Nathan Adrian

I even got a little jealous of those virtual fans last weekend. I'm starting to think these playoffs will be enjoyable. Definitely different considering we're seeing some real Lionel Huts level at offense. But I can't say it won't be fun and say if it seems, congrats to our Lord and Xavior Adam Silver. And while he's doing his job, I'm doing mine, interviewing athletes and sports industry professionals to find out how they're doing during this very weird time because

someone has to. This is the Sports Bubble with Jensen carpon competitive swimmer Nathan Adrian is a three time Olympian and five time gold medalist who faced the biggest challenge of his life in two thousand nineteen when he was diagnosed and treated for testicular cancer. He fought his way through recovery, staying out of the water for almost a year, the longest he'd went since he was four years old, and he figured that was the last hurdle he'd have to jump on his way to once again compete in

the Olympics taking place in Tokyo. And then, well, we all know what happened next. And let's be honest here. At any point during COVID did you think about pools? Well? I didn't, but it's safe to assume that if Olive Garden can't open its stores, any public training pool is

having just as difficult of a time staying open. And so now with one and his crosshairs, Adrian and the rest of the hopeful US team are trying their hardest to stay ready for the Games by jumping town to town to find regulations that allow them to swim and most importantly, stay safe. On this episode, we talked about those hardships, how the postponement may have actually helped his training and how his public health degree keeps him up at night these days, and I find out if Katie

a deck, he is a warlock. And if you can balance a bad beatsa on your head while swimming. Join me today with Nathan Adrian in the Sports Bubble from Basan Adrian to accept Press one. Hey, how's it going, man? It's going well, thank you yourself, well as well as it can. We are. We're talking at the end of a week where certain states are seeing these large spikes in coronavirus cases and debts, and I guess we've been

really like writing the roller coaster on this podcast. So I'm still asking people where you've been through all this and if you've loosened up at all with quarantine. All right, yeah, no problem. I'm in Oakland, I am in a Bay area, and we were first to shelter in place, and honestly, I'm assuming that we are probably going to be the last to continue to shelter in place, even as the vaccine comes out and with that rollout um and and

all of that good stuff. So where we are right now, it's it's really complicated because Alameda County contains both Oakland and the city of Berkeley, and the City of Berkeley also has its own public health department. So even though we have two massive fifty pools and a great training facility at cal because that is within the city limits of the City of Berkeley, like Alameda County has given sb okay to swim there, but the City of Berkeley

Public Health Department still hasn't. So we're we're doing the same thing that a lot of other people are doing and struggling to find pool space outside of our normal training facilities. And I am pretty hardcore lockdown. I mean, it's massed on any time on outside of the house and you know, still doing the grocery delivery thing, trying to cook at home as much as possible with doing with the exception of you know, getting take out maybe

once or twice a week. Sure, well, you're the first competitive swimmer I've spoken to on the show, so it's gonna be an elementary question. But once we saw the nation sort of shut down from the outbreak, does that just close all pools to training? Basically? I think that's

just kind of a broad rush statement. Absolutely. Um, you know, one of the unique things and challenges that we as competitive swimmers are stays with especially now more than ever, was starting to define the difference between training and being a professional athlete in the pool versus country club and a lot of public health departments. I mean, the bandwidth was you know, at its absolute capacity. Uh, and it was hard to get any anyone to hear or or

create differentiations for us. So we kind of are all operating under this overarching you know, quote un pool definition and a lot of people think, you know, pool restrictions. Oh no, we're not going to be able to go to the Fourth of July celebration and do a coin dive at our local country club or community pool. But and that that probably goes without saying. But you know, after the lockdown, I mean, swimming one per lane in a a closely monitored chlorinated outdoor pool has certainly, at

least to me, shown that it's been pretty safe. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it going with these basic questions because I do, other than being a fan of going into the pool, I don't know a ton about swimming. So you'll have to tell me. Is the idea of having a house pool, you know, just the normal pool that we had growing up and swimming in friends houses, and you know, like, is is that able to be trained in or is it just am I asking if you can, you know, play baseball in a small toy.

That's probably a fair comparison, you know, it is sort of life. Maybe getting a professional baseball player out there with a whiffleball in a plastic hollow bad or something. It is good to to do something. It's good to get that feel for the water. But unless you are your backyard pool is at least twenty five yards with good spill over gutters. I'm getting technical here, which means that you have to have a search tank and that it's as a lot of construction costs. It's it's not

quite the same. And not only that, but for as individual as a as a sport of swimming is, there's something to be said about having teammates around you, you know, for your for your days where you're hurting a little bit and you need some you know, motivation either racing them or watching them perform or doing doing something because it's it's hard. It's hard to train alone, no doubt about it, and you have to have those teammates they're

pushing you every day. Is really important and that's that's one of the things that has been a big adjustment. Yeah, I know you're a football guy, but I don't know if you watched any basketball. They had a horse competition through the NBA before the league restarted, and they would show us this is pretty early in the quarantine, but they would show us people's homes and that was you know, they shot you know, from their phone or whatever, and

they play horse remotely. It was so weird. But one of the things that I was shocked with was like they were like, Okay, let's go to Mike Connelly's house, and Mike Connelly had like a full court basketball, you know, like a full literally a full gym in his house. And I'm wondering, do do any swimmers or at now? Are they thinking about getting like a real pool if they have that kind of kind of dough like a

Michael Phelps. I mean yes, but probably no Olympic sized swimming pool is fifty Olympic sized swimming pool depth is you know, ten about ten feet? I mean I could I could do the math for you right if I had a calculator, but I mean it's hundreds of thousands of gallons. You gotta have really massive pumps to to get the hit the filtration rate for that, you gotta be adding chlorine. It's it's a lot more complicated than putting in a really nice basketball court in your in

your house. I'll take that, Mike Conley. But I do I do like the idea of just having one one lane, just one lane in your backyard that goes on, doesn't You don't have to have the whole pool. Well, so there's also the ability to endless pools, which is for the average swimmer perfectly adequate to to stay in shape

or even you know, lose some corona quarantine pounds. But it really is just not quite the same as actually moving through the like you know, so much of swimming is about your fuel and I guess that would be maybe to bring in another sports analogy, like similar to hitting off of hitting off of mats versus getting off of grass and golf. Right, that makes sense. Well, how then tell me how do you train without without a pool? How do you train for swimming? I mean, you're on

the Olympic team. I know you found out that the Olympics were were canceled while you were actually training with your team, So like, what what do you do now, well, right now because Calis clothes were actually going to the neighboring county. Kind of counterproductive, I know, when we have you know, two massive, awesome fifty pools and now we're having to pay to rent space at facility that's not quite as good. But that's the game that we're playing

right now, and we're doing our best. Our coach has made great adjustments for us in terms of what we're doing in the water to try to you know, maximize the games that we can achieve from from not having access to our our normal pool. And then on the

other side of that, I'm all so. I also like, right when we went to shelter in Place, I went online and ordered some some weight so I can have a little home Jim set up because I figured that this is gonna last a little longer than most people anticipated, which I am very thankful for now because it seems that, you know, home Jim set ups are completely sold out acrost the nation, So I'm really glad I have that little setup going in the garage to to really help

bridge that gap. Yeah, it's hard to imagine anyone is happy about quarantine, but I would clearly get in a fight with people who own a home gym company or like sweats. Those people are having the best time of their lives. Are really well, let's talk about some serious things. You did what many people did during this time in history. You adopted a dog. Yes, okay, How to be honest,

how much does this help? Because I have a dog, and boy did I turn to him many times during this But how much does it help when you feel like the world is ending to have man's best friend? You know? For any listeners out there who do you have a dog or maybe have access to it, you know, neighbor dog or something, I would encourage them to limit their news intake to you know, ten or fifteen minutes and then spend the additional time in their day with

a dog. I really genuinely believe that would make the world a happier play. It truly does. Yeah, exactly, I mean, it really does. It really does. Is helpful to kind of lift your spirits and even walking in the house after a tough practice, um and and having a dog great you and just kind of you know, wag your tail and and try her best to not jump because you know, we're trying to train or not to jump on me um, but it is. It really is the best feeling getting home and having a happy stays treating

you well. You were open about your treatment for testicular cancer in two thousand nineteen and you were rigorously training to make the Olympic team. You still are, but with this delay, now, I wonder does this actually help you with recovery and getting back into shape because you were on a bit of a sped up timeline. Absolutely. It took me a little bit so to realize and appreciate

that fact just as as it would so. I have definitely been able to gain more strength back, and because as you mentioned, you know, I was on a little bit of an accelerated timeline, I've kind of being able to step back work through some fundamentals, especially in the weight room, also in in the pool, to kind of patch over some spots that we had maybe rushed through in our initial return. So I feel great about we are, where we are, where are at right now and uh

and where we're going. Yeah. I mean that during the surgery and the treatment you had, that was the longest you went without swimming since you were four. You didn't miss that much time because of it. Sounds like because of coronavirus. Really, I mean the shutdown and then and then you found you know, you found pools that worked out for the team. Yeah, yeah, exactly, so that that was definitely longest. Yeah, that was longest by far. So

we were yeah, we were fortunate. We found some We found the pool space um to to sweam Att pretty pretty shortly after the you know, shelter place, and some restrictions were lifted just to maintain a little bit of of swimming, you know, if we weren't going. But but we did what we could. Okay, now this is my question about your teammates. You bring them up. I have a question, how do they understand? I mean, this is a big question that there are no other public health

grads from UC Berkeley on the team. I don't know that's a good Is that a question? I mean, I'm being honest because here's the thing, right, I'm honest. I'm on Olympic swim team. I we're all scared, We're all like, can we practice? And then there's a dude whose education has come into play. Yeah, you know, I guess I can't. I have an undergrad degree in public health, and that's that is relatively rare. Berkeley is actually one of the

few places that offers that undergrad degree. Most of the time it's actually a pastor's or a doctorate level degree. And I'm not trying to elevate my status because that I'm just saying I don't know as much as you know your your typical public health officials. I would honestly just say that I was in classes that warned us about what is currently happening and knew that it was possible.

And I mean, looking back, even I had I had a friend who worked downtown San Francisco and he sent a time last video of that cruise ship that had the coronavirus patients coming into Oakland, and I just remember seeing that now is just terrified. I was like, this is this, like we are we are introducing this into our population, and I hope that it's going to be you know, managed properly, and as we look back, unfortunately it wasn't. There's certainly a lot of lessons to be

learned there. But but yeah, I think I probably had my alarm alarm bells ringing a little bit before most people. Yeah, I can only imagine I was an international relations minor for a second, and it wasn't something that I like really truly wanted to get into, but I was so interested in it. And we had one professor back in got and he and I even like emailed parents, So I was so like happy that I had like recorded

it down. But he goes, you know, in the next four or five years, we're gonna have some crazy terrorist attack from Osama bin Laden. And I didn't really know who Osama bin Laden was or anything, so I'm freaking

out there. And then as soon as the you know, terrible nine eleven happens, I even my parents were like that guy told you, and I feel like you must have had a similar instance with this, where like you immediately knew what kind of damage, what kind of terrible few months we could have in the US because of a pandemic something that I thought was just like a board game name until five months ago. Yeah, I mean it was you're gonna're gonna You're gonna hit some hot

spots with me, and um so I do. I very distinctly remember when it was starting to experience community spread, and even when Dr Fauci and uh the American Surgeon generally unfortunately forgot his name right now, we're talking about not wearing masks, and I was very upset about it. I mean, how are you going to have places like Hong Kong and Taiwan who are essentially you know, they like Hong Kong obviously shares a border with Taiwan and taiwanas Hong Kong shared at the border with with China,

Taiwan is a hundred miles off the coast. There are people going back and forth all the time. And both of those countries managed to contain the virus very very quickly. Um and part of their culture is wearing masks. Even when there's not a global pandemic. You see people wearing masks. I'm like that, there's something to be said about that. And and that was a huge key to their success.

And and here we are, so many months later, still debating the efficacy of masks, and I just just is that's the reason why I have to turn off the news my dog. Yep, Well, that's the reason you adopt a dog. I get it. You are heavily involved with the next generation of swimmers, whether it's just through social media or through your team or the school you run with.

Will Copeland. As far as training for the Olympics, and you're a bit of a veteran now on the team, how do you help them that the younger guys keep the momentum they had before the down. That's a that's

a very individualized question. So there are a lot of different ways that people are motivated and watching like my teammates and trying to just maybe create some some reframes in their minds, you know, looking at the next year as an opportunity rather than a burden, or trying to figure out how to get them, you know, get the most out of them in practice by raising them this or that, or you know, knowing that they're on a great track and they don't need any of my help,

like I could only really hurt them. You know, you've got to really get to know a person or your teammate before you you you try to intervene in anyway. Sure, let's get hot button again real quick. I wanted to talk to you about your mom for a second. She was a school district nurse. Correct, Yep, that is a role that could not be more front and center when we were talking locally, at least in people's neighborhoods to

everyone in the United States right now. It just she have an opinion about everything going back to school, that the fact that we're putting our children in these situations. I mean, she would be the person. She would be the person working pretty much twenty four hours a day right now, I assume, I mean, yeah, she's not. Let me put it this way, my mom has not really

been in close contact with any of her grandchildren. She will have an outdoor picnic socially distance and normally she you know, sees and hangs out and and helps with childcare. I don't know, anywhere from one to three times a week.

And ever since I started. I mean I remember following her saying you you need to stop that, like immediately, and she was like no. I was like, no, no, Mom, it's in Like I mean, we had a we had a pulmonologist from from Denver come and talk to us while we were at the training camp, and basically he said, hey, listen, based off of our knowledge and this is the way back in February. So based off of our knowledge, right now, we anybody over sixty that gets this disease. It's literally

like playing Russian roulette. With the revolver, uh and having one bullet in the chamber, and I was like, whoa, that's like that put it into perspective for me. So, you know, a seventeen chance of dying, like you wouldn't play Russian roulette, right, Like you would do everything in your power to not have to do that. So my mom and my dad are are doing essentially that until you know, a vaccine or or the numbers go down. And to your point, I mean, yeah, she's not in

support of of going back to school. I mean she lives. She also lives in Washington State. They are they've been they've handled that. I was pretty well, um, and are pretty conservative with the handling of public health. We've been telling people because we have my wife and I have a one year old, and we're so lucky that we don't have to make that decision right now, you know

that whether school or not. And we're not, you know, we're not in the situation to make that because some people, you know, both of us work at sometimes like it would be impossible to take care of him, you know, all day long for another five six months and we would have to I mean, that's that's where we would

we we are not letting them out. But you know, your mom probably took our job very serious, and it would be a very hard decision for any of these teachers or these nurses that know they have a job that they love and a responsibility that they love to to not go or go. What a difficult decision for them. Yeah, absolutely, I mean they're they're really they're stuck in between a rock and a hard place. You don't go into teaching or school nursing because you're going to get rich, That's right.

You go into teaching or school nursing because you love kids, you love what's happening at the school, and you want to help the generation beyond your own. And again, it just comes down so much to you know, what's happening at your community level. Like I live in my little bubble in Oakland, Alama County has I think one point six million people like we do have. You know, we have days where we have four I have six cases. So yeah, no, I don't necessarily think that we should

be going back to school. But if you're in you know, Wyoming, Montana, it's in in a rural district and you haven't had cases for two weeks, like, of course you need to go back to school. And I'm not trying to suggest that, you know, people shouldn't go back to school the entire year or whatever. It's just it really just has to be managed and managed closely because it's very stressful and and dangerous to to fit and wait for test results for a week and wonder if you may have gotten it. Yeah,

it's insane. I know. There's some billionaire I was reading about yesterday who is looking into creating outdoor schools. I love that, I do, you know. I mean, let's talk

about this. And so you have a one year old, if you were forced to have your and imagine these let's call it seven eight years old, would you send you get back to school or would you be consider And what some of my friends are more than one of my friends are doing is is essentially like taking extra jobs um or you know, if they were furloughed or unreduced or whatever it may be. UM basically being an education coordinator for these kids that are learning from home. Yeah,

I have to. I mean we you know, like I said, we're just lucky we don't have to make that decision. But I mean, like if I was in that position. I could not send them to school. I had a I had a childhood. I could worry all day. Right, I mean, I've already I already feel that nerves. I'm not I'm not adding I'm not throwing them out to the wolves. So I would I would have to come up with something. You're right, I'd become a bit of

a professor myself. I don't know. It's not not something I have to face, luckily, and I feel bad for those who do more. With five time Olympic gold medalists swimmer Nathan Adrian after this right now, Feeding America is working tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable populations, like students who were out of school, the elderly individuals whose jobs are impacted, and low income families continue to have acts as to food and other needed resources during the COVID

nineteen pandemic. The Feeding America Food Bank Network is committed to serving communities and people facing hunger in America, and their greatest need is donations and support of local food banks. This podcast is committed to donating a portion of the proceeds from the show to Feeding America and we hope that you can join us in this effort to find out how you can help Feeding America dot org backslash

COVID nineteen. Now let's get back to Nathan. You obviously have a bit of a decision coming up with Tokyo. There's a bit of an Olympic bubble joke, right, there's like a meme with this village where all you guys stay, and there's been jokes for years about how STDs and sicknesses go around it, and it's it's sort of a bubble. And it's funny because now we rely on these bubbles for Tokyo, you know, we we we rely on them to make it work. So so you tell me, is

it going to be safe? You've been there? Can it be healthy? I do believe that, Campy says, and I do believe it could be healthy. You know what's crazy is in and a pretty lead up to every Olympic Games, there's always there's a story that goes around, right and seen it was zekwelve, it was security the two Thousand Days.

I honestly I can't remember. I was too young. But there's like a reason why these games are gonna be you know, catastrophic, And here's Japan finishing all of their infrastructure, like month inmit bands which is totally unheard of, and then the actual global pandemic, the one thing that isn't up to them at all occurs and in delays the game, which is just so unfortunately. I really sully feel for

you know, Tokyo and all those organizers. But that being said, I mean it is going to be an amazing opportunity for Japan to create and execute on a on the bubble and a safe and effective Olympic Games. I think they can do it. I mean, I I trust them to do that. Yeah. Well, I guess all of sports is have being this kind of kind of issue. And like we said, you're a bit of a football fan, but specifically I think you are a Seahawks super fan. Oh yeah, okay, known for their incredible fans, the noise

that they make in the stadium. Could you imagine? This is the one I think about all the time. A empty quiet century link like I can't even fathom without the Twelfth Man. It seems crazy. It is, it is crazy. But all of this is crazy, man. I have seen the practice facility and seeing what those guys like, you know, getting up and getting after it at practice and there's no noise happening at where is it Kirkland or wherever?

Wherever it is, and it is, I don't know. I I believe in in Coach Carroll is like, you know, fostering of that competitive nature, of that competitive spirit. Obviously the Twelfth Man makes a huge difference. It's absolutely unbelievable to be there and not and be talking and not even be able to hear your own voice. It's like it's something something special, but it obviously it's not gonna

happen this year. I just really hope the season. I hope they figure out a way to at secute on the successful season, saying, well, let's hope it's more basketball than baseball. I want to end with something that was all over the internet this week. Uh, swimmer Katie Ladecki on the internet swimming the length of a pool with a cup of chocolate milk on her head doesn't spill at all. It stays on her dome the entire time. Is this as insane as it is to enoyre me?

Like me? Is she some sort of warlock? Uh? She is a warlock, be very clear about that. She is very she is a very special athlete. I would put money on percent of the national team being able to do that though. Wow, really yeah, maybe ninety maybe ninety. There's some there's some people whose head head moves all over the place when they swim. But it's it's I mean, it's it's hard. Don't get me wrong. I mean you're talking we're talking about national team athletes. We're talking about

the absolute best of the very best. So it takes a lot of aesthetic awareness to be able to keep your head that still while you're pushing, you know, move into the water. I had no idea that it could be that common. So I wanted to ask you if there were some other things you think could balance on the head of an Olympic swimmer and if it would work. Okay, alright, shoot, okay, First is a bucket of chicken. It's more tubular, kind of definitely larger, but you know, like it fits like

a hat, so it might be easier. You know, if we were doing backstoke, I'd say, I'd say, for sure, yes, doing freestyle, it's it's a little harder. You know. What also matters is the shape of people's head, you know. Okay, yeah, that's that's a little that's confounded like that. Alright, how about a sneaker Oh easy, yeah, yeah, okay, good? A football that feels I can't even really hold it in my hand. I would be impressed with anybody who could

swim fifty with the football. All right, you heard that, Katie Kie like pinching it right? Okay? This one, this one, I really went back and forth on a stiff pete like uh, like a chuck e cheese a little a little tougher of crust in the box or just the pizza. Just the pizza in the box, I feel like is a cheater, but it's that is long. But I'm gonna go with just the pizza. Uh. That would be hard, That would be hard. You you could, you could definitely

get away. You would finish the fifty with with some slices, but not the whole thing. Good good, Alright, My last two, This one I think, like you said, might play into the shape of the head a plunger. Oh yeah, that is that's all about. That's all about whether or not you could get uh you could get a little suchtion going on your head. I bet I have a good chance of it because I have the I this is my this is my claim to fame. Here we go.

I had the largest circumference head of the national team members leading up to WHOA you have like a dome piece. Do you know what your hat size is? I think it's like seven and five. That's big thing. That is a big head. It's pretty big, pretty big. That isn't everything? Well, I will throw out plunger for you in alright, six my last one, and I'm I'm almost suggesting this is your viral video because if this were to happen, I'm telling you, man, this would be all over the place.

What if you swam and kept a Jenga game completely intact on your head? Now you are talking, Wow, this could be I mean, this could be a viral challenge because you could start with, you know, one layer, put on another layer, put on another layer. See how far you you go. I don't know if I could do the whole thing. That sounds really hard. I'm just trying

to get you one up on Katie Ladecki. Uh well, Nathan, please stay safe for me and I. I genuinely am thankful that there I mean, honestly, it sounds dumb, but I'm thankful that there is someone with a public health education working with the Olympic team, because I I some people don't get it. Man, Like you said, it's people still fighting not to wear masks. Yeah, hey, listen, I

learned about it in class. I learned about the seatbelt debate. Yeah, there's a direct there's a direct the inverse correlation between personal freedoms and public health intervention. And and just to understand that, I think is is important. And to understand that these interventions, if done well and effectively throughout the population, are short term. So that's I'll end with that. Two Better Times. The Sports Bubble is produced and distributed by

Treeport Media. The show was executive produced by Kelly Garner, Lisa Ammerman, Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Carr. Tom Monahan is our senior audio engineer and sound supervisor, with production and editing by Jasper Leek additional production help from Tim Shower, June Rosen, and Haley Mandelberg. Our theme music is composed

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