Dan Lotano: No Swim History at Age 35 to World Number 1 Master in 5 years, Episode 156

Champions Mojo is part of the CG Sports Network. I started in January of 2016, and the first meet was down at Fort Lauderdale, and the first event was 103 or something like that, and so my wife's up there with a phone, with a video, everyone's really excited, and I dive in, I'm going, you know, what I thought was the bad out of hell, I hit the flip turn, and I shoot out to the side and end up under the lane line, you know, I'm going full speed, ah, no breath, and I blow out to the side, I end up under the lane line, I have to like pull myself out and go, and I get out of the pool afterwards, and I was like, are you sure this is the right thing for you to be doing? And she had it on video, and every once in a while, she, yeah, I mean it wasn't like a joke either, she was like, nobody else did that, like that's a little, you know, like no, no, you're not, doesn't work, so yeah, I had to learn all of those things. Welcome to the award-winning Champions Mojo, hosted by two world record-holding athletes and health, life, and leadership coaches. Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions. And now, your hosts, Kelly Palace and Maria Parker. Hello, friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast, and with me today, I am co-hosting with Maria Parker. Hey, Maria. Hi, Kelly, it's great to be here with you today. Great to have you here, and you know we are excited, Maria, today. Our guest, we're going to give him his proper introduction in a minute, but since he's sitting there with us, hey, Dan Letano, nice to have you with us. Hey guys, thanks for having me. Awesome. Okay, so our special guest today is Dan Letano, a member of the Palm Beach. Master Swim Team. Dan was the fastest man in the world in the long course 50 meter free and the 50 meter fly for master's men age 40 to 44 in the FINA World Rankings for 2021. His long course 50 free in this age group of 23.9 was just a few tenths off making the US Olympic trial cuts for all swimmers, not just master swimmers. And Dan has a great resume in master swimming. He's almost at 400 swims. He's had 101 top 10 individual recognitions, seven years. He's had number one rankings in multiple events. He's also had the coveted all-star honors, which Maria and I always talk about. It's the most number ones in a year. He's had two of those. Some people work their whole lives to get one all-star honor, and he holds a US record, which we're going to hear about. Maria, what else can you tell us about Dan? Well, Dan's even more amazing because he didn't start master swimming until age 35 and played baseball. Besides his number ones in 2021, he's coming off of five gold medals at the recent US Master Spring National Championship and setting a national age group record in the 50 short course yards butterfly in a time of 22-52. We want to find out Dan's secret, so let's get on with it. Let's go. Hey, Dan. Hey. Hey, Dan. Yeah. All right. So Dan, you are the man of mystery. People want to know the truth. What is your swimming history? I mean, you guys have it pretty right. It wasn't until I was 35 that I got into swimming. I mean, I knew how to swim growing up. My grandparents had a lake house, so we had some fun outdoor activities, but I didn't swim competitively, not in college, really just kind of took it on. When I got to my mid-30s, I was having a couple of personal challenges with some family and numbers passing away, looking for some additional motivation, played a bunch of fun sports, but kept getting hurt. So I wanted something that was more competitive that would be great for my health and just get some mojo back to use the pocket thing. I knew there was a facility within five minutes from my house and I said, "Hey, my wife, go check it out." And I did. And I walk in, coach Linda Vostick, who's there, is managing 100-plus swimmers, barking out orders, there's music, wearing. I was hooked before I even got in the pool. It was just seeing that sort of vibe and that excitement, and people working hard really was like, "Wow, I want to get into this." And so I kind of literally jumped right into the pool and the rest is history. That is so encouraging to me because we're interviewing week after week, these people where they were college swimmers, they were whatever, and I'm thinking, and I'd like you, I've swum my whole life, but I've never swum competitively. So it's so encouraging to me that you have done as well as you have just, but you're an athlete. So I guess that makes sense. Did you have to learn a lot? Yeah, I mean, I had, so I knew freestyle, right, and backstrokes, fairly self-explanatory on the opposite way. But the rest of the strokes I had to get used to, and I had no, when it comes to intervals and yardage and how fast you're supposed to go at any different time, I had no idea. I was used to, okay, swim, and I figured it was all out all the time, and it didn't take me more than one practice and throwing up in a garbage can to realize you can't sprint the entire practice and end up in a good spot. Wait, did you really throw up in a garbage can the first practice? One of the first parts of the main set was a broken 200, and so I don't know what that means. And I asked the coach, they're like, oh, you just want to go race pace, you know, 200 meters. Well, race pace to me at the time meant the same pace, whether it's a 50 or a 1,000. So I said, okay, fine, and I went out like a bat out of hell and, you know, died as a set went on and just immediately walked myself out of the pool and, you know, met the closest garbage can. So let's swim more. I, first, you have to have a special kind of mindset to show up on a deck with the coach barking orders and Linda Irish Bostic is, you know, she's a great coach, she's got great, you guys, you know, Palm Beach Masters is a fantastic team, but most people would be intimidated by that and just turn around and leave when they see that. So there is something in Dan Latino that's got that competitive drive like, hey, these guys are getting after it. I want to get in and get after it. But back this up just a hair with really, truly no swim team. You didn't swim in high school. You didn't swim on the little league, you know, something, but you did play baseballs. Okay. So walk us through kind of your athletic history. Now that we know you don't have a swimming history, what is your athletic history? It's pretty well-rounded, but exceptionally mediocre, I would say. I played pretty much, you know, any sport that I could get my hand on, mostly basketball, baseball, and golf and, you know, my early years of college I pitched and again, I quickly realized that every other person like, Hey, am I going to make major leagues or not? And if I'm not, then I probably start, I probably should start attending class and paying attention more and just made the decision at that point that those, you know, the dreams of grandeur of being a major league baseball pitcher weren't going to happen. And I kind of banded it, but throughout my entire youth, I, you know, there was a ball to play with like me and my brothers and friends would just pick it up and start going. So I was, I was always athletically inclined, but, you know, didn't achieve any sort of level of success that I've been able to have in the swimming world, which is probably good because I don't know if I had done that all the way back then, you know, what I'd be doing this now. Right. Like a lot of people run into that challenge. So it's, you know, I'm still getting better and still getting faster. So it's nice. Yeah. Where did you pitch? I went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which is a D3 school up in upstate New York. And I was a engineering major and started off in that path and I was local to the area growing up. They were able to give me some financial assistance and I got the pitch. So I was like, that sounds great and we'll go there. Yeah. So this is incredible that you did not know how to do butterfly when you started as a 35 year old swimmer. Is that correct? Yeah. That is, that is just blows my mind. My first swim of butterfly was at my first, not in 2016 and my first natural is in Greensboro. Like that was the first 50 I'd ever swam in a meet or any sort of race in butterfly and I came in second. And that was like, okay, that was the light bulb moment that there's probably something here. I should probably practice this one for a while. That is just so inspiring and encouraging. So I know people want to hear what is your training schedule like? What are your training blocks? How much do you swim? How much distance? How many days a week? Do you lift? Give us a little, you know, how did this progress from throwing up in the trash can to, you know, being ranked number one in the world? So like I said, with Linda and her program, she clearly has years of experience from her own swimming career and then coaching masters and has a wealth of different programs. Other coaches that are also swimmers on her team have a lot of input. And so most of the programming, those first two years were just kind of set, right? That's what she did for the program, was able to jump in. I would say on average, we probably do like low 3000 meters a day. And I try to, right now I try to go four to five times a week. And so that's progressed over time. I think as I've, you know, gotten a little bit more further into my career and focused on things a little differently, I try to tend to do a little more sprint race pace oriented workouts. So I'm probably more in the 2000, 2500 meters of practice. But there are still plenty of days, you know, we generally have Tuesdays or distance days, Wednesdays or middle distance, Thursdays or stroke, Fridays or sprints, fast Friday. So there's a nice variety of different practices. And then I just adjust the intervals for the yardage as I see fit, but get that nice rounded part of that swimming. And then one area that I started last year or really when the, some of the pandemic started hitting was getting into more of a CrossFit type routine. So my wife actually is an instructor. It's called hard exercise works. It's all up and down, I think the East Coast and some outside of the West. But it's a CrossFit type thing, a lot of more, you know, not flipping tires or anything like that, but more, a lot of pull ups, push ups, running body weight type exercises. And I think, you know, I was already clearly doing pretty well in the swimming world, but the last two or three years when I've engaged in that activity and really, you know, help the cross training side of it, that's where I've seen my performance really take up another, take it up another notch. And that's, you know, three or four days a week as well. So I mean, it's, it's a lot of work. I'm putting in a lot of training, but, you know, try to get in and out of the pool in an hour and then these workouts are 30 to 45 minutes and then, you know, 70 times a week between the two. Wow. Do you do those with your wife? Those workouts? I do. So as many as possible, we, my two older daughters, they have swim practice. So she drops them off. I meet her after work, we work out and then we pick them up at home. Okay. Here's what I have to know. So you've had no formal instruction and swimming other than, you know, whatever your brother told you to do or your grandparents when you were in the lake and you get in the pool. You know, you're not intimidated. I love that too. And you get in the pool. Do they say, whoa, whoa, stop. You're doing it all wrong. You know, you got a higher elbow or whatever. Did they, was there a lot of correction in, tell me about that. Oh yeah. No, I think Linda called me an elephant in the water for the first like month or two and then I slowly morphed into smaller, more streamlined animals, but yeah, animals, not the less. And it was a lot of that. And your point, I didn't have the jargon and the lingo to know most of what people were telling me. So more often than not, I'd be told something and then watch the other swimmers see what they did and then try to pick up a lot of the drills or technique that way. And you know, at the time I didn't, okay, whatever you change your arm, you've left your elbow. And then you go from there. It took me a decent while to appreciate just how technical the sport was. I just, again, I viewed, I didn't have really any basis to go by. So I just viewed it as a brute strength type exercise and my swimming reflected that. And over time I've been able to really embrace that technical side, which, you know, fine tuned you from being good to great. Did you know how to do a flip turn? I knew how to do it, whether I executed it really well was definitely a hit or miss. In fact, one of my favorite stories. So I started in January of 2016 and the first meet was down in Fort Lauderdale and the first event was a hundred three or something like that. And so my wife stopped there with a phone with a video. Everyone's really excited. And I dive in, I'm going, you know, what I thought was the bad out of hell. I hit the flip turn and I shoot out to the side and end up under the lane line, you know, I'm going full speed, no breath, and I blow out to the side. I end up under the lane line, have to like pull myself out and go and I get out of the pool afterwards. But I was like, are you sure this is the right thing for you to be doing? And she had it on video and every once in a while, she, yeah, I mean, it wasn't like a joke either. Like nobody else did that. And I was like, no, no, no, that doesn't work. So yeah, I had to learn all of those things. And that's, you know, what's again, kind of, if I have to say, what's one of the nice things about starting as late as I did is this is all still new. I keep learning every day, little pieces of information. I love to pick other swimmer's brains again, what are they training on? What are they working on? How are they approaching this? It really wasn't until the beginning of this year that I started counting my strokes, which was another revelation in terms of my races and everything else. So it's still all pretty new and fresh and continuing to learn, which is, you know, one of the ways I think I keep getting faster as well. How many strokes are you taking on your free and your fly or any of it? So my fly is four strokes off the dive. And then it's more kicking. So it's like four. So I count kicks, I count the strokes of the wall and then it's seven dolphin kicks and up on eight and just kind of stick with that routine for the rest of the event. Free style. It depends. I haven't perfected yet how far I should go off the, I don't know if I'll ever perfect it, but I'm still trying to improve how many dolphin kicks I take off the wall in there, but that's, you know, seven or eight depending on the, depending on the day. It's really the butterfly that I've been focused on and mostly. No water dolphins. How tall are you? Six four. Six four. Okay. But how many strokes are you taking? Like, not off the start, but on a regular, like the back half of your free or fly. Do you know? See, you're asking too much now for, I don't know. Okay. So this is great. This is great. This is so great. I'm just screaming swim fast. That's my style of kicking. Yeah. Gotcha. You are. I cannot tell you how encouraged I am. I mean, yeah. And now I'm afraid because Maria is such a beast competitor. She's going to start swimming and beating me as it's going to be fun. Seriously. So my head is going to explode at the idea that you just started swimming in 2016. Like I'm just thinking I'm sure that I saw you in 2016 because we're in the same, you know, we're in the same LMSC. And so I've seen you at all these meets and I love Linda and I love, you know, her team and all you guys, but I did not realize quite, I don't think anyone realized that you literally just started. So tell us now in the best terms that you have of understanding. So you just came off of this short course nationals. You work, you know, you're in the pool five days a week. You're doing this very hard dry land. What does a taper look like for Dan Latano? Well, that's another work in progress as you can imagine, you know, when we, when I started with the Linda, Linda typically targets three weeks. And so like, that sounds great. Let's go with that. And there were, they made me know from, like I said, swimming in our LMSC, but there was always this event at Coral Springs the week after nationals every year, the last chance swim or whatever. And the first few years I did nationals, I never, you know, I took the rest of the week off, but I was like, there's a meat. I want to swim. Let's go. And I would generally swim faster at that meat after doing nothing that entire week than at national itself, which was a pretty good performance in its own right. And so as I've continued my swimming career, if you will, I have continued to elongate that tapering side. So I'm probably at four to five weeks now where I really start dialing it down, which includes no sprinting whatsoever the last week. And then, you know, maybe a thousand to 1500 meters for the two weeks prior to that. And I feel fresh. Like I said, I'm doing a lot of dry land too, so that's probably compromising how quickly I can recover, but it's really four weeks out. I start shutting it down in two weeks prior. It's next to nothing. And that's where I've seen some of the last two nationals I've had my best, some of the two personal best this year and five personal best last year really off that elongated taper. So I think I'm doing it right. But everyone's different. Everyone's individual and you got to find your own what's going to work for you. Tell us how you manage a full-time career, a parenthood, a great relationship with your wife, obviously, and this really time-consuming hobby. I have no other hobbies. So you know, if I think about my 20s and what we did, you know, in our downtime, and more or less, it just seemed like a lot of sitting around and a lot of watching TV and not more of a sedentary lifestyle. And it's just been filled with other things. Having kids was clearly a difference now because we spend a lot of time with them. But most days I'm at the pool at 5.30 a.m. for practice. I get to work by eight, you know, I'm home around six or not home. We usually go to the gym on those nights for a 6.30 training and then we go home and eat dinner and we go to bed. So we're quite boring now in terms of, you know, extracurricular activities. But it's a routine that's really worked for us and we get to spend plenty of time with a family and all the other things that I thought I used to love, but now I look back on them or more or less distractions. It just, you know, there's a lot of meaning in what we do and we get a lot of joy out of it. So just kind of the routine that we've fallen in and we love it. So the Spring Nationals was one of the first kind of huge meets that we've all gotten back to after the pandemic and it was, you know, pretty high pressure. A lot of the top people showed up to swim and every heat was kind of loaded with the best of the best. And what is your mindset as this rather new person at these Nationals? We love to know, like, what are you saying to yourself? How do you prepare for this and what is your mindset when you're behind the blocks? Well, when I'm behind the blocks, I really try to zone out as much as possible because to everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people say visualize race. And when I started doing that, my heart rate would just jack itself before I even started swimming. I'd be sitting in my bed the night before and visualize my race and also my heart rate is like 130, 140 and I'm like getting myself worked up. So I need to actually just kind of disconnect before the race itself and just try to zone out and not pay attention. So I'm more or less trying to annoy other swimmers with casual conversation and distracts, you know, I'm not trying to get them off their game, but I'm really just trying to keep myself from thinking too much. And then, you know, you try to snap into go mode when they blow the whistle and get up. But if I think about it too much, just the way, you know, my mind and body works, I end up doing myself a disservice because I, you know, I get too amped up and then the back half of the races get harder. So a lot of the work really gets done ahead of time. And then you just got to try to focus in ahead of meeting all of that. I try to find out who's the who are the fastest swimmers? What are they doing? Maybe a little internet stalking of them to see what they do and how they train and then how, you know, I can try to beat them. But at that point, it's, you know, just kind of rely on your training and then focus when you need to. What about when you're in the back half and the pain comes, what do you tell yourself? He says sprinter. Oh, there's no pain. Yeah. More like just, oh, no, hold on. I mean, it actually happened in the first race at national this year. I had really wanted to swim well. It was a hundred butterfly. There's another guy, James Fike, who's done a bunch of new training methods and swimming exceptionally well, best efforts at 40 years old, breaking records all over the place. And he was in my event and I was like, all right, I got to beat this guy. And I went out faster than my national record on the 50 and absolutely died on the last 15 meters and swam and came in second to him, of course, and didn't swim as good as they do. But it was just like this, oh my God, keep going, keep willing yourself to go. But, you know, all the mental strength, it'll keep you moving. But if your body is not up to the task and you didn't pace your race correctly, the mind can only do so much. It's just kind of, you know, get through it the best you can. But it's really the training that's going to prepare you for that. And like I said, it's not getting swept up in the moment, which is exactly what I told you I was trying not to do and, you know, going out too quickly and then blowing myself out. What about getting yourself up in the morning at, you know, five o'clock or whatever it is that you got to do to get to practice every single, almost every morning. What is your mental talk there? It's a process. So I've timed out exactly how long I need to get from my bed to the pool and I waste no minutes in between. So five, ten, the alarm goes off for five minutes. I, you know, sit in bed and try to talk myself to going, all the good reasons, all the benefits that will happen once I do that while my, you know, the devil on your shoulder says no, go back to bed. It's nice. I go myself up by five, seventeen in the car by five, twenty. And then I'm at the pool at five, thirty. And that happens literally every day that I go just trying to work through that process of acknowledging I want to go back to bed. But remembering how great I will feel once it's over and ready to start the day, which is what, you know, walking out of practice at six, forty, five and feeling the endorphins in the way and ready to take on the world. Like that's what gets me back every time. It doesn't mean, you know, the body says maybe not today, but I can't keep coming back to that. Don't you want to feel this good in an hour? And, you know, that always wins out. So there seems to be so much room left in Dan LaTano's swimming career. What do you have on your horizon? Are some things that you're looking forward to or goals? Well, I was really hoping that they were going to have the World Championships and it's been postponed again for next year. And so I'd love to swim in one of those, right? And I've looked at the last couple of years' results and how I would have stacked up. And so I, to the extent one finally stays on the calendar and we can plan around it, I'd love to participate in that. Otherwise, it's just kind of continuing to maintain and beat my times. At least, you know, as it pertains to my age group, some of the records looks fairly unattainable. You know, they were set back in 2009, 2010, and some of the SuperSuit eras and some pretty ridiculous swimers who were wearing them at the time. I don't know how many records in my age group are going to be attainable. So I'll look forward to 45. I'm good friends with, I don't say I'm good friends. I'm acquaintances with Chuck Barnes who just aged up in that age group and broke four, I think three or four records in his age group. And it was exciting because he's swimming it and he was in my, he'd before me in the lane before me and he'd get out and break the record and be like, all right, I'm going to take that down in three years and joke that. So it was, that was nice, but it's really just more about maintaining and enjoying the lifestyle that has come alongside the swimming world and getting to hopefully participate in the world and continue to set new bars. I'd also love to get into coaching at some point. I think that's a goal and, you know, as I said, as I've learned how technical the sport is and the training routines, I love doing it. And like I said, my two older daughters are both in swim programs now and I love spending time with them to help them refine their techniques, right? So not over like, go sprint, go run this distance. It's more of like, learn, learn, learn, get the basics done today. And I want to help and get into more than that. Like watching other people perform is just as excitable, if not more than my own, because I generally try to self critique myself to death when I'm done with a race, but watching other people perform and succeed and achieve their goals is overwhelming in its own right. So I'm hopeful I can do more things like that and participate in the coaching world as well. And what an inspiration it would be to look up and see a coach standing there that, you know, started from scratch, basically. That's awesome. So, Dan, what does swimming mean to you? So yeah, I mean, a couple of things. It's just a way of life to rid myself of stress and, you know, all the day-to-day life things that can wear you out and drag you down sometimes. It's almost, you know, like a figurative and literal baptism every day. You come out in the water, you come out with all your, you know, tired and bones and thoughts and weighing on yourself and you come out feeling great and I said, like, ready to take on the world. So, you know, to use that metaphor, it's a baptism every day just to kind of be born and do and address things. It's also a license to eat. So one of the nice things about this sport is, you know, and the fables go, you can eat a lot and get away with it when you're working out as hard as we all are. And one of the greatest, you know, some of the greatest satisfactions I have is when I'm with some of my business colleagues and the dessert menu comes out at the end of a meal or something and I got the biggest steak and they're all like, oh, no, no, thanks or I'll take a coffee. I'm like, I will take that, and they all stare at you with, you know, they're judging, but they're also wildly envy at the same time and it's great. And so it's, you know, it allows me to more fully enjoy these things and not worry about every bit of it. Obviously, what you eat is very important to your training and everything else. So I don't want to pretend I'm a junk food act or anything else, but I don't have to monitor and worry about that as much and I can get more enjoyable food products into my body when I want to. So your whole family is athletic. Tell us about your nutrition for the family because a lot of people, that's sort of an issue trying to feed the kids and yourselves and your wife's an athlete as well. So how does that work? So we're kind of back to that more boring lifestyle that we lead for creatures of habit. So on any given morning, after practice, I'll have a smoothie. So there's a certain like fruit pack, frozen fruit pack that my wife picked us up. I put some protein in it with some milk and that's my breakfast with a coffee. The kids, you know, we always cut up fruit and have some sort of like a bagel or English muffin with it. And it's just rinse and repeat all day. And then for dinner, we try to get as much protein and vegetables and air quotes as much, you know, we'll see how many of those actually go in the kids' mouths, but they're served to them at a minimum. And then my wife and I end up picking up the rest of it. But we, you know, there's the quote that I heard, you have to treat food like medicine or, you know, medicine will become your food. And that's just something my wife and I have lived up since really I got into the sport and really started paying super attention to my health and herself included becoming a coach and on the CrossFit stuff and teaching Zumba. And you know, there's no better example to set for other colleagues or friends than doing it yourself. Right. And so she and I make a point to try to eat as healthy as possible and our kids, you know, they just kind of fall into that because they don't know any different. And they still get the odd McDonald's runs from here and now that they're kids and that's required. But, you know, that's more the exception of the rule. That's a great answer. So Dan, another myth we have to bust because like I said, we've had people tell us, get Stan Letano on the show and we've been trying to get you for weeks because you are so busy. You are fully employed because one of the myths I heard around the pool deck, I don't know if I heard this in San Antonio or at a local LMSC meet was, oh, Dan is retired. He can swim all day. He's all he does is swim. So tell us if you are a career man, I heard you're a top executive. What do you do? And it sounds like you burn a lot of hours at work. Yeah. I'm definitely not retired. That would be great. One of the other guys that swim with Chris Beach, who's another exceptional master swimmer who's I think, you know, swims and then does some fun stuff on the side. But as far as myself, yeah. So I work for Nexera Energy, it's the largest renewable energy generator in the world, which has been great, not only from a business and a career standpoint, but really trying to address some of the challenges that the world faces around decarbonization and climate change. And I've been with the company for 15 years and run a number of our new ventures, including Everbright, which is a residential solar company. So if anyone out there needs solar storage or EV on their homes, we can make that happen. Also run our EV mobility business. So clearly those are coming fast and furious and our company wants to play a meaningful role there. And then some other activities around cleaning up infrastructure more broadly. So how can we bring green renewable solutions to any sort of carbon emitting infrastructure out there? So if you think about the Googles and the Facebooks and the Amazons, the world and their data centers and the amount of energy they consume, which, you know, as human beings, our data usage is not going down anytime soon. The more we can help bring them clean solutions that not only do right for the earth, but help them lower their cost is all the things that we do. So I have a very much a full time job, travel across the country a couple of times a month. And, you know, I love it. I love what we do and, you know, try to do what we can to make a good living for my family. And then the swimming comes on. You swim when you travel. Yeah. So I made use or I make use of the USMS site where you can click and look at what are the local clubs in the area. And so I'll, I'll email the directors or pool leaders, what have you at the time I come out there and just like, Hey, can I jump in and most of the time I get away for free. But inevitably there are some sticklers that make me pay five to 10 bucks. So why do we do it? But a lot of times it's like, Oh, and they look because they have to look me up first and then they see I've done, they've done well at swimming. So then they're happy to have me there. But then the other was like, no, no, it's $10. Dan, what would be three pieces of advice or just three things that if somebody wants to be like Dan, what are like three of your attributes or three of the things that you really focus on that make you the success that you are? Sure. So I'd probably say first and foremost, kicking, particularly the underwater dolphins. So a lot of the, the reading that I partook in when I got into the sport was, you know, around anything I could read, I wanted to read anything I can, I wanted to learn. And that was the whole fifth stroke movement and just talking about what it did. And so I said, okay, that sounds smart. I should do that. And so a fair amount of my daily practices are revolve around kicking on my front, on my back, and really trying to develop my legs. It's always, you know, some of the more annoying parts that people hate and myself included, but the results speak for themselves. So I like to tell my friends that key to swimming backstroke is don't swim backstroke and swim as far as swim as many underwater dolphins that you can. So if I had any sense of learnings I could impart upon people, I would just, you know, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, like there's no better base that you're going to build. Following on that, continuing to learn from others. Everyone's body is different. Everyone's stroke is a little different. We all have our nuances, but we all can learn from different tips and tricks that people have picked up along the way and being able to accept people's advice, which is again, not an easy concept for a lot of people to always take is very important because there's always someone out there who's done it before, who has made the mistakes themselves and can be, you know, everyone's a student, everyone's a teacher, right? And hopefully impart that knowledge, but we would be willing to take it. I don't think there's any sort of champions out there that have done it all themselves, right? They all had a great coach or mentor or someone who came for them to impart some of that wisdom and teaching. Clearly, they have to make it their own, but, you know, that's being, being receptive to feedback is wildly important in my mind. And then consistency, just being there and showing up, you know, you don't have to do it every day. You don't have to kill yourself in the process, but setting a target and meeting it and just building a routine, like you said, you just fall into it and it becomes second nature. So like my five, 10 a.m. story, right? I do it every day and I know it's going to happen, but that's part of my process to get me to the pool and, and get me going. So everyone just has to develop their routine and develop that consistency and then the results kind of, kind of build from there. I've learned that in my business career, just put your head down and execute and, but, you know, I don't think the pool is any different. That's beautiful. So in following in people's footsteps, who has been an inspiration to you or someone that you kind of follow in either masters or regular swimming. I love them all. I don't really follow one athlete for say some of the biggest inspirations that I've had is looking at some of the masters, swimmers in my age group who have had a social media presence like that. I do enjoy a little bit of fun internet stalking from time to time. And for anyone who's put themselves out there and succeeded, it's fun to see them doing the same thing. When you hear about individuals getting personal bests well after their college career, if they did it or just doing that more like I'm doing it, it's an inspiration just that you're not, you know, you haven't peaked yet. You can still keep improving every five years, get another chance, right, to compete for records and everything else. So it's nice just finding those people who are continuing to focus on self-improvement and how do they go on. I was fortunate to swim in a couple pro series events, which were one of the highlights and you know, I saw the Katie Wadecki and people of the world and I was wowed by them. But I don't, we're not exactly relatable. They don't have large families. They don't have full-time jobs. It's a different perspective that they come at when they're swimming. They're swimming professionals. My biggest inspiration is seeing people at my stage in my life and finding that relatable and seeing the success that they're having and knowing that there's plenty of room to go. That's really well said. Yeah. Thank you. So before we play our fun sprinter round, which we know you will be good at, is there anything that we have not asked you that you would like to share with us? I think we covered a lot of stuff. I get a lot of, like going back to the coaching and the teamwork, yes, I'm competitive and yes, I want to win as much as possible and that's what drives me to do well. But that camaraderie and that teamwork of seeing that on the deck that day with Linda and everyone, just, I would say we focus more on our master's club than I would have thought we did. You know, everyone's like, "Oh, it's master's living. You do whatever you want, whenever you want." And they were snap to attention and listening to her. I mean, she does carry that type of command in her voice. So she's fairly unique in that regard. But it's that sense of belonging and sense of being. It's rooting each other on. Like I've played a bunch of sports and I've never been part of a community that supports each other so much and we're all at different ability levels. We all have different goals, but everyone's always rooting for each other. People shake hands after, you know, after events and it's so fun. So I enjoy the camaraderie and the teamwork, winning a relay is just as exciting to me and sometimes more so than individual events. So I hope everyone out there gets as much exposure and excitement from their team, from their teammates or anything else they can do. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Are you ready to do some fun? This little section, I don't know if you've heard it on our show before, but we just, we call up the sprinter around and we ask you a few little quick questions to have our listeners get to know you better. So are you ready? Time will tell. Okay. Take your mark. These are one word answers, either or cat or dog. Dog for gradually I hate animals, but yes, I have, I have three animals I don't need anymore. Oh my God. What are those? The children. He's referring to his kids. Oh, Avery, Avery, Avery, Ashley and Wesley. Oh my God. That's hilarious. Oh, I love it. I have three animals ready. I don't need more. Okay. I don't need more. Who knew Dan Letano was funny too? That was great. Okay. Cardio or strength training? Cardio. Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? Milk chocolate. I've heard this is like dark chocolate is an abomination or I, I agree. That's true. I agree. I agree. All right. Kickboard or no kickboard? Kickboard. Okay. Mountains or beach? Beach. I live in South Florida. So I'm biased. Yeah. So what's your baseball? Football. iPhone or Android? iPhone. Only, I couldn't even tell you what an Android is differently. I've just always gotten one through work. So I just kind of buy it full. Okay. Kurt was Android with Maria and I were the only three Android people on the planet. So coffee or tea? Coffee. Every morning. Okay. Now, if you weren't swimming, would you be a morning person or a night owl? At this stage, I'd be a morning person because that's my having kids and they, they're up just as early as I am most of the time. Like if I ever slept in to eight o'clock, that would be the first time in probably 10 years. So. Okay. All right. Last one for me. Are there any tattoos located on Dan LaTana? You don't have to answer. There are no. Well, so I didn't swim in college. So I have no. No, no. Or anything else like that. So there's no tattoos. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. All right. No, it's fine. Okay. Here's mine. Favorite color? Blue. Favorite pizza topping? More cheese. I'm a plain guy. I just, I just, I'll take more cheese and sauce. Great. Favorite vegetable? Favorite vegetable. Probably corn on the cob? Is corn a vegetable? Is corn a vegetable? It is. It is. It grows. That is the first we have not had that one. Or you could call it the fruit of the corn plant. Is sweet potato a fruit or is it a vegetable? I like those too. Okay. How about, is there anything, do we eat anything green, Dan? Yeah. Favorite green? Okay. Favorite green? Behind corn and sweet potato. That's right. I used vegetables in quotes earlier. Oh yeah. That's right. It's a state of mind sometimes. Yeah. For those of you listening, most furlisters only do audio, not the video, so the vegetable was in quotes. Okay. Favorite swim complex in the U.S.? Probably Greensboro. There's a little romanticism around that because that was my first, the big center there. That was my first nationals and I was in awe coming into that site and just kind of seeing how many, you know, 2,000 swimmers, the nationally, it was awesome, so they were my first. That's nice. What kind of music do you like? I'm a Dave Matthews fan type of guy in that genre. Okay. What's your shoe size? 13. Siblings. Do you have any siblings? I have two younger brothers. Favorite Star Wars character? Definitely not anything new. I don't know, how do you not go with Luke Skywalker? I mean, that guy kind of did it all, right? Except for the last three movies and they really, really terrible, but until then I'll take. Can you cook? I can cook. I can cook. I'm more of a breakfast cooker, if you will. My French toast is legendary or so my wife says. She's just trying to get you to cook. What word comes to mind when you dive in the water? Kick. I love it. It's just one of those, like I said, I focused on it and the first thing is just start kicking as fast as possible. Okay. This is just been awesome. Stay tuned for the takeaways. Want to succeed like a champion? Lifetime Olympic coach Bob Bowman, coach of Olympic legend Michael Phelps says Kelly's book Take Your Mark Lead is a powerful addition to your personal improvement library and learners from all walks of life will gain key insights and enjoy this inspiring book. Take Your Mark Lead debuted as an Amazon number one best seller in five categories and is available online. And now the takeaways. So Maria, as Dan said, going into that, we have debunked the myths and mysteries around Dan Letano. That could be one of my favorite interviews we've ever done. So refreshing hearing about this athlete that didn't really start in just 2016. I mean, this is 2022 and he's just started in 2016 and now he's world number one. As I said in the recording, I cannot tell you how motivating and inspiring that is to me as a person who has never swum competitively. He didn't either. So listen to the whole interview. He's charming. He's funny. The interview is fabulous. But we do have our takeaways. We do have our takeaways and this can apply to anything. It doesn't have to just be swimming that you can take on these things. So what was your first takeaway, Maria? Oh, well, he said something just really beautiful about getting up early and going to swim. He talked to this whole thing how he'd talk himself into it every day, but he loved doing it because every morning it was like baptism and he was born anew and it just reminded us that, yeah, no, we hardly ever want to get up early in the morning and go put on our gear and go out and start exercising. But when we do, we remember that we're born again every day after we exercise and I had that experience this morning. So I love that. It was very poetic. I thought it was beautiful. Yeah, there's no doubt you and I've said this for years that we don't ever enjoy the beginning of the workout, but we always, if you focus on what's happening after the workout and how you feel that it'll get you started. So I love that one too. My first one, there were so many, but my first one was really when you're going into something scary. So he, you know, when any of us are behind the blocks, behind the microphone, ready to start something that is super scary, if you're visualizing it over and over, he said when he would think about going into a big race prior to that, if he visualized it, his heart rate would go up to 130 or 150 or, you know, he would get, you know, that adrenaline pump, which didn't serve him. And he said one time he did have that adrenaline pump went out too fast, didn't do the race that he wanted to. So he uses distraction before he swims. So he just kind of likes to have fun and have casual conversation with his friends that are swimming too. And so I liked that a lot that he, one of his techniques for dealing with anxiety and pre-race and pre-performance anxiety is distraction. Yeah, I like that too, because that's helpful for me too, because I get myself totally wound up. How about your second? My second takeaway was just, I love how he's made this his, he's combined this really important career, his family, he has three kids and swimming and they just have created a lifestyle that really works for them and brings them joy. It's simple. And he said, they used to be sedentary and they waste a lot of time watching TV. And he said, now, you know, we get up, we work out, we do our day, you know, we work out a little bit more than we go to bed. And he said, and we are all doing it. I just love how he's woven, you know, this into his life and into his family. I think that that will really help those of us who have busy lives and care about our families and stuff. We can do this, you know, and you just, you keep it simple and you do the important things. And that's what he's doing. He works. Some people said, maybe he was retired, no, this guy works and he still does this amazing stuff. He works and he's got three small kids. And he's got three kids. Three young kids. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a great one for sure. Yeah. Sometimes just having a simple life is the best life, you know. So my last one again, and we encourage you for listening to all of it, but we both just laughed uproariously on the swimming and exercising gives you a license to eat. You're right. So that is something you and I are evangelists for exercising and fitness and getting and working out. So to hear that, yeah, that is one of the benefits when you exercise. And then to drill down a little bit on that is that he feels like food is medicine and that he even has his whole family eating healthfully. And the kids don't know the difference because, you know, maybe they, they don't know what a Coke tastes like or they don't eat junk food. So I think eating was a big part of his happiness around swimming. And I just, I thought that was a fun take. Yeah. Yeah. I loved it. And you need to listen to find out what his favorite vegetables are. Yes. Or if he even knows what a vegetable is, which was just hilarious. So that was. All right, Kelly. Love you so much. Love you, Maria. Thanks for the joy. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Champions Mojo podcast. Did you enjoy the show? We'd be grateful if you would leave us a five star review on iTunes to help others find us. And we'd also love to hear from you. We're on all social media platforms or you can reach us at championsmojo.com.