July 1, 2024 • 33 mins
Swimmer Missy Franklin won four gold medals at her first Olympics. But as she trained for her second trip to the world stage, her mental health began to crumble. With so much to defend, the pool suddenly felt like a pressure cooker. She talks with Maya about coping with defeat and how she learned to value her identity outside of sports.
To hear more from Missy, listen to her podcast with Katie Hoff, Unfiltered Waters.
Sign up for Maya's new newsletter here https://bit.ly/41lPqaZ and follow her on instagram @DrMayaShankar.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, slight changers. This summer, Pushkin is going to the Olympics.
Our friends across the Pushkin network are sharing all sorts
of stories about one of the world's biggest sporting events.
They're talking to a coach who counsels all the Olympic coaches.
They're diving deep into the latest sports science, and they're
sharing the origin story of brands like Puma and Adidas.
(00:23):
Here at a slight change of plans. For the next
few weeks, we're going to be hearing from three Olympic
swimmers about how they handled some fascinating life transitions. I
really think you'll love this series. I hope you enjoy
it Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I remember sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire
way to practice and just knowing that I was gonna go,
and that I was about to jump into a freezing
cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed
with how I did.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Swimmer Missy Franklin won four Olympic gold medals as a teenager,
but as she trained for her second Olympics, she found
herself unexpectedly struggling with so much to defend. The pool
suddenly felt like a pressure cooker.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
This is not just a swim mate. This is who
I am. And if I don't do this, why am
I here? What is my worth? I have none if
I can't do this and do it well.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
On today's episode, when the loss of an identity threatens
your self worth, I'm maya Shunker and this is a
slight change of plans, a show about who we are
and who we become in the face of a big change.
(02:05):
At just seventeen years old, Missy Franklin was laser focused
on qualifying for the twenty twelve Olympics in London. This
dream was years in the making. From the time Missy
was a little kid, swimming had been at the center
of her life.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I got into the water because my mom never learned
how to swim, and she didn't want to pass that
fear down on to me, and she signed us up
for a mommy and me class at our local YMCA
when I was six months old, and I was that
baby that was getting dunked under and coming back up,
just laughing and loving every second of it. And so
even though to some it seems crazy to be training
(02:44):
for an Olympics at seventeen, to me, I was just
doing what I loved every single day, and there was
hard work, but I never saw anything I did as
sacrifice because it was my goal and it was my dream.
I wasn't concerned about other people's expectations. I wasn't concerned
about what other people wanted me to achieve. I had
(03:04):
my own dreams, my own goals, and I was focused
on those. So in twenty twelve, that's just what I
was working towards every single day.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You mentioned that you never thought of your commitment as
sacrifice because you loved it so much. Share a bit
more about what that commitment looked like. What was your
everyday life like in the lead up to twenty twelve.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
We'd practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so that means swimming twice,
once in the morning, once in the afternoon, each for
about two hours, and then we'd have single swim sessions
on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But I don't think people
can sometimes totally comprehend the fact that it is a
twenty four to seven job because everything needs to be
(03:44):
supported by everything you're doing outside of that space as well.
So it's your sleep, it's your nutrition, it's your recovery.
And then also I was seventeen years old, right, So
I was going to high school.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I was still in school every.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Single day, and then traveling and doing different promos for
the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and NBC and
traveling for different meats preparing leading up to that summer.
But it sounds like a lot. It was also all
that I knew, So to me, that was just life.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, tell me a bit more about where your head
was at as you were you were prepping for London,
and it's wow, like maybe these big dreams of mine
can actually come true.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, so I think heading into London, my goal truly
was to make the team, like that was really all
that I had set on myself. And if you talk
to any swimmer, they will tell you that Olympic trials
is infinitely more intense and more pressure filled than the
actual Olympics themselves, because once you made the team, you
(04:48):
made it right, you're an Olympian, Like you get to
be an Olympian for the rest of your life. But
our races come down to hundreds of a second, and
so there's no room for or mistake, there's no room
for air. You might get sick, you might get injured,
like if you have a bad sleep the night before, Like,
there's so many variables that could impact these singular eight
(05:10):
days that you have to make an Olympic team.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You had mentioned to me that you didn't feel the pressure,
the weight of other people's expectations at this stage, and
so was that partly why you were able to be
cool and collected during those trials.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think a lot of it was just the.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Fact that I was seventeen and I was naive, and
that just absolutely played to my advantage of again, I
was just out there doing what I loved.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So, I mean, Missy, your performance in those games was
just absolutely unreal. Do you mind sharing your accomplishments?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So after Olympic trials, I had qualified for my first
Olympic Games and seven events, and then actually arriving in London,
being in the village and getting to walk onto the
Olympic pool deck for the first time, all of it
was just so surreal. I ended up walking away from
those games with four gold medals, one bronze, and two
(06:11):
world records.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So astonishing to hear those words like I know that,
I know that, but just to like hear that is insane.
It's like oh yeah, I forgot about the bronze ones
as well, and like the world records And is there
any specific memory you have from those games and your celebrations.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, oh my gosh, And it has nothing to do
with a single one of those medals. The night that
I had won my first gold medal, I was still
writing such a high from that whole evening and just
everything that came with it. And we were at the
warm up pool in the village and I checked my
phone and I had a tweet from Justin Bieber, and
(06:55):
I lost my mind. Like if you can just imagine
like seventeen year old Missy like running circles around the
pool in the middle of the Olympic village, just like
screaming like a little girl that she'd gotten a tweet
from Justin Bieber. Like it just was like the perfect
example of again.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yes, I was so happy to be there.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I couldn't believe I was accomplishing those things, but I
was also just a seventeen year old girl.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Wow. So I want to talk about the aftermath of
your success, because sometimes we don't pay enough attention to
what follows these massive, epic, life changing wins. You know,
you come back to the US and your four time
gold medalist, Missy Franklin. You immediately go back to training
and preparing for now the twenty sixteen Olympic Games. And
(07:46):
as you started to train for those, you began to
face some new challenges. Do you mind telling me a
bit about those?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, that's funnily enough.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
What a lot of people don't understand is that as
soon as an Olympic Games is so, we might take
a couple of weeks off, but the next summer for
US is World Championships, and so we get right back
into training because we have a really serious meet again
next summer. And so I remember particularly coming back from
London and thinking that I wanted to prove that I
(08:18):
wasn't just a one hit wonder. That I wanted to
go to Worlds in twenty thirteen and have an unbelievable
performance almost to back London up in a way, to
kind of prove that I can do this again. And
so I worked so hard that year, which was my
senior year of high school, ended up going to Worlds.
I won six gold medals at World Championships, and it
(08:41):
was just like again a dream experience. And then I
went to college so I swam for two years at
the University of California, Berkeley, and then I turned professional
in twenty fifteen leading up to the twenty sixteen Olympic
Games in Rio, and I would say that that was
when they really changed for me. I was at that
(09:02):
point twenty years old, so I was still very young,
but I was.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
No longer naive. I was no longer a rookie.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's so hard getting to the top, but it's even
harder staying there. And now I did have those expectations
and that pressure, and then you add new sponsors on
top of that, and swimming now becoming my job as
opposed to just something that I love and enjoy. And
I think that for me is what completely changed my mindset,
(09:33):
and I lost all sense of balance during that time.
I think I got in the mindset for Rio that
in order for me to be the best I'd ever been,
I needed to just commit and devote myself fully to
my sport.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I think for some athletes.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It works to completely devote themselves to their sport and
to not have balance in their life, just to be
they live and they breathe their sport, and that is
what works for them. I learned in that period that
that is not something that worked for me. When swimming
became my whole world, it also became my whole identity,
(10:13):
and so bad practices, bad races I began equating with
bad sense of self and self worth and self esteem,
and so it was such a hard time for me.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I was very, very lonely, and.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I started to feel the world's pressure on me as
well that not only was I expected to make the team,
but I was expected to go back to Rio and
have an even better performance there than I did in London.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What was it now like day to day as your training?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It was so hard for me, Maya, because there were
days that I was so confused because I had never
felt like this before. So there were mornings where my
alarm would go off at four forty five. I'd be
getting up on my way to practice, but I remember
sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire way to
practice and just knowing that I was going to go
(11:04):
and that I was about to jump into a freezing
cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed
with how I did. But I was going to do
it anyway because I felt like I had no choice.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I've read that when people had asked young Missy, like
seventeen year old Missy, what advice do you have for
people who don't want to go to practice or are
struggling with their motivation, you would cheepishly be like, I've
never really had that problem. Yeah, I just love going
to the pool, and I actually don't face those motivational
challenges because this is the thing that I'm so passionate about.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
It was so funny to me that I was put
in those situations, and I would always feel so horrible
when I would have young athletes come up and ask
what to do in periods of plateau or when they
weren't feeling motivated.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And I would have nothing to say.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I had truly just always been so happy and enjoyed
the sports so much. And the amount of other swimmers
that would come up to me after they had gotten
to know me that told me we thought it was
an act, Like we thought that it was all for
the media, that it was all like that you just
love like we didn't believe that someone could actually love
this sport that much. And now that we know you,
(12:15):
we see that it's real and it's authentic and you
actually love swimming as much as you say you do
with that.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And that completely disappeared. Leading up to Rio.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I think I became so focused on the expectation and
I put so much pressure on myself that swimming very
very quickly became not fun for me.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
What was what was happening to your mental health around
this time?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So I don't think I really realized what was happening
because I had never experienced anything like this, and so
it was months and months and months before I think
it finally hit me that this is something bigger, like
something much deeper is going on here that I don't
know how to name, I don't know how to diagnose.
(13:03):
All I know is that I am deeply, deeply unhappy
and feel very alone and very sad. And so it
wasn't until I think around March or April of twenty sixteen,
so that is I mean, months before, months before Olympic trials,
where I finally called a meeting with my swim coach
(13:25):
and my strength and conditioning coach and I just looked
at them and I said, something is wrong, like something
is very wrong. And I had been trying to push
through it. I had been trying to pretend that it
wasn't there. And that's why I'm not a fan of
the phrase fake it till you make it, because I
think that can lead to tendencies of repressing things as
(13:45):
opposed to truly addressing them. And I was trying to
fake it at practice. I was trying to fake it
at competitions that I was confident, that I was calm,
that everything was going to be okay, but my mind knew,
and if your mind knows, your body knows. And I
was just fighting it constantly, and the exhaustion was unlike
anything I had ever felt before in my life, and
(14:07):
of course that was inhibiting my performance. And so I
sat down with them and they immediately got me into
a primary care doctor, to a sports psychologist, and I
got immediately diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety, and an eating
disorder as well, which was something that I knew I
had been battling for several months, but to actually put
(14:29):
a name to it, I think was really really tough,
and it was so overwhelming, Maya, to get all of
that at one time, and to think that I literally
had months when people were expecting me to be the
best I had ever been, and I had never felt
further from that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I wonder was there ever a script that was playing
in your mind or a certain kind of rumination pattern
that you felt yourself falling into.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, I mean I think that rumination and that pattern
was just negative self talk. It kind of dawned on
me that I hadn't said something kind to myself in months,
that I hadn't said something encouraging to myself. And for
those that know me, I am the most positive, optimistic
(15:21):
person that you will ever meet. And that person was gone.
And it's so crazy to think that she fully disappeared
before I even realized she was fading.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It was just such a stark contrast. And I think
it's that double edged sword of the elite athlete mentality
of you just keep going and you just figure it out,
like we're just we have that mindset to keep pushing
and to keep moving forward.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
But when that comes to mental health.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I think that that can be so damaging because if
you're pushing through that and not addressing it, it's only
going to get harder to deal with as time goes on.
Because in my case, the problems were just getting more severe.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And what kinds of things would you say to yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I think my berating of myself really came down to
not believing I had any worth outside of what I
could do in a pool. So if I wasn't capable
of breaking world records and winning gold medals, why was
I here? You know, what other purpose did I serve
other than to do what I was put on this
(16:31):
earth to do, which in my mind was to swim
like that.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That's all I had ever known since I was so young,
and all I had ever known was that success. So
I think it really just came down to not understanding
or not knowing what my worth was.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
If it wasn't in the pool.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
What do you think gave rise to the eating disorder
in particular? Tell me a bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So, I think, with my self worth being the lowest
it had ever been in and again, feeling so out
of control, I turned to the one thing I felt
like I could control, which was my nutrition and my body.
And so, of course it's a tough scenario as an
adolescent female to be in anyway, right, being in a
(17:16):
swimsuit in front of so many people and trying to
deal with that. And I think when I was younger
and growing up, I really had this respect for my
body that I couldn't do what I did in the
water without my body, without my broad shoulders, without being
six ' to two, without having size twelve feet. It
(17:37):
allowed me to accomplish the things that I accomplished, but
then when I stopped accomplishing those, it was like, well,
then what is this body worth. It's not helping me,
it's not aiding me, So it doesn't have to be
like this. So I got so restrictive in my intake calorically,
and I think it had a huge impact on my performance.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And here I am training.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Two to four hours a day, eating barely enough calories.
I mean, I don't know how I was doing it.
And so all those diagnoses were just so hard because
we didn't have time to go to the foundation and
systemically fix the problem, like we were trying to put
a band aid over a gaping wound that needed staples.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
You're a few months away from needing to compete in Rio,
and not just compete, defend your titles, defend your your ranking,
your reputation in the world of swimming. What did that
version of bandating look like?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So, well, the other piece of all of this is
that I actually did sustain a physical injury in April,
So I injured my shoulder in April, and again that
was something that we didn't have time to fix. And
so at that point, I'm just distraught, like I'm now
emotionally and physically so far away from where I need
(19:02):
to be. So my band aid solution was immediately getting
in with the sports psychologist, a nutritionist, and a physical therapist,
and those three were there to just do what they could.
Before Olympic trials, we had, you know, eight to twelve
weeks of time to work with to try and get
me in the best position possible. And I think we
(19:24):
all knew going into it that I was nowhere near
one hundred percent, but I was at the percentage I
was at, and that was all that I was going
to have to give. And I remember going into Olympic
Trials just being absolutely terrified.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Did you find yourself having to do some of these hacky,
fake it till you make it type strategies just to
get by during that time?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And what did that look like?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It was just the big old miss you smile. And
it was the first time in my life that it
wasn't genuine but I was trying to put that smile
on for everyone else. I was trying to be that happy,
bubbly seventeen year old that they all remembered and were
expecting me to be, even though I had probably never
felt further from her in my life.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
And I just didn't want to let people down.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
And so I remember going into trials not out of
joy or excitement and love for the sport, but just
being absolutely terrified that I wasn't going to do what
was expected of me.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And how did the trials go?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, so definitely off to a rocky start for trials
for Rio. I failed to make the team in the
event that I was the reigning Olympic champion in from
twenty twelve, and not even that, I mean I got seventh,
so there's only eight people in a heat, so I
almost got dead.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Last in my heat.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And I remember going back to my hotel room that
night and sobbing, like just absolu, like I felt embarrassed,
like I felt ashamed. I was just holding so much,
and I kind of just gave myself talk in the
hotel room of you know, you can pack up and
leave right now, like you can get on a flight
and you can go home, but you will never forgive
(21:09):
yourself like you can do that. Or you can go
out and you can finish this swim meet, and it
may continue to be embarrassing. You may not make this
Olympic team. You may be more heartbroken and disappointed than
you've ever been, but it would be nothing compared to
if you didn't try.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
of plans. Despite a disappointing performance at the twenty sixteen
Olympic Trials, Missy still qualified to compete for the US.
(21:52):
She would swim in three events in Rio. The night
before her first event, Missy and her teammates celebrated at
the opening ceremony, but when she returned back to her
room in the Olympic village, she was hit with an
overwhelming sense of dread.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I remember calling my parents the night before the meat started,
and I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.
I remember my dad, in particular, just repeating over and
over again. He was like, honey, it is just a
swim meat. It is just a swim meat. And I, like,
I just couldn't like comprehend what he was saying. And
(22:31):
I knew what he was trying to do, but in
my mind, like it was so much more than that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
What I'm hearing from you is that your dad's telling you, Missy,
this is just a swim meet, and you're thinking, no,
this is my opportunity to defend my existence on the
planet Earth.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Exactly. Yes, I'm like, this is not just a swim mate.
This is who I am. And if I don't do this,
why am I here?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
What is my worth?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I have none if I can't do this and do
it well. And so the next eight days were so tough.
I didn't make the top eight in any of my
individual events. I swam on the morning prelims relay of
the eight hundred freestyle relay, and my time was not
fast enough to put me on the finals relay.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
But the way that.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Swimming works is if you are a prelim swimmer on
a relay, even if you aren't in the group of
four that wins the medal in finals, you still get
that medal. So I still won a gold medal because
my amazing teammates were able to bring home the golds
in the eight hundred freestyle relay in Rio. I watched
(23:39):
them do it in a beam bag chair on TV
from the village, and that was how I won my
fifth gold medal. That whole competition for me, truly was
just survival.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I've looked back at footage and I've read interviews from
that time, and Missy, I feel like you could hold
a master class in the art of graciousness in face
of defeat and failure and lost. It was so inspiring
for me to see how you engaged with your teammates,
(24:13):
with the press, with everyone that week. I mean, like
we all aspire as human beings to act like that
when we lose.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That means so much to me.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Truly, that is the highest compliment I can I could
ever ask to receive, and that was what I decided
to do there is I realized very quickly that I
was not going to be an inspiration like I was
in London by winning gold medals and breaking world records.
I had always talked about the kind of person I
wanted to be in defeat, and now was my chance
(24:47):
to prove it and.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
To actually be that person.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
And if there was anything I could walk away being
proud of from those eight days, I wanted it to
be how I handled myself outside of the pool.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So you wrap up a very challenging week in Rio
and you fly home. What were the days and weeks
like after?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean, it's hard to put into words.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I was feeling so many different emotions and just ultimately
just sadness and disappointment. We got home, and we landed
back in the US and back in Colorado, and we
were driving home and as we pulled into my neighborhood
and pulled up to my house, all the kids of
the neighborhood were standing there with signs and they had
(25:35):
made cut out hearts and they had all written ways
that I had inspired them in Rio, and they had
put them all over my yard. And I remember just
like completely breaking down in that moment and realizing who
you are and what you do outside of the competition
space can actually have a significantly bigger impact than what
(25:56):
you do inside of it. And I think that was
step one of the healing process, because I don't think
I believed that at the time of myself, but just
to know that other people did, and to be surrounded
by that much love and grace and compassion was just like,
was so beautiful and so moving. I went back to
(26:18):
college I immediately got bilateral shoulder surgery and then started
working with a therapist, immediately started meeting once a week,
super regular in person. I wanted it to be true
therapy and not just sports psychology, because I knew that
my issues kind of stemmed deeper than just sports, and
how it had rooted into every aspect of my life.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And by the way, what an important realization to thank you?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
You know?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, I think that reflects something like even symbolically, which
is so important, which is given again that your identity
had been so tether to being a swimmer. What that
tells me is that you were interested in treating not
just Missy the athlete for the sake of improved performance,
but Missy the person.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's a beautiful way of putting it.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I don't think I've ever looked at it that way,
but I did understand that it was Missy the person
that was the most broken. And so it was a long,
long process. I, emotionally and mentally, over time, was able
to heal and learn and grow and get into a
place where, maybe for the first time in my life,
(27:28):
I understood that what I could do in a pool
has nothing to do with who I am as a
person and my self worth and my value and what
I have to offer, and I began to see myself
as more than just the swimmer and everything that came
along with that. And it was so incredibly freeing and
powerful to experience that. And then I dreamed of this amazing, epic,
(27:53):
incredible comeback, and unfortunately the physical injuries just wouldn't let
it it happen. Getting to that place from the mental
standpoint and then physically not being able to continue to
compete when I felt like I was ready, like I
could and like I wanted to was devastating.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, I can feel the intoxication of an epic comeback
and what a satisfying narrative that would be. How did
you handle the disappointment of because what I'm hearing from
you is that you put in all the mental labor
to get yourself back to a healthier place, but your
body wasn't cooperating right, Your shoulder injury was not improving,
(28:33):
And so how did you handle that frustration.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
As an elite athlete?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And I just think as a person, I mean, you
don't even have to be an athlete when your body
is inhibiting you from doing something you feel trapped, you
feel angry, you feel frustrated, because in my mind, there
was nothing from a physical standpoint that I couldn't push through.
And I tried so hard and I did everything possible.
(29:02):
And it was a conversation that I had with my
now husband at the time, and he said, honey, I
want you to be able to throw our kids up
in the air one day without pain. Like That's what
he was thinking of, and he knew those were my
priorities as well. I truly just came to that realization
that even if I went through everything that my surgeons
(29:25):
were suggesting, I didn't think I was going to be
at the place I needed to be to compete at
my best and represent my country in a way that
I was truly proud of. Because I knew that if
I continued to go down this road, which was going
to be more surgeries, more recoveries, more intensity, with an
Olympics right around the corner, that I was going to
(29:47):
start to lose that mental and emotional.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
State that I had worked so hard to gain.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, and catch me up on life today. I mean,
you have so many identities that you carry. You're a wife,
you're a mother, you're a podcaster, you're an advocate. What
is your relationship with swimming like today?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So I do have a beautiful relationship with swimming now,
which I'm very thankful for. I still work heavily with
the USA Swimming Foundation, which is the philanthropic side of
USA Swimming. So giving back to the sport is incredibly
important to me because it gave me so much, and
so being able to give back working with the Foundation
providing free and low costs from lessons to communities that
(30:30):
need is just a huge piece of what I do
to stay involved in the sport. I also recently started
a podcast with my Olympic teammate Katie Hoff, and we
are so thankful to be involved in the sport in
that way and to have these amazing conversations with not
just swimmers but athletes about the true, vulnerable moments of
(30:52):
what it is that we do and what we've learned
from it, and how we can share that with one
another to help each other grow. So that's been a
beautiful way to stay involved. And my coach would always
say that swimming is the only sport that will save
your life and that you can do for the rest
of your life. I just know it's just like a
(31:12):
very old friend. Even if I go a while without
talking to it, I know that the second I get
back in, it's going to be like no time at.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
All has passed.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you want to
hear more conversations about what goes on inside the minds
of elite athletes, Missy has a podcast of her own
called Unfiltered Waters. We'll link to it in the show notes,
and next week join me for my conversation with Paralympic
gold medalist and US Navy veteran Brad Snyder. After a
(32:06):
bomb left him blind, Brad found healing in the swimming pool.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Getting into the pool was the first time I felt
like I could wrap my arms around normal. This was me.
I was free, and I felt there's a future here
and I'm going to find my way and it was
the beginning of a real, incredible journey.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
As always, we'd be so grateful if you can follow
this show wherever you listen to podcasts and help spread
the word, whether it's leaving a review or telling a
friend about an episode you loved. It helps us keep
making this show for you. Thanks so much, and I'll
see you next week. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
(32:53):
and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Parkinson Morgan, our senior producer Trisha Bobita, and our engineer
Erica Huang. Luis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
(33:13):
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so a big
thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
thanks to Jimmy Leek. You can follow A Slight Change
of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you
next week.
Hey, slight changers. This summer, Pushkin is going to the Olympics.
Our friends across the Pushkin network are sharing all sorts
of stories about one of the world's biggest sporting events.
They're talking to a coach who counsels all the Olympic coaches.
They're diving deep into the latest sports science, and they're
sharing the origin story of brands like Puma and Adidas.
(00:23):
Here at a slight change of plans. For the next
few weeks, we're going to be hearing from three Olympic
swimmers about how they handled some fascinating life transitions. I
really think you'll love this series. I hope you enjoy
it Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I remember sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire
way to practice and just knowing that I was gonna go,
and that I was about to jump into a freezing
cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed
with how I did.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Swimmer Missy Franklin won four Olympic gold medals as a teenager,
but as she trained for her second Olympics, she found
herself unexpectedly struggling with so much to defend. The pool
suddenly felt like a pressure cooker.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
This is not just a swim mate. This is who
I am. And if I don't do this, why am
I here? What is my worth? I have none if
I can't do this and do it well.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
On today's episode, when the loss of an identity threatens
your self worth, I'm maya Shunker and this is a
slight change of plans, a show about who we are
and who we become in the face of a big change.
(02:05):
At just seventeen years old, Missy Franklin was laser focused
on qualifying for the twenty twelve Olympics in London. This
dream was years in the making. From the time Missy
was a little kid, swimming had been at the center
of her life.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I got into the water because my mom never learned
how to swim, and she didn't want to pass that
fear down on to me, and she signed us up
for a mommy and me class at our local YMCA
when I was six months old, and I was that
baby that was getting dunked under and coming back up,
just laughing and loving every second of it. And so
even though to some it seems crazy to be training
(02:44):
for an Olympics at seventeen, to me, I was just
doing what I loved every single day, and there was
hard work, but I never saw anything I did as
sacrifice because it was my goal and it was my dream.
I wasn't concerned about other people's expectations. I wasn't concerned
about what other people wanted me to achieve. I had
(03:04):
my own dreams, my own goals, and I was focused
on those. So in twenty twelve, that's just what I
was working towards every single day.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You mentioned that you never thought of your commitment as
sacrifice because you loved it so much. Share a bit
more about what that commitment looked like. What was your
everyday life like in the lead up to twenty twelve.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
We'd practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so that means swimming twice,
once in the morning, once in the afternoon, each for
about two hours, and then we'd have single swim sessions
on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But I don't think people
can sometimes totally comprehend the fact that it is a
twenty four to seven job because everything needs to be
(03:44):
supported by everything you're doing outside of that space as well.
So it's your sleep, it's your nutrition, it's your recovery.
And then also I was seventeen years old, right, So
I was going to high school.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I was still in school every.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Single day, and then traveling and doing different promos for
the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and NBC and
traveling for different meats preparing leading up to that summer.
But it sounds like a lot. It was also all
that I knew, So to me, that was just life.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, tell me a bit more about where your head
was at as you were you were prepping for London,
and it's wow, like maybe these big dreams of mine
can actually come true.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, so I think heading into London, my goal truly
was to make the team, like that was really all
that I had set on myself. And if you talk
to any swimmer, they will tell you that Olympic trials
is infinitely more intense and more pressure filled than the
actual Olympics themselves, because once you made the team, you
(04:48):
made it right, you're an Olympian, Like you get to
be an Olympian for the rest of your life. But
our races come down to hundreds of a second, and
so there's no room for or mistake, there's no room
for air. You might get sick, you might get injured,
like if you have a bad sleep the night before, Like,
there's so many variables that could impact these singular eight
(05:10):
days that you have to make an Olympic team.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You had mentioned to me that you didn't feel the pressure,
the weight of other people's expectations at this stage, and
so was that partly why you were able to be
cool and collected during those trials.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think a lot of it was just the.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Fact that I was seventeen and I was naive, and
that just absolutely played to my advantage of again, I
was just out there doing what I loved.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So, I mean, Missy, your performance in those games was
just absolutely unreal. Do you mind sharing your accomplishments?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So after Olympic trials, I had qualified for my first
Olympic Games and seven events, and then actually arriving in London,
being in the village and getting to walk onto the
Olympic pool deck for the first time, all of it
was just so surreal. I ended up walking away from
those games with four gold medals, one bronze, and two
(06:11):
world records.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So astonishing to hear those words like I know that,
I know that, but just to like hear that is insane.
It's like oh yeah, I forgot about the bronze ones
as well, and like the world records And is there
any specific memory you have from those games and your celebrations.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, oh my gosh, And it has nothing to do
with a single one of those medals. The night that
I had won my first gold medal, I was still
writing such a high from that whole evening and just
everything that came with it. And we were at the
warm up pool in the village and I checked my
phone and I had a tweet from Justin Bieber, and
(06:55):
I lost my mind. Like if you can just imagine
like seventeen year old Missy like running circles around the
pool in the middle of the Olympic village, just like
screaming like a little girl that she'd gotten a tweet
from Justin Bieber. Like it just was like the perfect
example of again.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yes, I was so happy to be there.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I couldn't believe I was accomplishing those things, but I
was also just a seventeen year old girl.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Wow. So I want to talk about the aftermath of
your success, because sometimes we don't pay enough attention to
what follows these massive, epic, life changing wins. You know,
you come back to the US and your four time
gold medalist, Missy Franklin. You immediately go back to training
and preparing for now the twenty sixteen Olympic Games. And
(07:46):
as you started to train for those, you began to
face some new challenges. Do you mind telling me a
bit about those?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, that's funnily enough.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
What a lot of people don't understand is that as
soon as an Olympic Games is so, we might take
a couple of weeks off, but the next summer for
US is World Championships, and so we get right back
into training because we have a really serious meet again
next summer. And so I remember particularly coming back from
London and thinking that I wanted to prove that I
(08:18):
wasn't just a one hit wonder. That I wanted to
go to Worlds in twenty thirteen and have an unbelievable
performance almost to back London up in a way, to
kind of prove that I can do this again. And
so I worked so hard that year, which was my
senior year of high school, ended up going to Worlds.
I won six gold medals at World Championships, and it
(08:41):
was just like again a dream experience. And then I
went to college so I swam for two years at
the University of California, Berkeley, and then I turned professional
in twenty fifteen leading up to the twenty sixteen Olympic
Games in Rio, and I would say that that was
when they really changed for me. I was at that
(09:02):
point twenty years old, so I was still very young,
but I was.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
No longer naive. I was no longer a rookie.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's so hard getting to the top, but it's even
harder staying there. And now I did have those expectations
and that pressure, and then you add new sponsors on
top of that, and swimming now becoming my job as
opposed to just something that I love and enjoy. And
I think that for me is what completely changed my mindset,
(09:33):
and I lost all sense of balance during that time.
I think I got in the mindset for Rio that
in order for me to be the best I'd ever been,
I needed to just commit and devote myself fully to
my sport.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I think for some athletes.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It works to completely devote themselves to their sport and
to not have balance in their life, just to be
they live and they breathe their sport, and that is
what works for them. I learned in that period that
that is not something that worked for me. When swimming
became my whole world, it also became my whole identity,
(10:13):
and so bad practices, bad races I began equating with
bad sense of self and self worth and self esteem,
and so it was such a hard time for me.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I was very, very lonely, and.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I started to feel the world's pressure on me as
well that not only was I expected to make the team,
but I was expected to go back to Rio and
have an even better performance there than I did in London.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What was it now like day to day as your training?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It was so hard for me, Maya, because there were
days that I was so confused because I had never
felt like this before. So there were mornings where my
alarm would go off at four forty five. I'd be
getting up on my way to practice, but I remember
sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire way to
practice and just knowing that I was going to go
(11:04):
and that I was about to jump into a freezing
cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed
with how I did. But I was going to do
it anyway because I felt like I had no choice.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I've read that when people had asked young Missy, like
seventeen year old Missy, what advice do you have for
people who don't want to go to practice or are
struggling with their motivation, you would cheepishly be like, I've
never really had that problem. Yeah, I just love going
to the pool, and I actually don't face those motivational
challenges because this is the thing that I'm so passionate about.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
It was so funny to me that I was put
in those situations, and I would always feel so horrible
when I would have young athletes come up and ask
what to do in periods of plateau or when they
weren't feeling motivated.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And I would have nothing to say.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I had truly just always been so happy and enjoyed
the sports so much. And the amount of other swimmers
that would come up to me after they had gotten
to know me that told me we thought it was
an act, Like we thought that it was all for
the media, that it was all like that you just
love like we didn't believe that someone could actually love
this sport that much. And now that we know you,
(12:15):
we see that it's real and it's authentic and you
actually love swimming as much as you say you do
with that.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And that completely disappeared. Leading up to Rio.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I think I became so focused on the expectation and
I put so much pressure on myself that swimming very
very quickly became not fun for me.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
What was what was happening to your mental health around
this time?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So I don't think I really realized what was happening
because I had never experienced anything like this, and so
it was months and months and months before I think
it finally hit me that this is something bigger, like
something much deeper is going on here that I don't
know how to name, I don't know how to diagnose.
(13:03):
All I know is that I am deeply, deeply unhappy
and feel very alone and very sad. And so it
wasn't until I think around March or April of twenty sixteen,
so that is I mean, months before, months before Olympic trials,
where I finally called a meeting with my swim coach
(13:25):
and my strength and conditioning coach and I just looked
at them and I said, something is wrong, like something
is very wrong. And I had been trying to push
through it. I had been trying to pretend that it
wasn't there. And that's why I'm not a fan of
the phrase fake it till you make it, because I
think that can lead to tendencies of repressing things as
(13:45):
opposed to truly addressing them. And I was trying to
fake it at practice. I was trying to fake it
at competitions that I was confident, that I was calm,
that everything was going to be okay, but my mind knew,
and if your mind knows, your body knows. And I
was just fighting it constantly, and the exhaustion was unlike
anything I had ever felt before in my life, and
(14:07):
of course that was inhibiting my performance. And so I
sat down with them and they immediately got me into
a primary care doctor, to a sports psychologist, and I
got immediately diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety, and an eating
disorder as well, which was something that I knew I
had been battling for several months, but to actually put
(14:29):
a name to it, I think was really really tough,
and it was so overwhelming, Maya, to get all of
that at one time, and to think that I literally
had months when people were expecting me to be the
best I had ever been, and I had never felt
further from that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I wonder was there ever a script that was playing
in your mind or a certain kind of rumination pattern
that you felt yourself falling into.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah, I mean I think that rumination and that pattern
was just negative self talk. It kind of dawned on
me that I hadn't said something kind to myself in months,
that I hadn't said something encouraging to myself. And for
those that know me, I am the most positive, optimistic
(15:21):
person that you will ever meet. And that person was gone.
And it's so crazy to think that she fully disappeared
before I even realized she was fading.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It was just such a stark contrast. And I think
it's that double edged sword of the elite athlete mentality
of you just keep going and you just figure it out,
like we're just we have that mindset to keep pushing
and to keep moving forward.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
But when that comes to mental health.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I think that that can be so damaging because if
you're pushing through that and not addressing it, it's only
going to get harder to deal with as time goes on.
Because in my case, the problems were just getting more severe.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And what kinds of things would you say to yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I think my berating of myself really came down to
not believing I had any worth outside of what I
could do in a pool. So if I wasn't capable
of breaking world records and winning gold medals, why was
I here? You know, what other purpose did I serve
other than to do what I was put on this
(16:31):
earth to do, which in my mind was to swim
like that.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That's all I had ever known since I was so young,
and all I had ever known was that success. So
I think it really just came down to not understanding
or not knowing what my worth was.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
If it wasn't in the pool.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
What do you think gave rise to the eating disorder
in particular? Tell me a bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So, I think, with my self worth being the lowest
it had ever been in and again, feeling so out
of control, I turned to the one thing I felt
like I could control, which was my nutrition and my body.
And so, of course it's a tough scenario as an
adolescent female to be in anyway, right, being in a
(17:16):
swimsuit in front of so many people and trying to
deal with that. And I think when I was younger
and growing up, I really had this respect for my
body that I couldn't do what I did in the
water without my body, without my broad shoulders, without being
six ' to two, without having size twelve feet. It
(17:37):
allowed me to accomplish the things that I accomplished, but
then when I stopped accomplishing those, it was like, well,
then what is this body worth. It's not helping me,
it's not aiding me, So it doesn't have to be
like this. So I got so restrictive in my intake calorically,
and I think it had a huge impact on my performance.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And here I am training.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Two to four hours a day, eating barely enough calories.
I mean, I don't know how I was doing it.
And so all those diagnoses were just so hard because
we didn't have time to go to the foundation and
systemically fix the problem, like we were trying to put
a band aid over a gaping wound that needed staples.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
You're a few months away from needing to compete in Rio,
and not just compete, defend your titles, defend your your ranking,
your reputation in the world of swimming. What did that
version of bandating look like?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So, well, the other piece of all of this is
that I actually did sustain a physical injury in April,
So I injured my shoulder in April, and again that
was something that we didn't have time to fix. And
so at that point, I'm just distraught, like I'm now
emotionally and physically so far away from where I need
(19:02):
to be. So my band aid solution was immediately getting
in with the sports psychologist, a nutritionist, and a physical therapist,
and those three were there to just do what they could.
Before Olympic trials, we had, you know, eight to twelve
weeks of time to work with to try and get
me in the best position possible. And I think we
(19:24):
all knew going into it that I was nowhere near
one hundred percent, but I was at the percentage I
was at, and that was all that I was going
to have to give. And I remember going into Olympic
Trials just being absolutely terrified.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Did you find yourself having to do some of these hacky,
fake it till you make it type strategies just to
get by during that time?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And what did that look like?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It was just the big old miss you smile. And
it was the first time in my life that it
wasn't genuine but I was trying to put that smile
on for everyone else. I was trying to be that happy,
bubbly seventeen year old that they all remembered and were
expecting me to be, even though I had probably never
felt further from her in my life.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
And I just didn't want to let people down.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
And so I remember going into trials not out of
joy or excitement and love for the sport, but just
being absolutely terrified that I wasn't going to do what
was expected of me.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And how did the trials go?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, so definitely off to a rocky start for trials
for Rio. I failed to make the team in the
event that I was the reigning Olympic champion in from
twenty twelve, and not even that, I mean I got seventh,
so there's only eight people in a heat, so I
almost got dead.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Last in my heat.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And I remember going back to my hotel room that
night and sobbing, like just absolu, like I felt embarrassed,
like I felt ashamed. I was just holding so much,
and I kind of just gave myself talk in the
hotel room of you know, you can pack up and
leave right now, like you can get on a flight
and you can go home, but you will never forgive
(21:09):
yourself like you can do that. Or you can go
out and you can finish this swim meet, and it
may continue to be embarrassing. You may not make this
Olympic team. You may be more heartbroken and disappointed than
you've ever been, but it would be nothing compared to
if you didn't try.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
of plans. Despite a disappointing performance at the twenty sixteen
Olympic Trials, Missy still qualified to compete for the US.
(21:52):
She would swim in three events in Rio. The night
before her first event, Missy and her teammates celebrated at
the opening ceremony, but when she returned back to her
room in the Olympic village, she was hit with an
overwhelming sense of dread.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I remember calling my parents the night before the meat started,
and I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.
I remember my dad, in particular, just repeating over and
over again. He was like, honey, it is just a
swim meat. It is just a swim meat. And I, like,
I just couldn't like comprehend what he was saying. And
(22:31):
I knew what he was trying to do, but in
my mind, like it was so much more than that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
What I'm hearing from you is that your dad's telling you, Missy,
this is just a swim meet, and you're thinking, no,
this is my opportunity to defend my existence on the
planet Earth.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Exactly. Yes, I'm like, this is not just a swim mate.
This is who I am. And if I don't do this,
why am I here?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
What is my worth?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I have none if I can't do this and do
it well. And so the next eight days were so tough.
I didn't make the top eight in any of my
individual events. I swam on the morning prelims relay of
the eight hundred freestyle relay, and my time was not
fast enough to put me on the finals relay.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
But the way that.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Swimming works is if you are a prelim swimmer on
a relay, even if you aren't in the group of
four that wins the medal in finals, you still get
that medal. So I still won a gold medal because
my amazing teammates were able to bring home the golds
in the eight hundred freestyle relay in Rio. I watched
(23:39):
them do it in a beam bag chair on TV
from the village, and that was how I won my
fifth gold medal. That whole competition for me, truly was
just survival.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
I've looked back at footage and I've read interviews from
that time, and Missy, I feel like you could hold
a master class in the art of graciousness in face
of defeat and failure and lost. It was so inspiring
for me to see how you engaged with your teammates,
(24:13):
with the press, with everyone that week. I mean, like
we all aspire as human beings to act like that
when we lose.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That means so much to me.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Truly, that is the highest compliment I can I could
ever ask to receive, and that was what I decided
to do there is I realized very quickly that I
was not going to be an inspiration like I was
in London by winning gold medals and breaking world records.
I had always talked about the kind of person I
wanted to be in defeat, and now was my chance
(24:47):
to prove it and.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
To actually be that person.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
And if there was anything I could walk away being
proud of from those eight days, I wanted it to
be how I handled myself outside of the pool.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So you wrap up a very challenging week in Rio
and you fly home. What were the days and weeks
like after?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean, it's hard to put into words.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I was feeling so many different emotions and just ultimately
just sadness and disappointment. We got home, and we landed
back in the US and back in Colorado, and we
were driving home and as we pulled into my neighborhood
and pulled up to my house, all the kids of
the neighborhood were standing there with signs and they had
(25:35):
made cut out hearts and they had all written ways
that I had inspired them in Rio, and they had
put them all over my yard. And I remember just
like completely breaking down in that moment and realizing who
you are and what you do outside of the competition
space can actually have a significantly bigger impact than what
(25:56):
you do inside of it. And I think that was
step one of the healing process, because I don't think
I believed that at the time of myself, but just
to know that other people did, and to be surrounded
by that much love and grace and compassion was just like,
was so beautiful and so moving. I went back to
(26:18):
college I immediately got bilateral shoulder surgery and then started
working with a therapist, immediately started meeting once a week,
super regular in person. I wanted it to be true
therapy and not just sports psychology, because I knew that
my issues kind of stemmed deeper than just sports, and
how it had rooted into every aspect of my life.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And by the way, what an important realization to thank you?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
You know?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, I think that reflects something like even symbolically, which
is so important, which is given again that your identity
had been so tether to being a swimmer. What that
tells me is that you were interested in treating not
just Missy the athlete for the sake of improved performance,
but Missy the person.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's a beautiful way of putting it.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I don't think I've ever looked at it that way,
but I did understand that it was Missy the person
that was the most broken. And so it was a long,
long process. I, emotionally and mentally, over time, was able
to heal and learn and grow and get into a
place where, maybe for the first time in my life,
(27:28):
I understood that what I could do in a pool
has nothing to do with who I am as a
person and my self worth and my value and what
I have to offer, and I began to see myself
as more than just the swimmer and everything that came
along with that. And it was so incredibly freeing and
powerful to experience that. And then I dreamed of this amazing, epic,
(27:53):
incredible comeback, and unfortunately the physical injuries just wouldn't let
it it happen. Getting to that place from the mental
standpoint and then physically not being able to continue to
compete when I felt like I was ready, like I
could and like I wanted to was devastating.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, I can feel the intoxication of an epic comeback
and what a satisfying narrative that would be. How did
you handle the disappointment of because what I'm hearing from
you is that you put in all the mental labor
to get yourself back to a healthier place, but your
body wasn't cooperating right, Your shoulder injury was not improving,
(28:33):
And so how did you handle that frustration.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
As an elite athlete?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And I just think as a person, I mean, you
don't even have to be an athlete when your body
is inhibiting you from doing something you feel trapped, you
feel angry, you feel frustrated, because in my mind, there
was nothing from a physical standpoint that I couldn't push through.
And I tried so hard and I did everything possible.
(29:02):
And it was a conversation that I had with my
now husband at the time, and he said, honey, I
want you to be able to throw our kids up
in the air one day without pain. Like That's what
he was thinking of, and he knew those were my
priorities as well. I truly just came to that realization
that even if I went through everything that my surgeons
(29:25):
were suggesting, I didn't think I was going to be
at the place I needed to be to compete at
my best and represent my country in a way that
I was truly proud of. Because I knew that if
I continued to go down this road, which was going
to be more surgeries, more recoveries, more intensity, with an
Olympics right around the corner, that I was going to
(29:47):
start to lose that mental and emotional.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
State that I had worked so hard to gain.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, and catch me up on life today. I mean,
you have so many identities that you carry. You're a wife,
you're a mother, you're a podcaster, you're an advocate. What
is your relationship with swimming like today?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So I do have a beautiful relationship with swimming now,
which I'm very thankful for. I still work heavily with
the USA Swimming Foundation, which is the philanthropic side of
USA Swimming. So giving back to the sport is incredibly
important to me because it gave me so much, and
so being able to give back working with the Foundation
providing free and low costs from lessons to communities that
(30:30):
need is just a huge piece of what I do
to stay involved in the sport. I also recently started
a podcast with my Olympic teammate Katie Hoff, and we
are so thankful to be involved in the sport in
that way and to have these amazing conversations with not
just swimmers but athletes about the true, vulnerable moments of
(30:52):
what it is that we do and what we've learned
from it, and how we can share that with one
another to help each other grow. So that's been a
beautiful way to stay involved. And my coach would always
say that swimming is the only sport that will save
your life and that you can do for the rest
of your life. I just know it's just like a
(31:12):
very old friend. Even if I go a while without
talking to it, I know that the second I get
back in, it's going to be like no time at.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
All has passed.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you want to
hear more conversations about what goes on inside the minds
of elite athletes, Missy has a podcast of her own
called Unfiltered Waters. We'll link to it in the show notes,
and next week join me for my conversation with Paralympic
gold medalist and US Navy veteran Brad Snyder. After a
(32:06):
bomb left him blind, Brad found healing in the swimming pool.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Getting into the pool was the first time I felt
like I could wrap my arms around normal. This was me.
I was free, and I felt there's a future here
and I'm going to find my way and it was
the beginning of a real, incredible journey.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
As always, we'd be so grateful if you can follow
this show wherever you listen to podcasts and help spread
the word, whether it's leaving a review or telling a
friend about an episode you loved. It helps us keep
making this show for you. Thanks so much, and I'll
see you next week. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
(32:53):
and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Parkinson Morgan, our senior producer Trisha Bobita, and our engineer
Erica Huang. Luis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
(33:13):
Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so a big
thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
thanks to Jimmy Leek. You can follow A Slight Change
of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you
next week.
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