Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're totally chill and not freaking out at all about talking to Katie mother fucking Ladecci.

Okay, it's Thursday, August twenty first, and on today's show we'll be talking to swimming superstar and fourteen time Olympic medalist Katie Ladecci about her success at this year's World Championships in Singapore, What keeps her motivated year after year and the things that go through her mind as she's swimming laps, plus saving and scoring winning chips and taking trips and a game fit for the Queen.

It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices.

Here's what you need to know today.

Let's start with the WNBA.

The league has broken its total regular season attendance record, with a whole month remaining so far this year, two point four to three million folks have attended WNBA games.

Now.

The Golden State Valkyries deserve a lot of credit for this speedy new record, as the WNBA's new US team has sold out all sixteen of their home games.

That's good for more than two hundred and eighty nine thousand total attendees.

Plus the New York Liberty of up their game.

No doubt, thanks to last year's title win, the defending WNBA champs have averaged twenty nine percent more fans so far this season.

We'll link to a story from Front Office Sports that gets deeper into the weeds on the record attendance more WNBA.

ESPN's Alexa Philippo and Ramona Shelburne reported on Tuesday that the Connecticut Suns owners, the Mohegan Tribe, planned to present the WNBA with multiple options for potential buyers after a previously agreed upon sale was thwarted by the league in what feels like an attempt to get the Tribe to take less money so the w can direct the team to an owner it prefers and the cash in later on a future expansion team.

Quick refresher on the situation.

It was previously reported that Boston Celtics minority owner Steve Paliuca wanted to buy the team and relocate it to Boston for a record breaking three hundred and twenty five million dollar fee, per report from front at the show, any constable of Front Office Sports that offer from Paliuca was agreed to by the Tribe and presented to WNBA Commissioner cat the Engelbert back in July, but Engelbert never brought it to the league's board of governors and the exclusivity period expired, opening the.

Door back up to other bits.

When news that the tribe in Palauca had agreed to terms went public in early August, the WNBA issued a statement that relocation deals are made by the League, not teams, and that the cities who went through the expansion process have priority over Boston.

Back to Alexa and Ramona's reporting, so per ESPN sources, After the tribe in Paliuc agreed to that three hundred and twenty five million dollars sale, but before that agreement was made public, the League stepped in with their own offer to buy the Sun for two hundred and fifty million and not charged the future buyer an additional relocation fee, so with their original deal with Paliuca thwarted.

But not wanting to get low balled by the League, the Mohegan Tribe has presented the league with multiple proposals, including option one, the originally reported sale to Paliuca.

Option two, a sale to Milwaukee Bucks.

Owner Mark Lazree, who would move the team to Hartford, Connecticut, option three selling a minority stake in the organization, and option four letting the WNBA purchase the team for three hundred and twenty five million and relocate it out according to the league's wishes.

Philip Who and Shelbourne story has way more on what's going on behind the scenes, so we'll link to that in the show notes.

Friend of the show Nancy Armour also wrote a column on the situation for USA Today, arguing that the league is acting like a mob boss in how it's handled the situation.

Wrights Armour, in.

Part, quote, the Mohegan Tribe have two offers, both of which would give the tribe a massive payout, boost franchise valuations across the WNBA, and maintain the Sun's fan base.

By any metric, that seems like a fantastic deal, except NBA owners won't profit from it, and it prevents the WNBA and those NBA owners and outside investors from double dipping by requiring Peleeuka Laz or someone else from paying for an expanse and franchise down the road.

Armour continues later, quote, prioritizing outside investors over its own owners is a bad way for the WNBA to do business, and it's going to make prospective owners think twice about wanting to do business with the WNBA.

We'll link to Nancy's story in the show.

Notes more w In the third and final regular season meeting between the Minnesota Links and the New York Liberty, the Liberty finally pulled out a w all.

Five Liberty scorers scored in double digits to lead the defending champs to an eighty five seventy five win on Tuesday night, Both teams continued to be without their stars, as Brianna Stewart and f Sakalier are still sidelined with injuries.

Speaking of injuries, we've got a few more to report.

First, the Indiana Fever announced Tuesday that Sophie Cunningham is done for the season after suffering an MCL tear and the team's win over the Connecticut Sun on Sunday.

Cunningham now the Fever's fourth guard to miss significant time due to injury, joining fellow season ending injury sufferers Ery MacDonald and Sidney Colson, as well as Caitlin Clark, who still sidelined indefinitely with a groin injury.

With Cunningham out the Fever announced the team had signed Shape Petty to a seven day hardship contract and released guard Kyra Lambert.

More roster news.

The Dallas Wings will be without Lee Yoru for the rest of the season after she sprained her left ACL in a game against La last week.

And she's not the wings only loss.

The team is still without Arigayogumbowale, who has tendonitis in her right knee and hasn't played since August tenth.

But it's not all bad news, folks.

Chicago's Skystar Angel Reese is back, and she scored a team high nineteen points in Chicago's ninety four eighty eight loss to the Seattle Storm on Tuesday, even while on a minute's restriction.

Reese had been out for almost a month dealing with a back injury to the NWSL.

On Monday night, the Chicago Stars Alyssa Nair became the first keeper in NWSL history to make two hundred starts, and on the same night, she scored her first NWSL goal too.

After the Seattle Rain took a three to ero lead, the Stars battled back to make it a one goal game, and then in the final moments of stoppage time, Nair scored amongst a crowd in front of the rain Net and.

The game ended in a three to three draw.

It was wild.

We'll link to the video of Nair's goal in the show notes and you'll hear more about that match, which is a special contest the Rain called the Queen's Game.

Later in the show more NWSL the Athletics, Tomara Griffin and Melanie en dE reported that the Orlando Pride are finalizing a deal to sign Mexican international Lizabeth Ovaller from the Tigers of Liga MX.

Per the Athletic, Orlando will pay a transfer fee of one point five million dollars, which would break the record for biggest transfer fee in women's soccer, a number we've seen broken three times already this year.

We'll link to that reporting from the Athletic in the show notes.

To softball, Team USA took home gold at the World Games, marking the team's fourth consecutive title at the tournament.

The US went undefeated in China, going three to ero group play before defeating longtime rival Japan seven to six and ten innings, followed by a five to ero win against Chinese Tipeei.

In the gold medal game.

In tennis, let's go back to Monday, when Egas Fontec won the women's singles title at the Cincinnati Open, defeating Jasmin Paalini seven four in the final.

Then she got on a plane, flew to New York and won two mixed doubles matches at the US Open with partner Casper Rude the.

Very next day.

Some of the top singles players who paired up for this new look mixed doubles event at the Open have been getting a little lesson in doubles from the world's best.

Among those big names bounced on the first day Carlos Alcarez and Emeroticanu and Naomi Osaka and Gail Monfis.

We're recording this ahead of the mixed doubles semi finals and finals on Wednesday night, so we'll link to the full results page.

In the show notes.

Coming up next, Katie Ldeki, how many medals do you think she'll add to her collection by the end of this ad break?

Stick around to find out.

Joining us now, she's the goat the most decorated female swimmer in history, with the total of fourteen Olympic medals, including nine golds.

She's won a record twenty three.

Titles at the World Championships and is the world record holder in the women's eight hundred in fifteen hundred meter freestyle.

Since she first won Olympic Golden twenty twelve, she's become an Olympic champion at every distance from two hundred meter to fifteen hundred meter, and she's broken seventeen world records.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.

She was honored with Katie Ladeci Day in Montgomery County, Maryland, and she's a New York Times best selling author.

She loves Bruce Springsteen and Lacroix, and she's friends with Cookie Monster.

It's Katie Ladecci.

Hi, Katie, Hey, Sarah, thanks for having me.

I think the friendship with Cookie Monster is U maybe my highest accolade?

Yes, yes, that's tops on the list for me.

Did I get all those numbers right?

Because I have to be honest.

I literally updated them multiple times while researching your bio because it depended on how up to date the sites were.

And I'm not sure if you've won any more titles since you sat down here for the interview.

I think everything sounded right to me.

Yeah, I'm still getting used to some of those numbers, I guess.

Okay, well, just try not to win anything during the interview so I don't have to update it.

Okay, yeah, yeah, all good, All good, Okay.

So I want to start with something that I've always wondered, sort of randomly.

During your long races, like the fifteen hundred meters, somebody is holding a lap counter above the water to help you keep track, and I want to know how often you actually need to look at that or are the laps just like baked into your brain.

So I've never looked at the counter that's held out of the water.

But actually a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago, World Aquatics, which is the International Federation for Swimming, they instituted underwater electronic counters.

So that's really really nice.

But I don't fully trust that that's always going to work, like you know, it might break or something or power might go out.

So I always still count the lapse myself, and I don't think i've miscounted in quite.

Some waow so wow, yeah, what are you thinking about when you're swimming for so long?

Do you repeat a mantra.

Do you repeat directions to yourself about arm or leg motions or specific form?

Do you repeat the lap number over and over till it switches.

Yeah, so it can vary.

Sometimes I have a song stuck in my head.

I always have the lap count kind of in one side of my brain, but then the other side of my brain, it's thinking about my pacing, my technique, my turns, my race strategy, something like that.

But then, you know, sometimes I think about people, people in my life, my teammates, my family just kind of fills me with some joy and just pushes me on in my races.

But yeah, I mean, on occasion, I'll just have a song randomly stuck in my head.

It's not even a song sometimes that I want to have stuck in my head.

So that's always interesting.

Are there any songs that make repeat appearances, because I have a couple of songs throughout my life that are just stuck in there somewhere.

Oh yeah, I mean, I mean sometimes I do try to get songs stuck in my head, and I think at one point I recognize that, for example, Beautiful Day by You Two, like that's a good song for my stroke rhythma.

Sometimes I try.

Sometimes I try to get that stuck in my head.

And then, as you said, I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, so I've certainly had my share of the Boss stuck in my head in races.

So yeah, but then sometimes it's I don't know, whatever I last saw on Instagram reels or TikTok or something, and it just gets caught in there.

What part of your body usually hurts first and most near the end of those long races.

Usually it's more of a stitch in my side, that's usually what it is.

It's rarely just my arms or just my legs.

I remember hearing soccer player Kristen Press say that sometimes when she's in the middle of a really, really tough workout, she'll focus only on her pinky toe, like, what does my pinky toe feel like?

Is it hot?

Is it cold?

Is it hurt?

Does it feel good?

And it just pulls her mind away from the parts of her that are hurting.

And I've used that in workouts before and it actually really helps to just take my focus off the thing that is causing me pain.

Do you do that during your races?

I think so.

Yeah.

My biggest strength in my swimming in my freestyle is my poll, and so if my legs do get tired or if I am getting that stitch in my side, I kind of think back to all the pulling that I've done and I kind of just tell myself just focus on pulling harder and that should be okay.

And it's actually something that my coach told me before one of my races.

I can't remember.

It may have just been before World Championships began.

He told me, you know, we've actually worked a lot on my kick in my freestyle this year.

And whether that shows or not to the general public's eye, I don't know, but he said, you know, we also did more poll this year, and that was intentional because when your stroke does get a little short, you resort to try and to pull harder.

So if it's kind of one of those things where I think, if you can improve your strengths as well as your weaknesses, smart You're putting yourself in putting yourself in the best position, So.

That's really smart.

Yeah, let's talk about World Championships.

You're coming off yet another spectacular outing two golds and a bronze and individual events plus silver in the four by two hundred meter freestyle relay.

I want to know how you've.

Spent the couple weeks since what do you do right when a big competition is over, when you're not in theory really pushing hard for the next thing.

Well, you know, it's an eight day meet, and I actually don't have a race ever on the eighth day of Worlds.

And so I had one day in Singapore where I got to be in the in the cheering squad for Timosa, which was fun.

So I got to do that.

And then in between the prelims and the finals, I got to get lunch with my parents in Singapore.

And actually one of my Stanford friends is living in Singapore right now, and so we got together, so that was fun.

I got a good, you know, cheeseburger in Singapore, which probably doesn't sound right, but it tasted very good.

And then after Singapore, I flew home to DC just for a few days.

Shorter travel day to go to d C than to go to Florida.

So recovered from the jet lag which took some time, and just enjoyed being with my family and relaxing.

And then now I'm back in Florida and then next week I'm actually gonna visit my grandmother.

So she's ninety nine and a half or actually past.

She turns one hundred in January, so I try to visit her whenever I have a short break, which I'm on right now, and in the next few weeks, I'll be easing back into training.

Since you started competing, what's the longest you've gone without swimming.

I don't know.

I would probably consider the break that I took after Paris to be my longest break.

But even then I was back in the water.

I just wasn't doing full time training probably for two months.

I kind of trained sporadically for two months and then But what about just swimming, like getting into the water.

Yeah, an ocean, a lake, a pool.

Probably six days, seven days.

Wow, Because even on my breaks, I enjoy getting in the pool.

I get antsy.

Yeah, you're amphibious.

Basically I love being in the water, so it's part of what helps my recovery my breaks.

So yeah, yeah, even over the last two weeks, I've swum three or four times.

I want to talk to you about gender inequity in swimming, because we sort of look at women's swimming, at least on the surface as being pretty equitable terms of prize money, in terms of competitive opportunities.

Is there anything we aren't talking about that we should be.

Is there stuff that goes on in the swimming world that still needs to be addressed when it comes to gender equity.

Yeah, it's a good question, and you are right in that.

I mean, I feel very lucky to be in a sport where the men and the women compete at the same venues at the same time.

You know, at World Championships, they basically alternate a men's event, a women's event, a men's event women's event, So we're getting the same eyeballs on our sport, you know, whether whether you're a man or a woman.

So it's it's nice in that way, I think.

You know, I wrote a little bit in my book about what it's like to be a female athlete and some of the coverage that I've seen over the years, whether it's in swimming, or whether it's about my own performances compared to male swimmers, or how performances are discussed in the context of some of the great male swimmers.

You know, how it's always you know, the next Michael Phelps or you know, and that's very understandable because Michael is the greatest swimmer of all time, male or female, greatest Olympic athlete of all time, and it's going to be very hard for anyone to ever surpass him in our sport.

But you know, just I think we always want the female athletes to be celebrated in their own right, and I think you're seeing that more and more, and right now I'm very excited about our women's swim team in the US just breaking world records left and right, winning tons and tons of medals.

I think the first six or seven days of the World Championships, the women on Tmusa had won a medal in every single event.

I think it we maybe didn't get all the way through the meet like that, but we had some relay world records, some relay American records, just some really great performances.

So I mean, I'd really like to see over the next three years my teammates get that great attention that they deserve, and I think it's a really exciting time for us as a team and building into Los Angeles in twenty twenty eight.

Yeah, let's talk about some of the swimming during the first few years of your career.

You had an unbeaten streak at major world competitions from twenty twelve through twenty sixteen.

You won every single individual final that you competed in, beginning at the London Olympics, all the way through Rio.

Thirteen straight finals, thirteen straight wins.

Twenty seventeen World Championships.

You competed in everything from the two hundred meter to the fifteen hundred meter, which is crazy.

You placed second in a final.

You were a runner up to Italy's Federica Pellegrini in the two hunderd meter, so a silver medal, which is still amazing, But it was also your first quote unquote loss.

So that was the headline of the moment for you, and it reminds me of at Serena William's peak, it was like not even news when she won another Grand Slam.

It was only news when she didn't.

So when you reflect on that experience, that first moment of like, oh I don't always win, how did it affect you and how has that stayed with you in terms of your preparation for more and later events.

I think at the time it may have stung a little bit, but also Federica Pellegrini is the best to inter freestyler of all time.

So I think I had to take a step back and remind myself of that.

And really, I think, for me, and I've talked about this recently.

I talked about this in my Stanford commencement speech, my goals have always been very time oriented.

I'm very rarely setting a goal to win the gold medal or to beat these competitors.

It's okay, I want to go this time at this meet, and these are the splits that I need to hit in the race to achieve this goal.

And that's what I'm working toward.

So I could win a gold medal and not feel like I achieved my goal.

I could win a silver medal but feel like I did achieve my goal.

So really, I do try to keep my focus on the times, and I think that has allowed me to have a healthy relationship with the sport and has allowed me to stay so motivated and to really enjoy the process.

I really love the training, Like I think, I love it more and more every year.

I love the people that I get to be with, I love my coaches.

I just love showing up and trying to get better.

And you know, I've gone long stretches where I haven't gone the best time I'm in some of my events because I set these really high standard world records, But I still have felt a sense of improvement during that time because I improve in practice, I improve my technique, I improve the times that I'm going in practice, the things that I'm able to do, and I just find that so rewarding.

So yeah, and there's no perfect swim, there's no perfect record, there's no perfect race.

There's always something for me to get better on.

As we talked about it earlier, I mean, people still watch my races and say that I don't kick, so that's still something I can work on.

I'm constantly trying to get better at kicking, so recognizing that there's always something to work on, and that's again why I find so much joy and excitement around around training.

It's so interesting you say that, because we literally are often watching you pete against yourself.

You're so far ahead, you're winning by a lot, especially in the long distance races that we're just watching to see if you can best something that you've already done, as opposed to besting the field.

So it's interesting that in your mind that's sort of the process as well, is like, how can I get to the place that I set for myself as opposed to beating the people competing alongside me?

And I imagine that that allows you then to put yourself out there in races like the two hundred meter where the margins are closer, where there are athletes that might beat you, that you're willing to put yourself in races that you won't necessarily win, because it's not always about the win, it's about you hitting the mark that you want.

Did you sort of have to give yourself permission to do that early on though, in order to be able to enter those races and not stress about not winning every time?

Yeah, I think so.

I think in many ways, I just saw it as a challenge, a challenge to myself, and I wanted to stretch my stretch myself and see what I could do in the shorter races, see what I could do in the longer races.

At the end of the day, I think I always knew that the shorter races would be the most challenging for me at the international level, but I really loved that challenge and I knew that if individually I wasn't winning that.

Even just by pushing myself to compete in those events, I was helping my team because I was preparing myself for the relays that I was going to be called upon to be on.

And I think even just by racing the two inter free nationally or internationally, I'm pushing my US competitors in those events, and that's bringing all of us up.

It's bringing our relay performances up.

So that's why I continue to swim the two hundred within the US, and I swim the two hundred on the four by two inter free style relay still internationally.

And we just broke the American record in that in Singapore, and I was really happy that I was able to put down one of my best splits ever.

I think it was my second fastest split ever in that and so that was probably the performance I was most excited about.

I love that.

Yeah, that's really cool.

And like I do think, when you have so much success, you have to find new ways to gauge progress.

And you mentioned that there have been times in your career when you've gone a long time without swimming a best time.

Look at the four under meter freestyle for instance, you first broke the record in twenty fourteen twice, then again in twenty sixteen as a nineteen year old at the Rio Olympics.

Three point fifty six forty six was the time there that stood for almost six years, that world record.

That's a really long time, particularly in this sport, for a record to stand.

It felt sort of untouchable for everyone for a while.

A couple of years later looking back and thinking like, why am I not doing better than nineteen year old me?

You're still putting up exceptional times, but you're not breaking that record.

Was it tough to work so hard to still have success but not be able to lower that record in those stretches that you didn't.

I mean, it was tough at times, But again I come back to the process and how much I've loved the process, and that's why I've continued on in the sport.

I mean, I think some people might go three or four years without going the best time and decide to retire or move on, But I truly have loved it, and I've just embraced the racing and the training, and I think that's just what made this year so much fun for me, because I broke my own world record and the eight hundred three in May, and that was a record that I hadn't touched since twenty sixteen, and so yeah, that was just it was just a moment where it just felt like all that work showed showed on the scoreboard.

But I had gotten to a place where I was fine if it didn't show on the scoreboard.

I was fine if I never went eight or four again.

I always I believed in myself and believed that I had the chance to do that, and then I was putting in the work to be able to do that.

But I was going to be fine with it if I went through my career and didn't touch that time again.

So I think that's just what made it feel so much better.

It did feel special.

But also like when you broke that record in May, you lowered your own world record in the eight hundred meter, it had been seven years since you broke a world record in a long course pool, and you swam your second fastest times in the four hundred meter and the fifteen hundred meter at.

That race, like you were just on it.

And you said afterward that the twenty twenty three World Championships was the first meet in a while that you went into some of your races thinking it was a possibility to break your world records.

I'm wondering what was going on in your training or your body, or what was happening around twenty twenty three that might have been like a pivot point after which you really felt like, Oh, I'm onto something here.

I could be getting back to that peak form.

Yeah.

I think I just built through the years.

I mean Tokyo.

It was kind of hard to gauge how Tokyo went because of COVID and just how strange that those two years really were.

So I think just getting back to normal training after Tokyo.

And I've been training in Florida at the University of Florida in Gainesville since twenty one Fall of twenty twenty one after Tokyo, and so I just had been building every year since then and felt like I was improving each year each meet and had kind of lowered my times each of those years to the point where in twenty twenty three I felt like I had that chance to go some best times and my coach, Anthony Nesty had really, you know, said something to me that made me start believing in that, and we felt like I had done that kind of preparation and was putting myself in that position.

So it's just been a great, great journey, great few years, you know, building through through Paris and then now through this summer of swimming.

And it makes the next few years even more exciting now because I've kind of raised my own standard, and my standard is always high to begin with, so it just kind of solidifies the belief in myself that I've had, and you know, gives me a new sense of confidence going into the next few years.

Well, and you have some folks pushing you too, which is kind of wild, these two youngsters.

You've got the Australian Ariana Titmus who's been around a while, pushing you.

But this Canadian Summer Macintosh sort of trading off lowering the mark for the four hundred meter world record.

Currently Summer Macintosh, nineteen years old, has the current mark three point fifty four eighteen.

She said at Canadian Nationals in June of this year.

First, is there something about being nineteen and setting world records?

What is it about that age?

Yeah?

I mean, I don't know.

I guess it's it's a good year for female distance, But yeah, I mean those two have had a great run these last two years, and then I mean this year and the eight hundred free.

There's also Lonnie Pallister from Australia who she got silver and had a really great time.

So there's no shortage of competition right now.

And I think the part that I had so much fun with in Singapore was it wasn't that I was going slower than my best times.

I mean I was right around my best time.

I was eight o five and the eight hundred free, that world record is eight oh four, and Lonnie was eight oh five, Summer was eight oh seven, she was eight o five earlier this year, So it's not like I'm going slower, like I'm going fastest I've been in years, and they're just falling right along, so I shouldn't even say they're following right along.

They're also setting the standard for me, so we're all just keeping each other on our toes.

As you said, the four new free has a lot of great competitors right now.

The eight hundred fifteen hundred free.

Also Simona Quaderella Italy swam fifteen thirty one, came the second fastest performer of all time, So yeah, it's going to be a great few years and women's distance swimming, and.

You seem like you actually like it.

I love it.

It's so fun.

It's not annoying hearing about all these youngsters coming for your titles, because.

I mean, at this point in my career too, I feel like I've achieved way more than I ever imagined I would when I started swimming when I was six years old, when I started internationally swimming when I was fifteen years old.

So it's really cool to feel like we're all together able to push the sport forward and set these new standards for others to follow.

And you know, I know that I'm in the second half of my career and you know someday I'm going to be retired, and you want to leave the sport in a better place than what you found it in, So.

I love it.

It also feels like you're enjoying it that way.

It's not stressful to you.

It's it's and it's communal, which can be tough in a an individual sport, but you're seeing it as something you're doing together instead of against each other in terms of setting new records and moving it forward, which is really cool.

You know, sometimes we talk about young athletes like Summer Macintosh or you back in the day, like oh, this is what they're doing now, imagine what they'll be like in a few years, instead of appreciating what's happening in the moment.

And sometimes particularly for women athletes, where peaks can be different depending on their bodies, they don't ever get faster or better.

Is there something you wish we could change about how we talk about the success of young athletes, or how we talk about how athletes female athletes develop and changes they get older.

I think that's a really good point.

I think it's something that you know, I think I think the athletes even start believing that themselves, and they probably don't appreciate the moments that they're having right now.

So yeah, I'm just thinking back to Rio and how I was thinking, and and even just how athletes I think in general think.

I think we're always thinking about the next thing, and we're thinking about the next goal, and even after Singapore, during this break that I'm having, I have all these different thoughts of what I could have done better in my races and what I need to work on, and I think it's important to take a step back and enjoy the moment still and not be too hard on yourself while you're evaluating and trying to get better.

So I think you're right that just athletes have different peaks.

And I think I was asked about this by some international reporter, I think at Worlds they asked me something about peaks, and I kind of just said, I don't really believe in peaks or these expectations or these beliefs that you're to achieve a peak at a certain age.

I think it's something that I was very aware of as a young distance swimmer, that there was this myth that if you're a female distance swimmer, you're going to peek at age fifteen or nineteen or twenty somewhere around there.

And I kind of always had in the back of my mind two thoughts, one thought of that could be me, and the other thought of, I want to bust that myth, and I want to keep going and I want to prove to people that that's not the case.

That you can be successful in distance swimming for many, many years, or as long as you want.

And I think it's been interesting over the years as I've gone through this sport to see kind of those reactions to you know, my swimming journey into my late twenties and.

Yeah, you're myth busting you're doing.

You have some people that that that call me, you know that that call that age old and swimming, And sometimes I kind of joke about it being old and swimming, and people kind of outside the sport of swimming say, come on, Katie, you're twenty eight.

That's still very young.

So there's there are all these talks about age.

And I think you've seen in other sports, how how especially in endurance sports marathon running, triathlons, marathon swimming, generally people get better as they get older.

So it makes me appreciate the opportunities that I have today as an athlete, as a female athlete, that I was able to swim through college and swim as a professional athlete.

I realized that there are swim in the sixties, seventies, eighties, even more recently that didn't have the opportunities to swim into their mid to late twenties because it didn't financially make sense, or they didn't they literally didn't have a team to swim for college swimming Title nine it came around later for women.

So it's something that it helps me reflect on the history of our sport, the history of women's sports, and makes me very appreciative of the opportunities that I have today.

And I hope that whenever I retire, I'm going to get to sit back and watch distance swimmers into their late twenties, early thirties, whatever they want to do, compete.

Well, you're setting an example for sure for them to watch, particularly in the sense of like, your career is now a mountain range.

It is peak peak, peak peak, It's.

Not one peak when you were younger, and so you have busted that myth that you wanted to I wonder if there's any really silly or quirky thing that you've done in training just to change things up, some weird prop that you used, some different crazy interval, Like is there ever a day that you're like, I don't want to just do laps today, or I don't want to work on my cake or my pull, I want to fill in the blank.

And you guys got weird with it.

I was a track athlete, so I know what it's like to be like I'm just running in circles.

I gotta do something else, Like there's never a day where you felt that way.

I mean, there was one day in preparation for Worlds, probably in June, where our coach randomly not not randomly, I shouldn't say randomly, because there's always a reason for everything.

But we were taken aback because we were putting the sprint group for the day.

Bobby Fink and I were an Emma Wyatt, one of my other teammates who swims the forned I am, and so we were doing twenty fives off the block and we were getting like four minutes of rest between twenty fives, and we were sitting around like, can we hurry this up?

Why are we getting all this rest?

This is what you guys do every day?

How do you do this?

Like it's And they actually wanted more rest, so you know, it's just it's kind of fun to trade places for a practice here and there with sprinters or iams or mix it up whenever we can.

Sounds like maybe more fun for you than for them.

That's like when I used to have the long run days and I was like, no, thank you, I didn't sign up for this.

You seem sort of superhuman to us mortals, untiring, indestructible, obsessed with getting better and working out every day where and how do you actually feel the wear and tear of years of training and competing.

Well, I'm not a superhuman and I think that's what I always thought when I started swimming when I was six, and the Olympics for on TV.

I always thought, Oh, you have to be some sort of superhero that get to that level.

But I, you know, went through the sport and realize that's not the case.

These people are normal, just like any anyone else.

So yeah, I mean, I certainly have to take my recovery very seriously.

And I sleep more now than I did when I was fifteen years old.

I cook for myself now, so I enjoy that that part of it, eating healthy and trying to make all the right decisions out of the pool.

So yeah, those things, I mean, those things I see as training.

I mean, it's part of the training.

If you don't do those things properly, you're going to impact how you feel at practice, and that's not good.

What's the most relatable thing about you?

Are you binge watching trashy TV?

Do you eat garbage on the couch every once in a while, do you forget to floss what's going to make us feel like you're like us because I'm not buying them, not a superhero thing.

I mean, not currently watching anything.

I let's see.

I mean I had ice cream last night.

Okay, all right, something?

What are you bad at?

What am I bad at?

I mean lots of things, I'm sure.

I mean, I don't think I broke eight minutes in the mile in eighth grade when we had to run the mile in gym class.

So it's that kick again.

You got no feet.

I might prefer the push up test and the sit up test than the mile.

So yeah, I know people who know that I'm a distance summer say that when I retire, oh, you should do like a marathon or an iron man or something.

And you have not seen me run.

I will stick to the pool.

All right, we got something?

Okay, last question for you.

We play our version of bench start cut, but you don't have to cut anything.

We just do good, gooder, and goodest.

So rank these an order from good, gooder and goodesta A Bruce Springsteen show, a training day in Florida, a whole week off.

Oh, I would go a whole week off good A Bruce Springsteen Show, Gooder, and what was it a training day or.

Training day in Florida, A regular trainer day in Florida.

Yeah, you know, that might be on par with a Bruce Springsteen show because it's just a train one training day.

Yeah, we'll allow it.

You're crazy, I mean, that's why or who you are.

Maybe if it was a week.

Would you have said a whole week off is bad if that was allowed as opposed to good?

Probably?

Yeah, oh my god.

Okay, Well, you know what, honestly, I love to hear that people like you, who have accomplished so much are like this.

It makes me feel good that you're doing the thing you should be doing.

No, it's good to take a week off here and there.

So well, not here and there, but at the end of the season, here we go.

It's not not a bad thing, not a bad thing.

Well, this podcast is probably the longest you've been out of the pool in a while, so we have to let you go.

Thank you so so much for the time.

It was so great to talk to you.

We're just such big fans at the show, and I'm sure everyone listening is too, so thanks so much for giving us some of your.

Insight, and of course thanks for having me.

Thanks again to Katie for taking the time.

We have to take another break.

When we return.

Bow Down Slices Royalty is in the room.

Welcome back, Slices.

We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too.

So here's our good game play of the day.

Pat yourself on the back, give yourself a high five.

Maybe you all.

Came through for my birthday doing good deeds to put some light out in the world.

Mo O'Donnell donated to a walk benefiting cancer and memory.

School friend and teammate who passed away, Tara V bought the person behind her their Starbucks and might now make it a Monday tradition wrightening folks days as they start another workweek.

Supercliice Marga donated to a cause I was raising money for called All Chicago that serves unhoused folks in my city, and Marsha p really stepped it up.

She wrote, quote, I.

Donated to the candidate running in my state against an anti woman, homophobic, anti trans anti education, anti clean water, anti feed, the hungry, anti voter rights, and pro Trump asshole.

Honestly, she is the worst of the worst.

Happy good game, Birthday to you, Sarah, and my money to Rob sand and a specialfech you.

Kimmy Reynolds end quote.

Hell yes, Marcia, we always love to hear from you, So hit us up on email good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe, Rate and review, y'all.

It's easy watch.

Honoring the women who paved the way, rating forty out of forty years.

Of US women's national team greatness review.

Monday Night's match between the Seattle Rain and Chicago Color Neutral Stars marked the beginning of a new tradition for the Rain called the Queen's Match, honoring trailblazing women in the sport of soccer.

This year's match celebrated the very first US women's national team, the nineteen eighty five squad, who traveled to Italy to play the first US women's national team match ever on August eighteenth, nineteen eighty five.

Monday Night marked exactly forty years to the day from when they first took the pitch at a time when there was no Women's World Cup and no women's soccer in the Olympics.

Truly, the eighty five vers paved the way for the teams that followed.

Shout out to front of the show Aaron Foley, who moderated a panel with the team at Seattle Women's sports bar Rough and Tumble Pub this Saturday before the game, chatting with eighty five legends like Michelle Acres and Denise Bender.

And shout out to the Rain for giving some very deserving women their flowers.

Now it's your turn rate and review.

Thanks for listening, y'all, See you tomorrow.

Good game, Katie, Good Game.

Eighty five rs you anyone who put limits on a young Katie.

Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones.

Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.

Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and Gianna Palmer.

Our associate producer is Lucy Jones.

Production assistance from Avery Loftus and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain.