We sat down with national team member Phoebe Bacon, who we saw in action in November at the US Open. At the US Open in Des Moines, racing fellow national-teamer Regan Smith, Bacon dropped a 2:09.16 200 back, 1:00.18 100 back, and 2:16.05 in the 200 IM. Bacon broke down what training at her new home at the University of Wisconsin is like and how she got through quarantine, documenting her time training in a 15-year pool.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with Matt Mauser, the musician who wrote the music for Kobe Bryant's podcast, Punies. Mauser's wife, Christina, coached Bryant's girls basketball team and was in the helicopter crash that took her and Bryant's life. Mauser candidly discusses the effects of losing his wife and enduring a global pandemic while trying to move through his career as well as raise and teach 3 children (ages 12, 10, and 4). One way he has been able to heal is in the pool, where he has a long history.

Mauser picked up swimming late in high school but excelled enough to land a spot on a junior college roster and eventually a spot at Cal Poly, where he was an All-American in the 200 backstroke. After training with Mission Viejo for 2 years post-graduate and going lifetime bests, Matt pivoted away from swimming and started his career in music. In 2018, Mauser got back in the pool and started swimming with a masters team. He continues to find solace in the water today as swimming gives him a small distraction in the middle of his days and a task to complete. It also provides a friendly community that lends support through the journey of being a widowed parent.

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Music: Otis McDonald

Indiana University Head Coach Ray Looze unpacks the 2021 BIG TEN schedule, his plans for NCAAs, and proprioception (the perception of the position and movement of the body). I just call it Mind-Body Connection. Ray calls it the future of the sport and details his proprioception work at IU since 2015. Ray’s team (coaches and elite swimmers) are like an Aquatic Research & Development department innovating in eye-popping ways…

Anyone who knows Ray should not be surprised… As a USC student-athlete, he was a standout in and out of the pool. He became the first non-football playing Trojan in school history to earn GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America honors. In 1989, he was recognized as the school's Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He was also a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winner and received recognition as a finalist for the 1989 Rhodes Scholarship and the 1990 NCAA Walter Byers Award. Ray graduated USC magna cum laude in finance and earned a master's degree from the School of Education at the University of Texas Austin.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with Catherine Breed, an NCAA All-American swimmer from Cal who was always a distance swimmer but now is seriously a distance swimmer. Catherine trains for marathon swims, which typically means swims that are over 20 miles in the ocean. In her most recent swim, the Monterey Bay swim, Breed broke the record for the fastest swim across the bay in a time of 2 hours and 53 minutes.

Listen to Breed as she describes her training for events like this as well as some of her stories about swimming through jellyfish, in the dark, and in the same waters as sharks.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with Aussie mid-distance ace Elijah Winnington. Winnington made headlines just last month at the Queensland State Championships where he dropped PB's of 3:43 in the 400m free and 1:45 in the 200m free. Winnington was recently in a bit of a funk with his swimming, including during the period when competed at the 2019 US national championships in Palo Alto, California, and changed his entire lifestyle in the lead-up to that meet. He explains how moving to a new program has helped him reignite his swimming as well as why he needed more distance in his training overall.

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Music: Otis McDonald

Matthew Marquardt is a senior on the Princeton swim team. Since the Ivy League canceled winter sports and he lost his season, Matthew decided he needed a new challenge. In fulfillment of a lifetime dream, Matthew is riding his bike across the country. By himself. He is on Day 10 now, and it’s expected to take 23 days total. To meet this time limit, he needs to cover over 100 miles a day. He started in San Diego and will end in Florida. His dad is driving the route crewing for him and staying with him in hotels each night.

Matthew is riding to raise money for pediatric cancer treatment through St. Jude. His goal is to raise $23,000 over the course of his ride, $1000/day.

You can follow Matthew's progress during this ride on Facebook Here and Instagram here.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with Claire Adams, the University of Texas NCAA All-American who announced her retirement from swimming this past summer. Adams discusses her time at Texas and hits on the big learning curve she went through to make her senior season in particular so special. She also delves into her high school days at Carmel Swim Club in Indiana.

Specifically, we discuss her 2016 Olympic Trials, a meet that heading into, she was a top contender to make the US Olympic team. However, she broke her hand days before the competition and wasn't able to match her top form. Adams sifts through the huge loss this was in her life and what it took to bounce back from that.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with SwimSwam's 2020 Female Swimmer of the Year, Kaylee McKeown. McKeown re-wrote half of the Australian backstroke record book last year, setting new national records in the 100 and 200 backstrokes long course and the 200 backstroke short course. That short course record of 1:58.94 was also the world’s fastest-ever swim in the event, breaking Katinka Hosszu’s 2014 world record of 1:59.23. At the 2020 Queensland Championships (LCM), McKeown threw down a 57.93 to become just the second person to ever dip under the 58-second mark after Regan Smith‘s 57.57 world record from last year. Being the second-fastest ever to an American means that the swim was good enough to set a new Australian, Oceanian, and Commonwealth record.

McKeown takes us through her 2020, as well as her training style since the end of 2018, which doesn't go by weeks, but rather by 3-week periods. Within each 21-day cycle, Mckeown says she trains for 17 of those days in a row and then gets 4 days off.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with Baylor Nelson, the #2 recruit in the high school class of 2022. Nelson tells us about his training during quarantine and his love for swimming that has been fostered since a young age. Nelson has had some phenomenal swims recently, most notably his epic battles with fellow North Carolina-native Sam Hoover in the 400 IM and 200 IM.

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Music: Otis McDonald

We sat down with Maxime Rooney, the ISL newbie who made a big impact this season for the LA Current. Maxime breaks down the season in Budapest, detailing the ups and downs of competing in a 6-week bubble. He also shares about his personal day-to-day, including the importance of cooking, which he also documents on his Instagram as "Maxime's Meals". Rooney finishes by talking about racing under pressure, a topic in which he references an interview with James Guy about the dominance of his British teammate, Adam peaty.

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Music: Otis McDonald