"Pushed myself to the limit" - Ryan Murphy reflects on his struggle in long-course swimming
Four-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Murphy is one of the finest and most reputed male swimmers competing actively.
After the recently concluded Pro TYR Swim Series at Knoxville, Murphy talked to SwimSwam and opened up about the struggles he had while training for long-course swimming.
"It's always encouraging like when the... like when training improvements match up to good swims. So, I felt really good about... about the block. Honestly, the block that I kind of started before Knoxville. So coming right off at Christmas I feel like I got into a good Groove, really held that."
Murphy added that he started to get tired after training for long and consecutive days.
"Well, started to get really really tired probably like a week and a half two weeks ago. So, that's good like really kind of pushed myself to the Limit there and then it showed up nicely there. So I liked how I split it liked how it felt. So no complaints."
Ryan Murphy opens up about his training and overcoming tiredness
The 27-year-old American swimmer is eying his third Olympic event, which will be held next year in Paris. With six Olympic medals overall, he is already considered one of the best backstroke swimmers currently.
However, Ryan Murphy had a rough patch in 2022 due to sickness. He had to train harder and for longer hours to get better and be back in the pool.
He trained to get better on the long course and performed well in the recently concluded Pro Swim Series.
In an interview uploaded by SwimSwam on their official YouTube channel. Murphy was asked how he managed to get out of the disastrous trip to Florida last year. He said,
"It's just different, different times of the season. So, different goals so for me. [It's] kind of coming off... coming off of the fall, like towards the end of the fall, like, I got sick and that was kind of going into short course worlds. So I wasn't... I wasn't really intending to... to take much of a rest for short course worlds."
Ryan Murphy added that after getting 'thrown out' of the sickness, he had to focus on foundational training. He now intends to be more race specific and work on his training accordingly.
"And then that kind of got thrown off by the sickness. So I felt... I felt like, I wanted to get in some... some good like foundational training. So, like kind of the sustained heart rate work feels... feels nice now. And I'm feeling that in the races. I'm feeling comfortable when I... when I kind of get into fatigue throughout the race. And then kind of from here, it's... it's getting a little bit more race specific."
Ryan Murphy has had one of the best careers as a short-course swimmer. He collected a total of 14 medals, including nine golds at the World Championships (short-course). However, Murphy's record in the Long-Course World Championships is impressive as well. He has a tally of 13 medals overall, out of which five are gold.