She Quit After Getting Lapped—Then Built a Program Where Every Swimmer Belongs

A coach’s origin story doesn’t always start with a medal. Coach Monica begins with love for the water, isolation in adolescence, and a brutal race that sent her out of the sport—only to return years later with a philosophy built on belonging, clarity, and second chances. We talk candidly about what it feels like to be the slowest in the fastest heat, why perspective arrives late, and how that moment now informs a program where no one is cut and every swimmer can win their day.

We pull back the curtain on modern swim training: fewer empty yards, more intent. Monica breaks down how technology and recovery science shape smarter sets, why bodyweight strength precedes barbells, and how rhythm and tempo cues make speed more teachable. Grit gets real through micro-wins—like hitting 12.5 off every wall—because consistent, small successes build confidence that sticks through long seasons and tough meets.

Team culture drives everything. From celebrating JV progress to supporting college-bound athletes, Monica shows how a cap and a lane can create a sense of belonging even for a sport that’s often unseen on campus. We also get practical about balance: the family logistics, crockpot dinners, and the “swim team money” tradition that funds a shared trip and turns sacrifice into connection. It’s a playbook for sustainable coaching, strong teams, and resilient athletes.

If you’re a coach, parent, or athlete who’s ever stared down a rough result, you’ll want Monica’s closing mantra in your pocket: there is grace and there is redemption. Feel it, shelve it, come back hungry, and don’t make the same mistake twice. Enjoy the conversation, share it with a teammate who needs a boost, and if it resonates, follow the show and leave a review so more listeners can find it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Coach Monica’s Origin
• 3:40 Isolation, Teen Pressure, And Quitting
• 6:55 The Mission Viejo Meet Turning Point
• 10:45 Science Over Yardage: Smarter Training
• 14:20 Strength, Safety, And Body Awareness
• 17:35 Building Grit With Small Wins
• 21:20 Team Culture, College Paths, And Pride
• 24:45 Facilities, Funding, And Program Realities
• 27:15 Family Systems And Sustainable Coaching
• 31:15 Goals For 2026: Growing JV And Retention
• 34:45 No-Cut Philosophy And Belonging

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Monica, welcome to the Plan B podcast. I have to embarrassingly say that I it's very long overdue for me, as someone who's been an admirer of yours, from a distance, to say thank you so much for all that you have been doing and the dedication that you have given, for example, not just the sport of swimming, but Coach Monica has been a coach going into her ninth year, ninth. That's nine. Okay, and she has five children. Okay, so just think about that. Five listen, I five children, and she's dedicated nine years, going into her ninth year of coaching high school swimming. Okay, that's crazy. So, Coach Monica, you're amazing. Welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit. Yeah, it's awesome. Thank you so much. Tell us a little bit about your story, how you got involved in swimming, and then how you are in the spot where you're now going into your ninth season as a high school swim coach.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25

I feel like I was always drawn to the water. I grew up as a not a kid that took swim lessons, but a parent with a parent who threw me in the pool and said, Yeah, you can swim, you'll be fine. So I don't, I didn't have the traditional like, oh, go to swim lessons and learn this. I just swam. I I just grew up in the pool. So I started swim team when I was eight. I swam every single day because I loved being there. And I was, I'm not a land person. I am a person that will have my be standing still with my hands in my pocket, and all of a sudden I'm on the floor. What happened? I don't know. I don't know. So water was safe for me. My mom thought that was way safer. I love that. And more humiliating than ballet or soccer. We tried soccer, it didn't work out very well. Instant injuries. So the pool was a safe place for me, and it was where I was comfortable. So I had the pleasure of growing up at the pool, swim team from eight until about the time I was 12. And then when I turned 12, then it got kind of intense. Then I got the competition bugs and I wanted to race all the time. And it became my prime focus. Was very fortunate to work with a team that allowed me to swim mornings and afternoons, and it became all-consuming. Not mad about that. It just was whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 2:49

And the sport of swimming is for the for people who don't really understand what is involved in the sport of swimming, it is hey, it comes with the territory. It's more early mornings, it's afternoons. 10 sessions a week is not out of the ordinary if you are a competitive swimmer. So here you are, Monica, you are going into really the the years of 12, where you are trying to be a competitive swimmer. But things were pretty challenging when you entered this period for you.

SPEAKER_00: 3:27

Adolescence is challenging no matter what you're trying to pull off. And for me, because the pool was removed, nobody wanted to watch swim practice. That's not something your parents come and do. It's not something your friends come and hang out at the pool and watch you swim back and forth and back and forth. And so I was isolated. My swim family was my family. I spent more time with them than I did at home. I spent more time with them than I did with my friends from school. And I fully embraced it. But when I felt when I felt like I had failed, as often it's you hit that teenage age. I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't really failing, but I didn't have anybody behind me telling me or measuring my successes in a different way, other than time drops or bigger standard meets or those things. I was very, very frustrated seeing myself in a positive light and seeing myself as winning or even progressing. And I didn't have at that time, I didn't have the support system to help me keep pushing forward. And when I threw up my hands like a teenager and went, I don't want to do this anymore. My mom was like, That's a check I don't have to write. That's an early morning car ride I don't have to make. She was okay with it. If that's what you want, and nobody else cared that I wasn't swimming. The rest of my world didn't know how intense it was, and was okay that I let it all go.

SPEAKER_01: 5:02

And and you know what? It's not even any negativity towards mum going, hey, no worries. Thank you, thanks very much, little Monica. Because you have five kids. I have four. I spend my life now in between work in the car, driving around from like even today, it was it was, you know, a holiday Monday. I just went from one thing to another, to another, to another. And so when you actually have a moment to breathe, you're kind of like, okay, that's great. And swimming being as demanding as it is, and I'm gonna ask you more about that as a coach a little bit later about why that is. Why do you have to be in the pool so much? Because swimming was part of my sport as triathlon. So I was sharing with Coach Monica earlier that I did those 4:30 a.m. starts for something like 24 years. But while I wasn't a complete water baby, there for me there was something cathartic about being in the pool. But I totally get it. If you don't have that support network, it can be a grind.

SPEAKER_00: 6:18

Oh, it absolutely was. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 6:20

Tell us about that moment that really was the moment your last swim race, because you know, that was really the turning point, perhaps the sliding doors moment that coach could have gone another way, and perhaps you could have continued on swimming. So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00: 6:42

I had moved up the year prior, I'd moved up to the senior team swimming for Niels Jorgensen, who his both of his sons, Dan and Lars, were Olympians in '88. And so I was swimming under the best. You know, two lanes over were Olympians. And here I am with just trying to fly under the radar. So we go to a meet in Mission Viejo. I grew up in Southern California. Go to the meet. He enters my time for my 800 freestyle with a slower, faster time than I had actually ever swam, thinking that if I got seated near young ladies that were faster than me, I would try to keep up, thinking that would motivate me to keep up. So I'm in the outside lane, slowest person in the fastest heat, and I got lapped. The girl in lane four lapped me. And I got out of the pool and I took off my cap and goggles. I threw them in the garbage, stomped off to the locker room, told my mom, I'm done. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm not going back. My coach never called, he never didn't care. He had Olympians two lanes over. If I quit, he did not care. He had still had people to work with. I was a small fish in a really big pond at that point. And it didn't matter to anybody on the team that I wasn't there because I was not Diana and Lars and Mark. I was not the upper echelon, I wasn't the Olympian. And no, just nobody cared that I was gone and my mom was happy to take the night off and morning off and not drive. In retrospect, if you know a handful of years after that, I recognized that I did indeed get lapped by Janet Evans. Who won the gold?

SPEAKER_01: 8:30

Oh, geez. Yeah, by the way, everybody, uh Janet Evans, you know, I I know that it's gonna desperately age me, but I don't care. Listen, I'm ha I'm a has been athlete and very proud of it. Okay, moved on to a different chapter, which by the way, athletes, young athletes listening, you will get there eventually. So enjoy it while you're fit and everything doesn't ache because one day it will. And Janet Evans, in her time, was one of the most phenomenal freestyles, 815. Yeah, she was incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 9:05

Yeah, and and so to get lapped in perspective, to get lapped by the woman that a couple of years after that won the gold in the 800, it's okay that I got lapped. But at the time I didn't have any perspective, but I never felt like that door would ever open again for me. I didn't think I could ever go back to the pool.

SPEAKER_01: 9:28

And the thing that I think is really important to highlight, and I I believe it really says a lot about you as a co as a being a coach in the sport and being in the sport for as long as you have been. In my profession now, we're learning that the the brain is not fully formed even up until 24, 25. So you're making decisions which aren't based on logic, and nobody gave you the support or the perspective to say, hey, Monica, hang in there. You have talent, you just you got beaten by someone who is, you know, the rising, the next best thing. And had you had that, you possibly could have had a different trajectory from what you did did have. I guess at the time you didn't see that, but reflecting back, was that one of the reasons why you decided to become a swim coach?

SPEAKER_00: 10:34

It's not why I decided to become a coach. That was absolutely just born out of necessity for the benefit of my own child. But it was, it is 100% what shapes me as a coach. I am who I am on a pool deck because of how I was how I grew up in the pool. 100% am the coach I am because of what happened. And and not just that, the good and the bad, all of it has made me this coach. It is who I am because of that. And so I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't change a thing.

SPEAKER_01: 11:14

And along those lines, though, being part of the swim community for such a long time, what changes have you seen that have really kind of stood out to you as a coach?

SPEAKER_00: 11:26

There's no more garbage yardage, like there isn't nobody is doing 10,000 yard days. Oh, thank God. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 11:37

I I hated those days. We used to call them Agony Week, and we would have to do 10K every session. Yes. And twice a day to try to get to 100K.

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

It was it was insane. Yeah, it's crazy numbers. And now the the sport is much more scientific. Technology has really helped us uh recognize where and when the body is at peak performance, how we recover, uh, how quickly or how slowly we should recover. The idea that you recover quickly is not necessarily to your benefit. One thing might recover, but that doesn't mean you've uh gotten rid of all your lactic acid, or doesn't mean that you've definitely recovered one piece but not another. Technology has helped us quickly figure those measurements out. So swimmers are training smarter, they're training less yardage, but faster. They're not swimming for the sake of swimming, nothing is tasking. Every everything has intent. And so whether you're doing it, whether you're doing dry land, whether you're jumping rope, listening to music, everything has intent. I listen to music and everything I do. That's a two-beat. I can use that when I kick. That's a six beat, or that's a 16 beat. I need to turn that up when I want to do that set. Everything in my world even still revolves around the science of swimming and how I incorporate it. How do I stretch? I get up in the morning, I hurt. Everything hurts. I'm 50 plus years old, everything hurts. I get up in the morning and I stretch and I stretch into a streamline. Right. And then I counter stretch because I know that's right for the body. But nobody taught me that when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01: 13:35

No. And in fact, almost the opposite. Like I I have nearly I have 10 and a half size feet. Some shoes are 11. I'm only 5'9. I'm pretty sure I should have been at least six feet. Okay, so I'm not short, but I've got massive feet. Okay, it's embarrassing. Makes you an excellent swimmer, though. Makes you a great swimmer. And I do love swimming, but I started weights, Monica, at age nine. Is that still happening?

SPEAKER_00: 14:08

No, no. We're body weight until you hit puberty. You don't pick up a weight until you hit puberty. The heaviest thing that my athletes pick up. Probably a two-pound weighted ball that we pass. Right? Like it's not a there is there's no. Even my high schoolers, when we start our preseason conditioning, and those are big kids, not all of them are athletes, right? You show up to high school sport, not all of them are athletes, and not all of them are body aware. Maybe that's the best way to describe it. So we start solely with weight, body weight training. If you can't control your body weight, you can't, you shouldn't be picking up a dead weight. And these kids think they can walk into the weight room and yeah, and just lift weights. Do not lift weights. It's a skill.

SPEAKER_01: 15:06

It is a skill. It is absolutely a skill. And I am really thankful that more high schools are now bringing on strength and conditioning coaches because that is a necessity. And even to neglect that, I I am still hoping, I'm still praying for the day that they bring in mental performance coaches. Which agreed. I think I think I'm a little bit premature in hoping for that. But back to high school sports. I loved coaching high school sports. I I love high schoolers because they are a challenge. And one of the things that you love to instill, and this is for not just for the coaches and athletes listening, but also parents. I think I really love this. You love to instill sheer grit into your swimmers. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_00: 15:55

Measurements of success, small measurements of success. Kids that think that they're gonna show up and and put their name on the record board or show up and go to NCS their first season or have some big lofty goals. I'd like to encourage that. I would love to say, oh, you gotta work hard and every day you grind that. But the reality is hit that turn on a 12 and a half. What? There's your first measurement of success. You think you're all that? Hit that turn at 12 and a half. Okay, okay. And then they did. Good. Next week we hit it at 11. Next week we hit it at nine off a start. We start to talk like that. Small measurements of success. Pitting kids against each other. And that's I say that and it sounds very harsh, but it's not the two girls that like hang on to the wall, one hangs onto the lane line and one hangs onto the wall in the middle of their first day of practice. Which one of you can take the most strokes without stopping? Oh, now I've got two girls who might drown, but trying. So I'm a big fan of the small measurements of success. We can talk about big lofty goals and what it takes to get there. But one foot in front of the other and sometimes literally lay down. Mark, how tall are you with chalk? Now stretch. How tall are you now? Are you taller? Right? Every day you have to walk away with some measurement. And that is how they get gritty. That's how they get after it. When they when every day they're fed some success, they want more.

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

Yeah, well, and it sounds to me like you're also with three things. You're you're making it competitive, you're making it focus process, or you know, focusing on the process, but it also sounds like because athletes love competition, you're making it fun.

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Oh, don't tell anybody though. The joke is I don't do fun. I do one fun thing, and that's it, and that's when we play baseball. Only baseball is fun. Everything else is working.

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

But don't you think that the the fact that you add that little bit of competition against each other, athletes love that. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 18:12

You know, secretly they do. And even kids that don't know that they're athletes or don't know that they're competitive, once they hit their success, all of a sudden they realize I can do it. I can do this on some level. And I I think that that's what gets them. They come back and they keep coming and they keep doing and they invest because they know their success at the end of it. And their success will look different than somebody else's. Not everybody is gonna be a heffernan, it's just not gonna happen. I'll never see another girl like Lila Heffernan, never. That's okay. I don't want to.

SPEAKER_01: 18:55

So I want to so for those who don't know, Lila was an athlete that Coach Monica coached last year, Lila Heffernan. And Lila went, where did Lila end up going for her um swimming career? Okay, so she went on to is now swimming at Stanford University. And is that I mean, I don't sorry to put you on the spot, but I'm guessing she's not the first of college athletes that that you have have moved on to mo to programs.

SPEAKER_00: 19:26

She is the most she's the fastest I've ever moved on. Okay. And I don't take I don't take credit for that. Those kids are club swimmers who bring their talent to our name. Right. Right. And the fact that I have had athletes, I have another one in the pool right now. The fact that I have athletes who don't have to swim high school to be successful, want to swim high school. They want to wear the cap. They want to show up.

SPEAKER_01: 19:57

I think that says a lot about you, coach, as well as the their love of the school. The love of the school, because like you said, they don't have to be there. And to be honest, it's not the easiest sport. And that you know, they still got a grind. So it says a lot about you as a coach.

SPEAKER_00: 20:14

I am I think that if somebody asked me, like, what's your biggest success? It's not the kid. I didn't do that. But I built the program that that kid played for or you know swam for. They wore my cap. They wanted to put on my white cap. And I couldn't be more proud. That they were willing to represent Jess and Sienna. And that's that's a program. You don't win with one swimmer. You have to have a full boat of kids to swim all of the events. And that's the only way you win. And kids who show up and put on your cap and earn points towards the win, whether they're taking first or fifth place, points are points. I need all of them. Every one of them.

SPEAKER_01: 21:03

Yeah. Well, I I really hope, and I hope there are people listening uh, you know, to this, and you know, I'm certainly going to plug it as much as I can because at the moment, you know, Coach Monica, they're going into a ninth year of coaching for a high school team, and you know, Justin Siena High School is a great high school, and it's a private Catholic high school, so this really is a perhaps a a message to the to the you know the LaSallean, you know, or the organizers or whoever's in charge of all the schools, it would be great for the Justin Siena to have a pool, because you've got a coach who's currently dedicated a lot of her life to really create this program and she loves it and she's passionate and she's successful. I think it would be it's kind of overdue that the school should perhaps channel some of their funds, not just to the football program, but perhaps to swimming. And I can say that, Monica, you don't have to say anything. You can just we can just breeze on past that. That's what I have. Right. Yeah, and and uh and me giving it a big plug. Thank you. But and balancing, but I get it. It's you know, there's politics and there's things that the schools have to juggle all the time, and expenses, and so it's not easy for schools to address the the amount of sports. And I think I don't know where it was the other day, the number of coaches that the average number of coaches at high schools, I can't remember the number that was at Justin Siena, but it was quite a huge number of coaches and and volunteer coaches because really you get a stipend, it doesn't even cover your gas. And along those lines, how do you balance everything? Monica, how do you balance being a mum of five and continuing to and also you work as well and dedicate a huge chunk of a season of the spring season to coach high school swimming?

SPEAKER_00: 23:15

It's not balanced, Belinda. Let's be honest, it's not balanced, but it's a it's a it's a work and husband is amazing, and we have a plan, right? His work schedule, my work schedule, where the kids are, who picks up, who delivers, who drops off. He changes his schedule so he takes every Wednesday off during high school season because Wednesdays are meat days. We probably eat three-quarters of our meals out of a crock pot so I can cook during the day and leave it hot for him when he comes home with the girls after.

SPEAKER_01: 23:51

What a champion husband! Big shout out. Yeah, and you know what? Behind every female coach, there is an amazing husband who gets it. And I I love hearing that. So, you know, huge thanks to your husband for what he does.

SPEAKER_00: 24:09

Yeah, he supports what he supports my passion, right? I don't make an I don't make money at this. It's not like, oh geez, although that's not true. I should tell you that part of how my kids buy into this is swim team money. My my stipend for swim always pays for the family vacation. Nice! This is the trip. So when high school season wraps up the year before, we were planning next year's trip. And we just know that that money goes directly towards the trip. And so my little kids, my 11 and 12-year-old now, and my girls know that yes, right now mom's gone again, or we're hanging out at the pool waiting for dad because mom's got to work. They're okay with it because they know that there is payoff for them, and the family time that we lack during high school season. We make an effort to recoup that right away. So we need to be grounded before season starts and after season ends, and we schedule that time.

SPEAKER_01: 25:16

You know, I think that's such a smart approach because I know that a lot of female coaches really struggle with that balance. They're often the main caregivers in the family. And I know the years that I was coaching multiple sports, I often did feel guilt in the amount of time that I was away from my family and also lost time. So to have that kind of like little incentive that you're sharing with the whole family, I think that's really smart. And gee, I wish I had thought of that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:50

This is a group effort. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:51

I couldn't do it without him. I couldn't do it without him. Yeah, that's that's incredible. So moving into this season, and I know that you know you're very focused processed, but and I'm sure each individual swimmer will have their own kind of goals, but do you have any do you go in with any expectation or do you have like what is your plan moving into the 2026 season?

SPEAKER_00: 26:20

My my team is every year I start the season with more kids than I've ever seen before. My goal this year is to develop that JV side of the program. It takes 36 kids to fill a varsity roster. That's a lot of three kids in every event, yeah, and three stacked relays. That's a lot of kids, and that's girls and boys. So for me to run a full boat, I've got to have 70 kids on the team. Well, I'm not running 70 kids, I'm running 50 kids. And last year I didn't do a real very good job balancing the younger JV leveled or not necessarily younger, but the less skilled swimmers. I didn't have the right setup, I didn't have the right processes in place to give them the attention they needed for the skill work and work my high-level competitors. So I was balancing all this time, hoping that they were picking it up. And a lot of those kids just ended up backing up off the team or saying, I want to be on the team, but I don't want to race. Like, I'm not ready to race, or I'll only race two lakes of freestyle and that's it. And that doesn't work when you're trying to fill a roster or fill a boat, you know, get everyone one person in every race. So my goal this year is to not have anybody drop off and meet the needs, meet those swimmers where they're at. I know how to coach them hard, I know how to coach them fast. But do I know how to coach them from novice level and get the same kind of buy-in? And that's a harder task, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01: 28:07

You know, it certainly is, but I love your level of awareness, coach, because I I've seen I've met and talked with coaches who go through their coaching career and are not having these points of reflection. And so to hear you, with such a you know, incredible coaching career and the length of it, and to still be looking for areas that you yourself can grow as a coach and how can you adapt to support you know, swimmers that perhaps aren't so confident, it's so refreshing. And I also think it's so encouraging. So if I'm a swimmer, okay, and I like listen, I don't know, I don't know what sport I'd want to do. I don't want to do track, I don't want to do golf, I'm not into baseball because it takes way too long. I know I've got to get a sport under my belt, and I can't I like swimming, but I'm a little bit nervous. What would you be saying to those kids who are thinking about swimming but are just unsure?

SPEAKER_00: 29:07

I tell swimmers when they first come to me, we're a no-cut team. There is room at this table for everybody. We have some peanut butter and chocolate at this table, right? And that's a great combination. We love what that looks like. But then we also have like pancake batter and hot dogs and mustard, and what the heck do we do with those kids? Well, we make a corn dog, which on some days is better than the peanut butter cup, right? Some days what you really need is the corn dog. So I need a kid that's kind of pancake batter, and a kid who alone isn't much, but when you're sitting at the table and you're part of the team, we find how to put you with the right people in the right events for you to get what you need out of it and for us to get what we need out of it. We need swimmers, we need athletes, we want them. I don't need to cut kids and I don't need to shame them away. There is room at our table for everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 30:14

I love that. And I I really love promoting the team aspect in individual sports. In our last episode, I had Maddie, who is a UCLA gymnast, and she talked about her love, not just solely about her individual event, but she loves being part of the team, her team responsibility. And I think in high school, developing that skill, it doesn't matter that your sporting career finishes at high school. That's still a huge achievement to be a participant of high school sport. Don't think that you need to continue to be a college athlete or any other level of athlete. If you've participated in high school sport, you're learning skills that you can take into college when you're having to do group projects and then into the workforce. So I love that kind of enforcing, or not, sorry, not enforcing, more like embracing the team environment in individual sports because it really can be just so much fun. And there's nothing like kind of hanging out with your teammates and waiting between events. I was just in Reno yesterday or at an indoor track meet, and we sat there all day. And to be honest, like it's been years since I've run track, I loved it. Like I wouldn't want to be anywhere else because you're sitting with other athletes, you're hanging out, you're watching sport. It's great. So, you know, I think that that's a really powerful message to get out there to kids.

SPEAKER_00: 31:51

We are a team that is often unseen, right? We're off campus, we can't wear our uniforms to school on game day. So we're very much a sport that is unseen, and we have found our own ways to be seen or acknowledged, uh, very subtle, very passive. One year the kids all had cowbells. That was real annoying. Um couple years ago, we uh we started leaving little Jesus's at swim meets, and then I was popping up on social media that like Jesus is in the bathroom, and people are taking pictures of where they found the little Jesus' at their swim meets. We're dropping them in kids' swim bags on the blocks, like setting them up on the blocks. When I went to State, we had a whole Jesus photo shoot at State. And last summer, I got a text message from a kid from Sonoma High School who was at Disneyland, and found a little Jesus and sent it the message, the picture to his coach and said, Send this to Coach Monica. I found Jesus at Disneyland.

SPEAKER_01: 33:04

Oh, I love that. There's nothing better than for me anyway. This is a personal opinion, guys. Um you know, not to preach, but hey, why not? There's nothing better than sport and faith.

SPEAKER_00: 33:14

So good on you, coach, for just kind of we're we're a mediocre team at best some days. Prayer doesn't hurt us. I don't have an in with mother nature. I get rained on, the weather's cold. I don't have an in with mother nature, but god that one I got I got dialed in.

SPEAKER_01: 33:32

Hey, I I I think that's a I think that's a good person to have on your side.

SPEAKER_00: 33:37

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 33:38

Absolutely. So looking back on your, you know, on your whole journey so far, okay, uh to where you are at this point, having been an athlete and now a coach, balancing motherhood and your own work and also balancing your marriage, which you know I know myself it's it's challenging when you when you have a healthy obsession with your sport. Is there anything that you would do differently, or or do you feel like you are where you're just meant to be right now and you're just going, you know, going with the flow?

SPEAKER_00: 34:21

I think I'm just I think I'm where I'm supposed to be. I really do. I think that when I thought I wanted to be the captain of the ship, it wasn't my time. And so I spent my years doing what I needed to do. I think I'm in the I think I'm in the right place.

SPEAKER_01: 34:40

That level of contentment, guys, is rare. And when you find it, you want to hold on to it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

So coach you're not wrong, I'm hungry. Like I'm not sure. Oh, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01: 34:52

No, it's more of a contentment in status. Like a I feel today that status anxiety is rife due to unfortunately social media. So that's why we you know try to create more educational kind of platforms like this, but having that confident contentment in your role and knowing what your role is and how to execute it, and working to kind of master that for the benefit of others, it's it's really admirable and was also, and I could see that from a distance, and I could actually see that for many years, coach. Even if you didn't realize it, there's a lot of people that really respect and admire you, and I'm one of them. So as we close on the coach, the the uh the plan B podcast, I wanted to ask you if you only had 15 seconds to speak to a swimmer who's struggling or spiraling, and perhaps this message couldn't could also be just for any athlete, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00: 36:01

I tell my athletes when they're worried or they haven't swam, what they thought or they expected, there is grace and there is redemption. You get both. You want to be upset right now, be upset. You want to be stressed, take a deep breath. There is grace and there is redemption. It doesn't end here. And that doesn't always help. I'm gonna be honest, it doesn't always help. But it is the truth, it is the only truth I can offer. I hug kids, I cry with kids, I celebrate kids because if they care, I care. And if it didn't go the way you wanted, we're gonna come back and tear it up next week. We're not gonna let it go. Yes, nothing I can do about it now. You put it on the shelf, but you come back hungry, and we do it again, and we don't make the same mistakes twice.

SPEAKER_01: 37:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 37:01

Everything has every moment has grace, and every moment will have redemption.