Dara Torres-Amazing

I can't keep track. I thought in the last Dara interview I read or saw (maybe the NYT article), she said she does 5000 meters a day 5x a week. I have no idea how much college sprinters train, really. Tall Paul? Ande? Unfortunately, there aren't many NCAA kids in the finals. As someone noted on the other thread, almost none of the NCAA Champs are on the Olympic team (except maybe Stoval?). They're being outdone by the pros. Do you really think the swimmers in the finals or semi-finals of the 50 free are high yardage swimmers? There are many NCAA kids, or very recent NCAA kids in the finals or semis. Wildman-Tobriner was a top sprinter for Stanford and swam a 18.98 50 SCY free in 2007. Weber-Gale was a top Texas sprinter through 2007. Christine Magnuson was the NCAA champ in 100 fly. Burckle, Soni, Chandler, Nymeyer, etc. are also current NCAA champions. Breeden was a NCAA medalist. Vollmer, etc. The semis in particular are full of Auburn, Stanford, Arizona, and Texas swimmers. I have seen a few of Eddie Reese's workouts and I don't think anyone swam just 5000 yds in season. According to the recent NY Times article Dara trains about 25,000 yds/wk - so I was low in my post above. It also says she trained 65K/week in college. I was guessing that current NCAA sprinters still train about that much - but the sets may be different than they were 20 years ago. Other articles on Dara say her training will cost $100K this year. I wonder if Dara's flexibility is a key to the way she finishes her races so strongly - the natural tightening that occurs for many at the end of a race may be less significant for her? Can she hold her near perfect stroke all the way to the end - maintaining efficiency where others fall apart?

I can't keep track. I thought in the last Dara interview I read or saw (maybe the NYT article), she said she does 5000 meters a day 5x a week. I have no idea how much college sprinters train, really. Tall Paul? Ande? Unfortunately, there aren't many NCAA kids in the finals. As someone noted on the other thread, almost none of the NCAA Champs are on the Olympic team (except maybe Stoval?). They're being outdone by the pros. Do you really think the swimmers in the finals or semi-finals of the 50 free are high yardage swimmers? There are many NCAA kids, or very recent NCAA kids in the finals or semis. Wildman-Tobriner was a top sprinter for Stanford and swam a 18.98 50 SCY free in 2007. Weber-Gale was a top Texas sprinter through 2007. Christine Magnuson was the NCAA champ in 100 fly. Burckle, Soni, Chandler, Nymeyer, etc. are also current NCAA champions. Breeden was a NCAA medalist. Vollmer, etc. The semis in particular are full of Auburn, Stanford, Arizona, and Texas swimmers. I have seen a few of Eddie Reese's workouts and I don't think anyone swam just 5000 yds in season. According to the recent NY Times article Dara trains about 25,000 yds/wk - so I was low in my post above. It also says she trained 65K/week in college. I was guessing that current NCAA sprinters still train about that much - but the sets may be different than they were 20 years ago. Other articles on Dara say her training will cost $100K this year. I wonder if Dara's flexibility is a key to the way she finishes her races so strongly - the natural tightening that occurs for many at the end of a race may be less significant for her? Can she hold her near perfect stroke all the way to the end - maintaining efficiency where others fall apart?