.

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Obviously, when you age up, you look at the record sometimes and then you're like okay, this is a time I can really hit, and especially at nationals, when you swim in your age group, you don't always have the competition next to you.

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That's why I really appreciate the mixed heats, for example, at this meet here, where you swim next to men and they can pull you right.

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Yes, sometimes you get the wave, so that's the negative.

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But these meets like this meet here, sometimes it's better for me to actually hit faster times because I have people next to me and I don't swim by myself.

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So, yeah, this past summer I really went for times.

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I didn't necessarily go for placing, but before the year, before the summer, before, I went to world championships and I didn't care about times, I just wanted to place and my goal at world championships was I want to bring home a gold medal.

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I had been to world championships twice before and I was always second and so I was like in Fukuoka, I want to win a gold medal.

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I didn't care about the time, the time also wasn't great, but I won gold right and that was goal achieved and yeah.

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So I think that's why you have different expectations, different goals for every swim meet that you go to, and I think it's important to set those expectations before.

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Like I said earlier today, tomorrow my goal is to have fun.

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I like it.

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I like it.

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So you said your training for the last year may not have been ideal.

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What has your training for the last year been like?

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My family likes to travel.

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We like to travel a lot and we started actually traveling even more extensively over the summer.

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So we spent six weeks in Greece, on a beautiful Greek island called Syros.

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I found a 50-meter pole, but it had a huge draft in one direction and it had major wind from the ocean in the other direction, so it made a three-second difference in a 50 breaststroke.

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So that was mentally hard.

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So after a week of struggling I threw out the watch and I tried my best and that was.

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We came back and I had a week and a half to get ready for nationals and that's why I was struggling at nationals as well.

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Yeah, so overall I like traveling a lot.

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I'm originally from Germany, so it's in my blood to kind of travel internationally.

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But you know, struggling, juggling a full-time job, my hobby of swimming, a family, two kids it's a lot sometimes.

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And you know we're all master swimmers.

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This is our hobby and just finding the balance every year again with different things that you want to do in your life is hard.

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And so this past year travel was our priority, swimming was not.

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Swimming was a priority the year before, when I went to world championships, and so I guess, with master swimming every year.

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You have to find that new balance for your life between family, your job, swimming and any other hobby that you do, and then see you know where you stand.

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Yeah.

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I like it.

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So what would be two or three things that you found within master swimming that you need to do to swim at your best, because I know you know we longtime master swimmers we kind of like know what our body needs or what we respond to.

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What are two or three things that you think make you sharper in master swimming?

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What I really learned over the years is listening to your body.

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The older we get, we can't think we can train like we are 25 anymore, so it's a challenge as well, but it's also something to look forward to.

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Right what works for me, what doesn't work for me, I have to adjust my training.

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I have to listen more to my body.

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So that's definitely something that I'm taking more to heart now that I also aged up into a new age group.

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And then the having fun part right, this is a hobby.

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We are all here because we love doing this.

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Our heart is in the sport, so it doesn't matter if you swim fast, if you swim slow, as long as you have a good time.

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That is really what you should focus on, and that's also something and what I love about the Masters community.

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Yes, we go to meet, we want to swim fast, but hey, as long as you're fun, like goal achieved.

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Yeah, absolutely so.

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Your swim in the 100 IM today was a 106.

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I mean, putting that in perspective, I'm really hoping in an all out freestyle I'm going to go 106, not just four strokes.

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But so was that a time that you were happy with?

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And tell us about, like, how that 100 IM felt?

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Yeah, it was my last swim for the day so I just told myself you can die now, it's fine, you have nothing left after this.

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So, yes, I'm happy with the time.

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I had zero expectations for the 100 IM.

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I haven't done the 100 IM show plus meters in a year, so it's really just.

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You know, once a year you swim a show plus meters meet.

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Yeah, and I love IM.

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I'm an IM, or usually 200 I am.

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I just love the four strokes.

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You have a 425 all out pretty much, yeah, and I lost 25 or so myself.

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It doesn't matter, leave it all in the pool today, I am as fun right.

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coming back to the fun part, yeah, especially if you're a breaststroker like you are.

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So tomorrow you have your 200 breast and um.

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Do you have any tips for breaststroke training?

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Because I'm sure you do some breaststroke training, like what might be a good breaststroke set you do.

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So I'm a 200 breaststroke but which makes a huge difference to actually sprint breaststroke.

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So that's important to say.

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I really like 200 breaststroke, or even I train a lot of IM for the breaststroke part as well.

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But before going into a set like I like 9-100s, for example, 9-100 breaststroke, descent, or 50 fast, 50 easy things like that I need a lot of time to find my stroke in breaststroke and that too, instead of just focusing on you know, swimming, a lot of yardage, breaststroke you really need to focus on your technique and breaststroke.

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And when you also talk to elite breaststrokers they tell you, hey, 90% of the time breaststroke doesn't feel great and that's exactly how it is and you just need to be okay with that.

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And you need to do lots of drills and lots of drilling.

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One of my favorite breaststroke drill is breaststroke kick and then you alternate breaststroke and butterfly arms because it really gets your hips up, it gets you going and kind of like I call it riding the wave.

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That's kind of like how you feel in breaststroke then and just that, and then also parachute swimming and stretch cord swimming and breaststroke.

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So those are really things that I try to incorporate into my breaststroke training and not really just focusing on yardage.

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Boy, I love that.

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Tell me your thoughts on Gabrielle Rose and what she did, being six years older than you are.

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Yes, so oh my God, my first.

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She just won the $59.99 on her breaststroke last week and my first thought was I'm sending out this next age group.

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Oh my God.

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No, she is amazing.

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I met her at Irvine at the Long Course Nationals.

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She's actually the sister of one of our multi-sport coaches at Dynamo in Atlanta, where I train at, and so I learned a little bit more from him how she's training.

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It's mind-blowing, it's amazing.

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I can only have full respect for her.

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She's an amazing athlete.

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We're happy to have her as a master swimmer and she's such a great ambassador for the sport of swimming when you get older so incredible.

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Yes, yeah, so, and those listeners that we most are most of you listening are swimmers.

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But Gabrielle Rose is the 46 year old woman who made the Olympic trials finals in her breaststroke events and is demolishing records, and she was a two time Olympian, but one of the things that you know having listened to a lot of her background she never stopped swimming, so she really never took a break from swimming.

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So I love that.

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For people who say they're going to retire from swimming, I just wish they would say I'm going to take a pause and then swimming is a life sport.

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So tell me and our listeners about your ideas about swimming until you're 80.

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And when you see these people, what are your thoughts on the fact that we should keep swimming?

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Swimming is a sport for life.

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How do I feel about competing?

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I really, by now, take it year by year and I was like you know what Life gets in the way, right, your job gets in the way, maybe you don't feel great, maybe you want to travel extensively.

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So take it year by year and master swimming.

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Don't focus too much on oh my god, I have to do this.

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So a lot of people they keep swimming but they might not compete right, so we swim for the exercise.

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We can swim so we can eat.

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A lot of people here say I swim so I can eat.

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We still love swimming, but just the pressure and the the mental part of competing is hard.

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So I think that's why, coming back to I will assess it year by year and, honestly, if I still love the sport so much and I still feel like I want to compete at 80, I'd love to do that.

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But this is a year by year thing.

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Yeah, I love that.

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So is there anything that I have not asked you that you would like to share with our listeners?

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Keep up your love for swimming.

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It's a fantastic sport, have fun with it and even if you get discouraged, take a step back.

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It's okay.

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I just talked to a friend on deck here earlier and I said you know, when I started master swimming, some of my teammates they would disappear for like a few years and then come back competing and it just was mind-blowing to me how you could do that.

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And now, as I get older, I'm like oh, I totally understand that things get in the way.

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You get busy, you don't have that much time to train, so you step back from competing.

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But then the beautiful thing about masters is you can come back anytime and I think I'm taking that more and more to heart and I think all of our, like all swimmers, should take that to heart as well that this is a lifelong sport.

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Just because you can't make a swim meet or maybe can't swim as much as you want for a few years, even, you can still come back and get back into it.

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Yes, I love that.

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Yeah, and even I think even once a week, like if your life is just so busy, just it makes a difference than when you take that two years off and you don't touch the water Even once a week, just makes a huge difference.

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So, thank you so much for joining me today, Britta.

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Best of luck with the rest of everything.

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Thank you so much for having me.