Brendan Hansen Video Interview, U.S. Olympic Swimmer

I think it’s really important that you have a vent away from your sport, and it’s very important to have balance in your life. And some of the events that I had been to where I didn’t compete as well, I realized my balance wasn’t there. For me, outside of swimming I really like to get into the outdoors. I find myself at lakes, camping, just as far away from the media and the hectic lifestyle that I do live, and I accept. But, I find myself coming back Monday morning for practice, recharged and ready to go, when I’ve been a whole day and a half outside in the outdoors.

I pretty much can’t go a day without having a protein shake. I think it’s the easiest way to supplement protein without the fat and make sure you get the calorie content. As a swimmer, we’re very calorie-based. My calorie content per day is almost 6,000, and so that’s a lot. But we want to graze all throughout the day and that seems like the best way for us to eat. I don’t have a sweet tooth or anything like that, so I’ll probably just crack open a beer.

Pretty much, we’re up at six o’clock in the morning. I’m in the water by six thirty, and then I swim for about two hours. Then I come home, eat, get a nap, eat again. Then I go the gym and I get some kind of dry land or aerobic weight program for about an hour and half. Then I’m back in the water from about three to five, and at five o’clock my day is done. I usually eat something at five o’clock, a meal. And then I’ll eat again at seven thirty, eight o’clock. I’m in bed by nine, nine thirty. So, I’m back up at six, the next morning. Recovery at my age, I’m thirty years old, is probably the most important thing for me. The only way I recover is with sleep and with food, and it’s really important that you focus on that.

I think there’s benefits to both. You don’t know what to expect, so you just expect anything, just go in there and race. I think as an athlete that’s been there before, that experience goes a long way in the sense of, it’s a long ride, and you need to expend your energy at the right moments and not be too excited at times where it’s not really that important. There’s sixty days from our trials to the closing ceremonies. It’s really important to use your energy at the right time, and I think that’s one of the things I’m really going to focus into going into these games.

I lost my medal in 2008. I was travelling from Philadelphia to Austin. My hometown is Philadelphia and I was doing some media there and stuff. [I] went to the TSA and they’d taken my medal out of my backpack, in a ziplock spot that I had for it. And then where they got done with it, they just stuck it in a water bottle slot on the side. So when I put my backpack underneath, in front of me, we took off and we’re flying up ten thousand feet and my medal rolls about six rows back. For the next sixteen hours I was pretty much sweating it. It landed in between the feet of some girl six rows back. She found it, held on it and eventually contacted me through Facbook and sixteen hours later I had it back. It’s really interesting how that all worked out, but it’s crazy how that story traveled.