I’m trying to do the best I can. I’m not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.
It has nothing to do with swimming. That happens to be my sport. I’m trying to see how far I can go.
We all love to win, but how many people love to train?
And if you have high cholesterol, you would feel the same as if you had low cholesterol because there are no side effects, no symptoms of having high cholesterol.
There’s a difference between over-training and over-exercising. Over-training can be you’re trying to do something at high performance, but when you’re over-exercising it just means that you don’t have a life. And there are obviously people who go to that extreme.
I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I’d like to be that guy now. Maybe that’s what I’m going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team.
I always wanted to be a dentist from the time I was in high school, and I was accepted to dental school in the spring of 1972. I was planning to go, but after the Olympics there were other opportunities.
I’m at the depot, and I’m not going anywhere. That’s better to deal with than having to deal with the unknown. And the unknown is they don’t want to fail. They don’t want to pay the price unless there’s a guarantee they’re going to get there.
In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a half hours. Today someone in that age group might work out for four hours, two hours in the morning and two at night.
Life is everchanging, if you cease to change, you cease to live.
If you want to be Mark Spitz then go for it. If you want to be Michael Phelps then you’ll have to work for it. Nobody should wake up to a lower expectation of themselves.
Everyone loves to be loved.
If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.
So in my mind I own a lot of house records still.
One of the most difficult things for people who have been successful in sports is adapting to the daily world where you can’t get an answer from someone until 5 o’clock tomorrow. There is always an excuse. Living 40 or 50 years like that doesn’t get too exciting after a while.
Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one’s ability and likelihood for success.
Swimming isn’t everything, winning is.
The only side effect of too much training is that you get into better shape. There is nothing wrong with that.
Because a known fact is better than an unknown fact.
By making a comeback, I’m changing the attitude of people toward me. If I’d known that people would react so enthusiastically, I’d have done it years ago.