College Swimmer Straight to Masters: James Pokornowski, EP 227

Are you too young to become master swimmer? Join us as we chat with the inspiring James Popronowski, a competitive swimmer who jumped straight from college swimming to masters swimming. James, with his masters gold medal in the 1500 freestyle long course and an unwavering commitment to maintaining his swimming routine post-college, offers compelling insights into the dedication and passion that fuels his success.

This conversation takes us on a dive into James’s journey, from his childhood swimming experiences to his triumph in the Masters Swim program. We uncover the influential role that his parents and club coach played in guiding him towards the competitive swimming arena. Listen in and get a rare peek into James’s training regime and his motivation. His love for the swimming community and the sport itself shines through, offering an inspiring perspective on the world of master swimming. Join us for a powerful conversation that is sure to inspire all swimming enthusiasts and aspiring champions. Never say "retire"! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

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

Speaker 2: 0:14

Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast. I am your host, kelly Palace, and, as usual, I am with my co-host, maria Parker. Hey Maria, hey Kelly, it's great to be with you here today. Yes, maria, this is a special edition of Champions Mojo from the pool deck and we have a great interview for you today. It's brief, it's short, but it's powerful.

Speaker 3: 0:44

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

Speaker 2: 0:51

Yeah, we hope you'll stick around and catch the takeaways. And here we go. We are on deck at the US Masters Summer Nationals and we're doing an on-deck interview with James Popronowski, who is 26 years old. He's here from Nickel City Splash Team from Buffalo, new York.

Speaker 4: 1:13

James welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Wonderful. This is in a younger age group, the 25 to 29,. And, james, the way that I found you was my husband was bragging to me about James. James always is the fastest guy in the meet in the mile, over the 5,800, or some of the things that you've done so far in master swimming that you're most proud of.

Speaker 4: 1:39

I have to say the most proud I've been is the 1500 freestyle and long course, because that's when I've actually had one event like overall and also will win it for my age group, and I've gotten a gold medal in that, which is a pretty good opportunity right there.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yes, so a lot of people think that master swimming is for people over 40, like in masters running. So how did you find masterism? What brought you to master swimming?

Speaker 4: 2:03

After I graduated college in 2019, I wanted to keep going, keep swimming going, and I may have taken a month or two away, and then I think my parents were helping me live out there with any swim programs and they recommended master swim program at the Nipah City at UB. So I just signed up and I joined the team in September, October that year, and I've just been stuck with it ever since and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Did you swim in college or high school? What is your swimming background?

Speaker 4: 2:29

I did swim in high school and college actually take you a little further back. I started swimming around like the age of three and four at this country club called Brookfield. There's like summer swim leagues out there. It was fun. And then I was about 10 and 11 years old. I joined this club team called the Tonawanda Titans, which is also another team in New York as well, and at the same time I also swam Kanisha's high school. Both my brothers went there as well, even though we lived close to a high school, maybe chose to go a little to the disease. And then afterwards, after high school, I also went to Kanisha's college, which is they're both close to each other, and also I knew the coach well, coached my club team. He's also the head coach of the college I went to and I also knew a bunch of kids on the team as well that also went there, and that's all. I just joined, being close, that's all.

Speaker 2: 3:20

Close to home. Yeah, it sounds like your parents who encouraged you to get into master swimming. Were they swimmers?

Speaker 4: 3:26

No, they were not.

Speaker 2: 3:27

How did they hear about master swimming?

Speaker 4: 3:29

I think we just we were just scrolling through there's any teams, and also my club coach also helped out too, so we just looked into it all together.

Speaker 2: 3:36

So what type of workouts are you doing? You're obviously doing a fast 1500. So what are your workouts in general?

Speaker 4: 3:44

I practice there three days a week early in the mornings, from six to seven am, and for practices there are times we would do a long swim, maybe like a three, four, maybe a little longer swim, but then we'd have hundreds of kick or swim in between, and there are times where we would do repeatedly that. Another times we'd like maybe drop, like maybe four, three, two, one, stuff like that, with hundreds in between, and other times we also tried to do some building workouts too.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Cool, All right, we are off our thunder delay here. Right, we're at Nationals and we had a thunder delay. Looks like they're honking the horns for us to go back in. But the last question what do you like most about master swimming?

Speaker 4: 4:22

I hope what I like the most about master swimming feels good to stay in shape and also enjoy meeting new people, people that are like my step, people are older than me. I just enjoy that opportunity and the experience here.

Speaker 2: 4:36

Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much. And then the very last question we asked everybody on the show is when you dive in the water, what goes through your mind?

Speaker 4: 4:43

It goes through my mind Just try to swim up smarts and also swim strong and swim efficient is also what my college coach would say to Sometimes I just as I just think of what they tell me to prepare myself, and I think it's a big help.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much for your time and good luck in the rest of the meet.

Speaker 4: 5:01

Thank you very much and thank you for having me here.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Stay tuned for the takeaways.

Speaker 2: 5:09

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Speaker 3: 6:14

I loved how community oriented james was. He talked a lot about we. He got a lot of help from his coach, his parents, an encouragement to continue swimming after college. He's very oriented towards His community. I thought that was really nice, and what he said he loved about master swimming was the community. So I think that's a great takeaway to remind us that Community is really important, and even our. He's in his mid 20s, but he's still got some good advice from his parents, some good advice from his parents. So you 20 year olds, listen to us old people.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Yes, yes. And we also said that he didn't burn out in college. He kept swimming, which is rare. Usually, usually college swimmers will at least take several years. So I love this because it ties in with a theme that I really want to encourage Young college swimmers to keep swimming, even if it's one day a week, two days a week, and then the. My main takeaway is that when you're in those younger age groups, you don't just look at did I win my age group, but you look at did? Where did I place in the whole me, like where was my 1500 time or my 200 time compared to Everyone? So some people are looking at their age group, which is great. You get a gold medal for winning your age group. But james was focused on hey, he had the fastest 1500 time at long-course nationals when they were cleveland, yeah, so I think he was second, had the second fastest overall time of any 1500 in this meet.

Speaker 3: 7:38

But which is a great reason for people to keep swimming because you're strong After college. You're strong if you haven't burned out. Get out there and continue master swimming, just a few days a week and blow those records away.

Speaker 2: 7:50

Yeah, absolutely. And then you never get out of shape. All right, maria, thanks for being on this journey with with me. Love you, love you kill.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Thank you for listening to the champions mojo podcast. Did you enjoy the show? We'd be grateful if you would leave us a five star review on itunes to help others find us, and we'd also love to hear from you. We're on all social media platforms or you can reach us at champions mojocom.