“I swim 10 times a week for two hours at a time and do three dry land sessions of training a week. The water sessions are so important. You get into such a rhythm in the water and if you can’t stay in that routine for a couple of days, it can really set you back,” she said.
“The longest break I’ve taken over the last eight years, or maybe even longer, has been two weeks out of the water.
“After those two weeks, it took two months to start feeling normal and in shape in the water. It would have been extremely difficult for us if the Games were held this summer. It wasn’t going to make sense anyway with everything we were going through.”
The lack of an adequate substitute on land was the primary reason USA Swimming chief executive Tim Hinchey was the first to ask the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to advocate for a postponement.
Ledecky, who intends to compete to at least 2024, will now prepare for Tokyo next year.
She has been number one in the world in the women’s 800m freestyle for the last eight years — a feat no male or female swimmer has accomplished. It’s a testament to her dominance and determination.
“I started swimming when I was six years old,” she said.
“At around the age 11 or 12 I started to ditch the other sports I was playing. I broke my arm in fourth grade playing basketball and that was a turning point for me.
“I started picking swim practice over basketball and soccer and that’s around the same time I started with the early morning practices — getting up at 4:45 in the morning when I was 10 or 11 years old. I started getting up at four in the morning two or four times a week all throughout high school, and I’ve swam nine to 10 times a week for many years now.
“It’s a grind and it’s a lot of work, and some people watch the Olympics and think it just comes around every four years but for us it is every single day.”
For now, Ledecky’s everyday likely includes moving through her neighbor’s pool.
At some point in the next two months, she will take a substantial break from training for her mental and physical health.
Now in her fourth year studying psychology at Stanford, she plans to resume online classes again in two weeks.
“I’ve tried to stick to a routine each day. I’ve tried to wake up at the same time, and I’ve been able to do a lot of video calls with old friends,” she said.
“I was able to have a two-hour FaceTime session with my three best friends from club swimming, so I feel like this is an opportunity to connect with people that we haven’t connected with in a while, and to find ways to improve ourselves.
“A lot of athletes, when we are forced out of the water, we try to focus on what we can improve out of the water, like our nutrition and our sleep and our dry land training. I would encourage everyone to find ways in our daily lives to improve ourselves.”
“It’s a bummer that we don’t have sports to look to, but that will only make us appreciate what we do have once all of these things return. I’m hopeful that next year’s Olympic Games will show the entire world coming together.”
While this last birthday was a disappointment, Ledecky is hopeful there will be more celebratory days ahead.
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