This is Dara Torres
She's a mom.
She's 41 years old.
She's in the best shape of her life. Just set the American Record in the 100m freestyle and the 50 meter freestyle at the US Olympic Swimming Trials.
She just made her fifth Olympic team and didn't just MAKE it, she's a threat for a medal.
Wow!
Now first off, everyone is thinking, "She has to be on drugs to be able to compete at this level at her age."
Well, that's a very valid question and one that she's not trying to avoid by being in an optional drug testing program that the USOC does over and above what the US Anti Doping Agency tests. I don't want to talk about if she's clean. I want to focus on what she's doing to compete at this level. Talking about clean or "dirty" isn't positive and I'm a positive guy.
When I was competing in the Olympics I had thoughts, almost daily, about what I could really do with my body if I had the money to do everything I needed to do. We're talking about things like enough sleep, the perfect diet served up by a personal chef. Custom supplementation geared to my body. Bloodwork to see how all of this custom nutrition was affecting my insides. A sports psychologist. A personal trainer to work out with. A custom workout program. A massage after every workout and someone to stretch me.
In a couple words it would be "athlete heaven."
From what I've been able to find out on the net about Dara that is exactly what she is doing.
So let's hope that this is truly an example of what the body can look like and perform like at 41.
Many people say that feats like this shouldn't be happening at the age of 41. And you know what, for the average person they are right. But what we may be witnessing is that person who is above average who is tilting the scale. There are plenty of underachievers in this world. We barely notice them or talk about them. It's not really interesting to say, "There's Jane at three hundred pounds bobbing along like a bloated whale in the 50 meter!" That's just disturbing. But it sure is a lot of fun to look at a woman like Dara who is potentially making the rest of the World look lazy and accuse her of doing drugs.
This isn't like watching a baseball player who sits on the bench and shoots himself with two shots of Human Growth Hormone.
Swimming is one of those sports that is so technique and body-type dominant that I can see how after ten years of an advanced stretching program, oodles of massage, and a fair bit of "wisdom" that comes from being forty that she can be faster than when she was in her twenties. I think every athlete with any longevity would tell you that at some point in their career they went from "muscling" it to "finessing" it and had better results. That is what you have here with Dara.
Dara, about ten years ago, hooked up with a guy named Bob Cooley. (She didn't literally "hook up") Bob is a flexibility guru who wrote a book titled The Genius of Flexibility and she credits Bob with helping her win five gold medals at the Sydney Olympics as well as getting her to her fifth games in Beijing.
There are a couple of great points to take to heart when you watch Dara compete this Olympics:
1) It is amazing what the body can do when it is trained, and recovered properly. Dara takes the time every day to feed, strengthen, stretch and recover her body to its maximal potential every day. She is a walking example of what the body can do if it is well cared for. Granted Dara spends a lot of money on this particular task. She claims it's upwards of $100,000 to do so. But don't read that and think, "Well that's great for her but I can't afford that." What if you went out and started a business that allowed you to do that? What if you found a way to compete on that level with those resources? Don't just be another mouth that dismisses that whole thing as, "Lucky for her!"
2) Dara is a great example of what can happen when you continue to find out what your body is capable of. Most athletes are competing trying to figure out when their peak is and expecting it to be when they are 28. But Dara is continuing to figure it out. Too many athletes are looking for reasons to quit and trying to figure out when your body is supposed to decline gives them that excuse. Oops. Just saw a study that said you're going down hill when you're 25. I'm 26, Time to shut it down!
While everyone in luge was telling me that if you don't make it by the time your 21 you're done a guy by the name of Georg Hackle was kicking everyone's ass all the way up to his 40th birthday. If everyone would just shut up and find their own potential I think a lot of wasted energy would be focused on the right things, competeing.
I want to talk more about Dara in another post. But for now it's late. Congratulations Dara. You're an inspiration to all of us.
Jonathan -
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