May 29, 2025
How a Swimming Prodigy Rediscovered Her Love for the Sport: Becca Mann, EP 279
Pro Swimmer, Author, Screenwriter, Becca Mann's journey redefines what it means to be a swimming prodigy who grows beyond the confines of early success. At just 10 years old, she completed the 15K Maui channel, becoming the youngest to do so. By her teens, she was a seven-time US National Team member and two-time national champion. But after narrowly missing Olympic qualification three times, Becca made the courageous decision to step away from competitive swimming altogether.
What happened during those five years away from racing forms the emotional core of our conversation. Becca speaks candidly about needing to discover who she was beyond the lane lines. She pursued her passion for writing, earning a BFA in screenwriting from USC and working on hit shows like "The Morning Show." She traveled solo, climbed mountains, and experienced the unstructured life she'd never known during her regimented swimming career.
Her path back began unexpectedly through Masters swimming at West Hollywood Aquatics, where she jumped into lane one and "almost died that first practice." Becca reveals. "I was always swimming the 1500 at Olympic trials." That return to the water sparked a realization: "How did I not swim for two years? This is what I love. This is who I am."
Becca opens up about her experiences with OCD, describing how intrusive thoughts affect her and the tools she's developed to manage them. Rather than seeing her mental health challenges as obstacles, she explores how neurodivergence shapes both her athletic career and creative pursuits. Her memoir
"Outside the Lanes"
documents this journey with raw honesty.
Now training in North Carolina with Olympic swimmer Ashley Twitchell, Becca has her sights set on qualifying for the national team and potentially even the 2028 Olympics. At the end of our conversation, when asked what word comes to mind when she's in the water, her answer is immediate and profound: "Peace."
Ready to dive deeper into stories of athletic resilience and transformation? Subscribe to Champions Mojo and join our community celebrating comeback champions and lifelong swimmers.
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com . Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
00:00 - Swimming Prodigy's Remarkable Journey
04:35 - Stepping Away from Swimming
11:21 - Masters Swimming and Mental Health
17:46 - Olympic Inspiration and Comeback
25:58 - Creative Life and Dystopian Writing
31:41 - Future Goals and Training Plans
WEBVTT
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Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast, the podcast that celebrates comeback champions, lifelong athletes and the transformative power of swimming.
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I'm your host, kelly Pallas.
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Today we're diving in with a guest who has truly lived outside the lanes, literally and figuratively.
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Becca Mann is a swimming phenom, a seven-time US national team member, two-time national champion and the first person to complete the epic 40-mile 21-hour Maui Nui tri-channel crossing between three Hawaiian islands.
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She made her mark early by becoming the youngest swimmer to complete the 15K Maui channel at just 10 years old, and the youngest athlete to place top 10 in four events at a single US Olympic trials.
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But Becca's story doesn't stop at elite competition.
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After narrowly missing Olympic qualification three times, she took a bold step back from racing and into rediscovery.
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In that time she wrote her powerful memoir Outside the Lanes, sharing her honest journey through mental health challenges, the identity shift of leaving high-level sport and what it means to redefine success on her own terms.
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And now this is where it gets exciting for master swimmers.
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Becca is making her return to competitive swimming after a five-year hiatus, a journey that included training with master swimmers.
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That's right.
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She found her groove again in the master's community, proving that her passion for swimming is truly lifelong.
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Becca is also a gifted writer, with a BFA in screenwriting from USC, and has worked on hit shows like the Morning Show and the Wilds.
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Whether she's penning novels, crushing open water feats or diving back into the pool, becca Mann embodies the spirit of resilience, reinvention and, yes, mojo, welcome to Champions.
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Mojo, becca Mann, thank you so much for having me.
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Kelly, I'm so happy to be here.
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Oh, it's so great to see you.
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Like I said before we recorded, I'm a big fan.
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You know all my listeners know that I love distance swimming and you're a prodigy from such a young age, and it's just so great that you have done all the things you've done and you still have so much more ahead in your swimming career.
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What I wanted to start off with After competing at this high level and narrowly missing Olympic qualification multiple times, you took this five-year break from racing.
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What did stepping back from competition teach you about yourself?
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And tell us about those five years?
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And maybe, if Masters played a role in that?
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Yes, so, masters definitely played a role in that.
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But the first two years after I quote unquote retired, when I decided to take a break, I didn't touch water Because I had spent my entire life, from when I was probably younger than five years old, just in the water all the time and I hadn't really experienced life without it and I wanted to make sure I was going to be okay without it because I knew nothing else.
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I had never been a normal person I never, well, normal whatever.
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You know the definition that society has of normal Because I hadn't gone to high school.
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I hadn't, I mean, I'd gone to college, but I was swimming when I was in college and focusing more on swimming, and also was in this major that was taking up a lot of my time, so my social life had to take a backseat.
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So the first two years were really just me, you know, honing my writing, figuring out who I was without swimming, who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and just discovering a lot of new things, which was really fun.
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But after that two-year mark, I remember I was working a job on a TV show that I felt like I had no power whatsoever and I felt like I didn't have any control over my life and in that moment I started.
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I also like starting to have this recurring dream about swimming, where I was always swimming the 1500 and I was like at Olympic trials and I just really every day, every day, I'd wake up and I would miss swimming.
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I was like I wish that that dream was real, like I missed the 1500.
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And then I was like, why not swimming?
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Like swimming is the way that I have control over and also I want to.
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I clearly want to be doing it if I'm dreaming about it like every other night.
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Um, so from there I I joined a master's team it was, uh, the West Hollywood Aquatic Club and we h2O, as they're called and I just showed up, jumped into lane one, made some friends, almost died that first practice.
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And then, after practice, I got out of the pool and I was like, how did I just take?
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How did I not swim for two years?
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How did I not do that?
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Why haven't I been doing?
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This is what I love.
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This is who I am.
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Yeah, so it definitely opened my eyes in a lot of ways.
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That's so beautiful and we hear that from so many people, like many, many of the people that we interview.
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How did I not swim for 10 years?
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How did I not swim for 20 years?
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So you're really lucky that it was only two years, really lucky that it was only two years.
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So so I I love the fact that you were tired in a master's practice right out of the gate.
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Like that's crazy.
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I like remember thinking.
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I'm like I have to win this practice.
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I have to beat all of these men that I'm swimming with, and if I didn't, I I like almost died trying.
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But it's like, okay, I need to get back in shape so I can win the practices.
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I'm just really competitive.
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So did this five years?
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I didn't say in the intro and I'm not sure if everybody, unless they've read the book, or truly I'm not using the word loosely, in fact I don't think I've ever used it on the show before you were truly a prodigy, this 10-year-old doing incredible feats and 12-year-old National Age Group records, and your family homeschooled you and went around to accommodate your swimming, both with finding the right coaches and the right meets.
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And then when you went to college you're still in college, you're still in a very structured program.
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Were those five years?
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Did they feel like?
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That was kind of like the freedom that you just hadn't had historically.
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I wouldn't say it was freedom.
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It felt like I didn't.
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I like having structure and so I, I, I struggled a little bit with not having the structure.
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I was like what do I like I get to pick when I wake up?
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I need to know when I'm waking up.
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I want someone to tell me that I have to do this at this time so I know to wake up at this time.
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And, yeah, I really like adventure, like I love adventure and spontaneity, but I also love when I'm home to have my routine.
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So I had to build my routine myself and that was hard and like no one was holding my routine accountable or me accountable for my routine.
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So that was like a little bit strange.
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And then, in terms of freedom, I never felt like I didn't have freedom in my training because I was the one making all the decisions.
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I was the one who decided okay, like I'm not going to stay up past 10 pm because I care about swimming more than I care about anything else.
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There was never anyone telling me that I couldn't do that and I think that, because it was all from myself, I never felt like I wasn't free, but those five years for sure, like I, I remember I I made a list of all the things I wanted to do and I just started checking them off.
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I was like, okay, I'm going to go on a five-day hiking trip with no service and I'm going to climb a 14er and I'm going to learn how to skateboard and I'm going to learn how to brew kombucha and I'm going to start going to concerts and I'm going to see what the party scene is that everybody talks about.
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I just wanted to do everything that I hadn't done and it was really fun.
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It was very, very fun.
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I traveled a ton too.
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I just went on a bunch of solo trips with my backpack and it was so much fun and I like my my perspective broadened.
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I learned a lot about like the world and myself and people, but at the same time, there was something that wasn't fully fulfilling about it, because there was no goal in mind.
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Like it was just like a period of growth which I really needed.
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Like I think that I did need those two years with not touching the water because I needed to again like just make sure that I could thrive without swimming.
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And then, yeah, so just like, seeing everything made me appreciate how fulfilling swimming is and how, like having a goal and having having something that you do every single day that brings you a little bit closer to the goal uh, really, just like makes life feel purposeful and meaningful.
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Yes, that that's yeah, that's so true.
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That's one of the beauties of swimming.
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So I want to come back to this fun travel year in conjunction with your mental health and how the mental health fit into those years where there was not a lot as much structure.
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But I do want to say in going into this, that in your book, which was beautiful, honest, raw, beautifully written, you're incredibly open about living with OCD and for listeners that may not understand what that really feels like, can you share, like how OCD impacted your journey as an elite swimmer, as a creative artist, and how it manifested or didn't?
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on this open five-year period, yeah, my OCD I'm mostly like it's mostly obsessional for me.
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I don't have many like outward compulsions, especially now.
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Now it's like mostly, you know, the compulsions are me just thinking about a thought over and over and over again and trying to convince myself that there's something in there that either makes it true or untrue.
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So it's basically for me just intrusive thoughts that I can't stop thinking about, so like the most disturbing things that my brain can think about, and then something in my head won't let me let them go, because I'm convinced that if I do, they'll either happen, won't happen, or they're just so disturbing that I can't stop thinking about them.
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So, yeah, it's not most fun, uh, most fun thing to have.
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But I mean, I've been in therapy for a long time, so, uh, and like in and out of therapy and I've learned the tools to, to basically how to cope with it and how to not allow it to have so much power, and I'm really happy with how far that I've come.
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I'm very proud of that actually, because now, like I've noticed that I usually like it's up and down, like sometimes like I'll have no OCD, no intrusive thoughts, for months, or potentially like up to years, and then sometimes then, I'll like suddenly go into a spiral where, like, I'll have several months where my OCD is just like spiraling.
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So now, whenever I do go into the spiral, I feel like I have the tools that I need to either make it shorter or not as powerful.
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OCD is so overused.
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People will say to one another you know if you make your bed every morning?
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oh you have OCD.
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Or if you straighten out something you know in the pool, you know like, oh, if you line up your equipment, you have OCD.
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And I think the thing that people don't realize as much is it is kind of the hallmark of it are scary thoughts, are okay, I would say obtrusive thoughts, you know, thoughts that maybe they're scary, maybe they're weird, and be like why am I think horrible this, the three is, or what, or both?
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Yeah, like, why am I thinking this tree is gonna fall on me or whatever, when people don't understand that I, I read the book and if you haven't read the book Outside the Lanes, I highly recommend it and so it made me realize.
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You know, like we all are so neuro diverse that it just that made me feel like, ok, well, you know, this is just, I have intrusive thoughts.
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I, you know, I remember the first time when I was four years old and I I was afraid that I was going to sleepwalk into the street and get killed, like I kept, like I couldn't get that out of my mind and so I would just lay.
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I had similar things to that too, like, like this started when I was four and I think we, we have these tools.
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Now we can recognize these and what.
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What are some of your tools?
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What are some tools?
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for you.
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So whenever, like it gets really bad and I start having a panic attack about my intrusive thoughts, I've found that the best thing to do is intense cardio, like right in that moment, because I have adrenaline and my brain usually it's not going to be able to focus on anything else.
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So if I can work my body so hard that my brain just kind of shuts down and can only think about, like focus on doing that, doing that exercise, then that will like be a good, a great short, short term solution for me.
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So that's one tool that I have.
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I've also found that, just like you know, regularly swimming, it's very helpful.
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And then, like in terms of how I like deal with it on like a regular basis when I'm like no, that it's been, it's acting up, now I just really let them be, like I let my thoughts be and I let myself think them.
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I try and I try not to react.
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I try to just let them be, and I also have gotten really good at, you know, recognizing.
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Ok, this isn't real, this is my OCD, this is not a real thought, this isn't true, this isn't going to happen and that that's OK that I'm thinking this.
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It doesn't mean anything about, like, who I am as a person.
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It doesn't mean anything about the world, it doesn't mean anything about the future, it just is and that's fine.
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And then I try to distract myself.
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Yeah, writing also really helps me.
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I found that, like, when I get lost in my writing, I'm generally like pretty, I'm very calm in that moment.
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Have you heard the term sticky thoughts?
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I think I have.
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They found in research that people do who have OCD have sticky thoughts and so they've literally done tons of research that everyone has intrusive thoughts.
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Everyone has weird, scary, disturbing intrusive thoughts and like the thought of you're standing at the Grand Canyon and you go up to the edge and you're thinking, oh no, I might jump off of here.
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A person that has OCD will think about that thought for the rest of the day, maybe the rest of the week.
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I really think that it's great that you brought this forward and talked about it honestly, because I feel like sometimes high level swimmers and people that have these sticky thoughts, high-level swimmers and people that have these sticky thoughts, they also work with rumination in the opposite way, where when you're going after a record, I love the story where you said you missed a National Ice Group record on an 800 by one-tenth of a second or less than one-tenth of a second 0.05.
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You were crying but it's the same rumination.
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I know you did an interview, a written interview, with Eni Jones, who I love.
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Eni's a friend of mine.
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You said that you didn't get anything good out of your OCD and I say I would push back on that and say the same ruminating, sticky thoughts that drive you crazy sometimes are the same ones that drive you high level.
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Where you you're, it's sticking in your mind.
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You got to go, you know 853 or 850 or whatever do you agree with?
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that I don't see it's hard for me to.
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I also have autism and I hyper fixate on a lot of things and I think that my hyper fixations are like the good, like the good side of OCD, like it's the thing where I love something so much that I think about it all the time.
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So I found a way to really separate the two.
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Where I'm like OCD is like the intrusive bad thoughts, while like hyper fixations are like the, the ones that don't cause me any harm but also I think about, but I think about so much that I can achieve more or I can like be hyper-focused.
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So yeah, I'm not exactly sure.
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I don't know where the line is.
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Yeah Well.
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So again, I love that you've opened up this topic of just mental health and we're talking about a different mental health.
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We've talked about depression a lot.
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We've talked about anxiety and performance anxiety, and I love it.
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Somebody is talking about a different mental health.
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We've talked about depression a lot.
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We've talked about anxiety and performance anxiety, and I love it.
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Somebody is talking about something new, which is OCD.
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What advice might you give to athletes who do feel different mentally, emotionally, neurologically, but still want to chase those, the big dreams?
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I would say that it could be your superpower, like if maybe you're a little like, if you're different from other people, that doesn't mean that you're worse, it doesn't mean that you are strange, it just means that you're different.
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And I think that neurodivergence, just being different in any way, is beautiful and it's what makes the world so special.
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And just to recognize that, and just to recognize that, yeah, absolutely Well.
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So you are now that elite athlete on this new path which I'm really excited to talk about.
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So you take this time off, you come back to master's practice.
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You now are definitely not in master's practice because you were training with Ashley Twitchell in right.
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Yes, oh my gosh.
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I'm in North Carolina right now.
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Yeah, how did you ramp from master's practice to where you are now, what you're training for and what some of these things are that you're shooting for?
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Yes, okay.
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So about six months after I started swimming masters, and I was swimming masters like three times a week, just for an hour, 15 minutes, 15 minutes.
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It was great.
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I felt like that was all I needed.
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Then Ashley actually texted me and she's like hey, do you want to like come out of retirement, move here and, uh, come swim with me.
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And I was like, no, I don't want to do that, I'm not gonna do that.
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And she's like are you sure?
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And I was like, yes, and she's like I really need someone to train with.
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You should really think about this.
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And I was like, no, I'm not doing that.
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I was in between jobs, because in Hollywood, like, the show only lasts for six months each season and then you just hope that it doesn't get canceled and then, if it does, you look for your next thing.
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So I was like in this in between, and I think that this was, this was October, november of 2022.
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I remember I was, I was on a family vacation in Hawaii and I was walking with my mom and I was like this is ridiculous.
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I don't want to like make a comeback.
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That wouldn't be fun.
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Blah, blah, blah.
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And I was like, well, I'm not really doing anything right now except for writing and like I kind of do miss structure and I guess maybe, like I could kind of think about it.
00:18:48.163 --> 00:18:53.626
So, anyways, I like I still told Ashley no, but I started training a little bit more.
00:18:53.626 --> 00:19:04.179
And uh, and started training actually with team Santa Monica and, uh, my friend, ivan Puskovich, who was the open water Olympian in 2024.
00:19:04.179 --> 00:19:06.542
I just texted him and was like hey, can I come swim with you?
00:19:06.542 --> 00:19:18.897
And he's like, yeah, sure, but again, like it wasn't super serious, I was skiing, I was writing, I was only doing singles and I would take random days off in the week when, like, I was up late, so it wasn't super serious.
00:19:18.897 --> 00:19:22.723
And then I ended up in another writer's room and that was taking up all of my time.
00:19:22.723 --> 00:19:30.608
But I think Ashley had texted me again and said something about like hey, can you come train with me for this month, because I need someone for this month.
00:19:30.608 --> 00:19:35.249
And I was like, okay, yeah, sure, like I'll come, I'll come stay with you and do that.
00:19:35.249 --> 00:19:35.851
Like why not?
00:19:35.851 --> 00:19:37.256
Because my, my writer's room was remote.
00:19:37.256 --> 00:19:41.547
So then I had to amp it up a little bit more because I had to keep up with her.
00:19:41.547 --> 00:19:46.045
So it's just like a small, a small like every time.
00:19:46.045 --> 00:19:47.667
I just stepped it up just slightly more.
00:19:47.667 --> 00:19:53.885
And I was also still training with masters because I loved all my masters friends, so like I'd half train with, I've been half masters.
00:19:54.994 --> 00:20:04.901
And then I showed up at Ashley's and I had to go a nine 57,000 free If I wanted to qualify for open water nationals.
00:20:04.901 --> 00:20:10.523
And when I was there actually it was like, well, you may as well just qualify for open water nationals at the end of these three weeks.
00:20:10.523 --> 00:20:15.037
And I was like, ok, so I trained with her and had so much fun, I missed it.
00:20:15.037 --> 00:20:17.278
I was like this is the life, I love this.
00:20:17.278 --> 00:20:22.511
I ended up going a 10.03 in my 1,000.
00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:33.167
And then after that I came back two weeks later and tried again and then missed it again and those were the two most painful thousands of my life because I was not in good enough shape to be going that fast.
00:20:33.167 --> 00:20:49.548
I just basically was like, ok, I've won 1,000 that I have to basically go all out for, and if I don't make it, then I don't make it, like I'm just giving it my all and leaving no stone unturned here and yeah.
00:20:49.548 --> 00:20:53.268
So after that I was kind of like, okay, like this was fun, but I'm done with this for now.
00:20:53.268 --> 00:20:54.773
I need to just go back to master swimming.
00:20:54.773 --> 00:20:57.488
I don't want to do the thousand again, I don't care this much.
00:20:57.488 --> 00:21:03.377
So then after that, I went back to master swimming, swam across Tahoe in 2023.
00:21:03.377 --> 00:21:06.105
I did like the Tahoe solo crossing, which was fun.
00:21:06.205 --> 00:21:09.101
But again, like I was like, okay, I'm good with just being a master swimmer.
00:21:09.101 --> 00:21:22.765
And also then I started traveling a lot because that was like right after, like during the writer's strike, I like I went on strike for a bit and then I like traveled a bit and was just, you know, living my life and swimming didn't need to be a focus in that moment.
00:21:22.765 --> 00:21:26.548
It and was just, you know, living my life and swimming didn't need to be a focus in that moment.
00:21:26.548 --> 00:21:27.329
So I didn't let it become a focus.
00:21:27.329 --> 00:21:30.712
And then the big turning point for me was I started writing.
00:21:30.712 --> 00:21:39.082
There were two big turning points, but it was when I started writing, outside the Lanes, my swimming book.
00:21:39.082 --> 00:21:40.607
And as I was writing it, I was like, wow, I miss this.
00:21:40.607 --> 00:21:42.998
Like I miss going to practice, I miss waking up early, I miss this was so much fun.
00:21:43.018 --> 00:21:48.461
I was writing about like things that were traumatic for me in some ways, but also they were the most fun that I've ever had.
00:21:48.461 --> 00:21:54.769
And you know the hard the feeling after a hard practice, when you've just done really well and worked yourself as hard as possible.
00:21:54.769 --> 00:22:03.012
There's no feeling quite like it, just like the mixture of endorphins adrenaline, like that feeling of pride knowing that you're excellent at something.
00:22:03.012 --> 00:22:06.248
Adrenaline like that feeling of pride knowing that you're excellent at something.
00:22:06.248 --> 00:22:07.655
So I was writing this book and I was like, oh, I miss this excellence.
00:22:07.655 --> 00:22:16.728
But I still kind of was just like whatever, like it's fine, like I'll just go, I'll swim a little bit more, I'll train a little bit more and do more, do more channel crossings, do do a master's meet or two.
00:22:17.990 --> 00:22:29.929
But then the big shift, the one where I was like okay, I can't ignore anymore was I was working the Olympics as a researcher in Connecticut at the NBC office, and I remember I was working the night shift.
00:22:29.929 --> 00:22:38.366
I would work from 11 pm to 11 am and I just remember like it was 5 am one day and I was covering prelims.
00:22:38.366 --> 00:22:45.971
So I like had like the camera that isn't broadcast but like just that I'm basically gets to see where, like the all their random camera angles.
00:22:45.971 --> 00:22:51.290
I was just like watching all the swimmers and I was like watching people warm up and I was watching them stretch.
00:22:51.290 --> 00:23:00.786
And then, like I watched the ready room and watched the warm-up pool and I was like I'm stretching, I'm swarming up, I'm all of these things.
00:23:00.826 --> 00:23:13.527
It was like the same feeling that I had as I was writing my book, only it was like more pronounced, because I was like this is what's happening right now and I'm right here in the middle of the night in this dark, windowless room and I want to be swimming right now.
00:23:13.527 --> 00:23:18.991
So I like spent like three days just like watching that and feeling that way.
00:23:18.991 --> 00:23:28.230
And then I uh, I texted Ashley actually, and it was like I really think I want to make a comeback and she's like do it, move here, do it.
00:23:28.230 --> 00:23:29.633
I was like I don't know.
00:23:29.633 --> 00:23:32.807
And she's like Becca, this is what you want.
00:23:32.807 --> 00:23:34.671
No one loves swimming as much as you do.
00:23:34.671 --> 00:23:35.333
Just do it.
00:23:35.333 --> 00:23:37.803
I was like, yes, this is what I want to do.
00:23:37.803 --> 00:23:44.153
I don't care if I'm ever as good as I was before again, I just want to be doing it and dedicating all of my time to it.
00:23:44.500 --> 00:23:48.932
And yeah, then, like a few months later, I moved out to North Carolina and have been training ever since.
00:23:48.932 --> 00:23:51.286
What are you training for?
00:23:51.286 --> 00:24:03.431
So I had Open Water Nationals two months ago, and so to make the national team you have to get top six of the Americans at Open Water Nationals, and then you have to go 1644, I believe in the 1500.
00:24:03.431 --> 00:24:16.313
So I got fifth at Open Water Nationals, which was my goal to get the top six, and now I just have to go the 1644 in a meet which I'm excited for, like I feel like I can get it.
00:24:16.313 --> 00:24:17.680
I have a meet in three weeks where I'll try for the first time.
00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:19.201
So I'm feeling really good about it.
00:24:19.201 --> 00:24:20.403
It's going to be here at TAC.
00:24:20.403 --> 00:24:24.769
Oh nice, I'm feeling really good about it, it's going to be here at TAC oh nice yeah, home meet yeah.
00:24:24.788 --> 00:24:33.380
Well, you know, I know that distance, especially distance, women do the best in their 30s Exactly Without a doubt.
00:24:33.380 --> 00:24:40.450
And so I'm just like what pro swim series Did you just see there was a 39-year-old woman in the final from was it Colombia or Brazil?
00:24:40.450 --> 00:24:40.931
Oh, Crystal Kobrich.
00:24:40.931 --> 00:24:42.336
Yes, there was a 39 year old woman in the final from.
00:24:42.336 --> 00:24:43.138
Was it Colombia or Brazil, I don't know.
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