Lessons from Dara Torres

There is little to recommend the NYS Thruway, but it does provide long stretches of time to listen to audio books. I've been "reading" Dara Torres' book "Age is Just a Number" in which she describes the several times she's come out of retirement to train for the summer Olympics (12 medals so far). She has a LOT to say about training as an older athlete that is interesting quite aside from her personal story line. She says that being a much older swimmer [read: speed skater] is a lot like being a very young swimmer [read: speed skater]: no one expects very much, so you get to be a wild card again. Her key advice: understand your body, and the fact that you need to give yourself lots of recovery time (and she suggests amino acids to help); that you must be much more attentive to stretching than when young; and that you must fix what is failing (she describes a number of procedures she has needed on her shoulder and knee). She says to be very focused and serious about rest; about what, when and how much you eat; and you must carefully pick your training and stretching programs and remain dedicated to them. She says she has been very deliberate in picking coaches, but once committed trusts them. Her discussion of resistance stretching (where, like yoga, you extend and contract muscles simultaneously) is compelling. Most of all, though, she says that as older athletes we won't be able to maintain the longer training sessions of younger people, nor is it necessary. What is necessary, though, is to focus on perfect technique....never, she says, cheat on the practices....work hard to do every practice, every procedure perfectly...make it second nature. It is technique, more than anything else, that wins the day.