One particularly harrowing practice set stands out to Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel when they think about training in a two-lane backyard pool for three months this year. Their coach, Greg Meehan, called it “Death by Relay.”
The two American Olympians — who combine for 10 Olympic medals, seven gold — alternated who was swimming at an as-fast-as-possible speed, and when one touched the wall from her 25-yard lane, the other dove in.
“It was just a burner of a swim set that was actually quite fun and something very different for us,” 23-year-old Ledecky said. “But it was super challenging for both of us because we were both really racing.”
What constituted “different” at this point was relative for Ledecky and Manuel, who recently spoke with For The Win while promoting BIC’s Soleil Sensitive Advanced “Game On” campaign. Sure, it was a brutal set they had never tried before, and one Meehan described as “definitely one of the hardest things they’ve done.”
But they were also in a family’s Atherton, California backyard — a stark contrast to Stanford’s mammoth Avery Aquatic Center, where they usually train. And any challenge he threw at them was compounded by their rigorous training routine, necessary to remain two of the best swimmers on the planet, vanishing because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. They were practicing in a pool half as long as what they’re used to and doing it alone, but at least together, rather than with a couple dozen others.
For “Death by Relay,” Ledecky — a dominant distance swimmer with world records in the 1,500-meter freestyle, 800-meter freestyle and 400-meter freestyle — started with a 500-yard swim, and her distances gradually decreased. Meanwhile, Manuel — the reigning world champion and American record holder in the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle with world records in three relays — stuck with shorter swims. It actually mimicked a relay, and the amount of rest they got between each swim was entirely dependent on how fast the other could go that day.
Alternating, they couldn’t speak to each other during the entire set. But Meehan said when they rested, they would cheer for the other as they tried to beat a collective goal time.
“We’re in quarantine, we’re training, but we’re not competing, and that’s something that I think both of us really value,” 24-year-old Manuel said. “[Meehan] wanted to make it some sort of competition. He gave us a goal time to beat, so that made it fun and challenging.”
And for three months, like they did during the “Death by Relay” set, Ledecky and Manuel relied on each other for much-needed support and motivation while training in a 25-yard, two-lane backyard pool, Meehan said. They often lean on each other, he noted, but it was especially necessary during a uniquely challenging time in their careers.
Swimmers thrive with routines, and when theirs imploded, Meehan said it took some time for them to process a new reality, which included 2020 being drastically different than what they planned.
“There were some emotional highs and lows, but I absolutely believe that if they didn’t have each other, it would have been so much more difficult,” said Meehan, the Stanford women’s coach who’s also the head coach of the U.S. Olympic women’s team.
They, like so many other swimmers and Olympic hopefuls, were left scrambling in March for a place to practice as pools and facilities nationwide shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic — all while still expecting the Games in July. When Stanford’s pool closed, they turned to a country club for a couple days before that, too, was shut down.
They were constantly trying to problem solve and get creative. Luckily for them, Meehan said he realized he had a connection to a family — who they opted not to name for privacy reasons — with a two-lane backyard pool, starting blocks included.
“When I think on the fact that we were able to not have an interruption in training because of this gracious family that allowed us to swim in their backyard for months, and still be safe by social distancing, it’s a blessing,” said Manuel, who became the first African-American woman to win an individual gold medal in the Olympics in the 2016 Rio Games (100-meter freestyle).
Normally, they’d train with Stanford’s team most of the time and have up to three sessions a week just the two of them, Meehan said.
But that became their full-time setup for three months until Stanford’s pool reopened in June. As a pair, they had up to nine sessions a week as uncertainty about the 2020 Games loomed. Ledecky said it was her longest break from training in a 50-meter pool in years.
The heart of a champion gets it done.
After coming back from an illness, @katieledecky won her fourth straight world title in the women's 800m freestyle final. 👏🥇 pic.twitter.com/BEDrrPS5Tx
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) July 27, 2019
But they were more fortunate than a lot of swimmers, some of whom didn’t have a full-length pool or access to a pool at all, which Meehan said was the case for many of his local swimmers.
“Watching their friendship develop over the last couple years,” he said, “especially as they’ve been professional athletes, just how much respect they have for each other and how much they lean on each other without having to talk about it all the time — I think there’s just a quiet understanding that they’re going through similar experiences as elite-level athletes.”
That included losing the social aspect of swimming, like practicing with 20 or more people most of the time and maintaining conversations squeezed into seconds-long pauses on the wall. They lost the collective energy and the team camaraderie, which is essential in a sport that involves staring at the bottom of a pool for hours every day.
Being isolated most of the time because of social distancing and then practicing with only one other person “weighed on them heavily,” Meehan added. Eventually, the anguish of their rigid routines evaporating only a few months before the Olympics’ original start date subsided.
However, that was only because the International Olympic Committee decided in late March to push everything back a year, which Meehan said was initially a relief. But that feeling quickly dissipated as they tried to digest going from being three months away from the Games to 15 months, basically restarting their Olympic-year training regimen.
“We’re fierce competitors,” Ledecky said. “And we know we have that same ambition and similar drive, and it was nice to have somebody that could hold you accountable. We both knew we were going through the same thing, and that’s more of a mental thing at that point, especially early on.
“Once the postponement was made and there was so much uncertainty, we had to stay upbeat and keep each other upbeat. And that was critical in what we’re trying to do.”
Their relationship has evolved “quite a bit” over the years, said Meehan, who coached them on Stanford’s team before they both turned pro in 2018 after leading the Cardinal to consecutive NCAA championships. (Manuel earned her degree in 2019, while Ledecky plans to complete hers in December, ironically earlier than planned because of the pandemic.)
They were first teammates and competitors who sometimes swam similar NCAA events, but after they went pro, Meehan said he saw their relationship beyond the pool develop as they realized “we’re going to be stronger together if we can help each other through this.”
Ledecky’s and Manuel’s personalities are “totally different,” he explained, but they bonded because of their “laser focus” and the “off-the-charts” work ethic that elevated them to the top among the world’s most elite swimmers. That friendship and common mindset helped push them forward in that two-lane backyard pool.
“The mental piece of it is just as important as the physical piece of staying in the water,” Ledecky said.
When their focused blurred, their motivation lacked or they struggled to adjust mentally and physically while not knowing when their next competition might be, they looked to each other to stay on course. Though they didn’t really have a choice.
“It was definitely hard to really be motivated with everything that’s been going on in the world,” Manuel said. “But just knowing that I could show up at practice and know I had a teammate like Katie come to practice and encourage me or push me to get out of the funk that I was in — or for me to do the same for her — was really helpful. And it allowed us to continue to work toward the goals that we have.”
And the ability to expand those already lofty Olympic goals is part of the silver lining.
Now, the pair is back to training at Stanford with about eight people while Meehan said most of his swimmers are still scattered around the country. They were “on track to be great this summer,” he explained, but the added year of training offers them a chance at a do-over Olympics year to improve on everything from race strategy to stroke mechanics.
It’s an opportunity, not a setback, to perfect details that they otherwise would have run out of time to do, and they’re not dwelling on what this year could have been for them professionally, Ledecky said.
“Yes the Games are postponed, but that doesn’t mean that the goals that I have on my list have to be crossed off,” Manuel said, talking about how she and Ledecky are first focused on the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“I still want to make the Olympic team. I still want to go and win all gold medals. So whether the Olympics comes in 2021 or not until 2024, I’m going to keep pressing.”
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