{"id":6269,"date":"2012-07-05T06:50:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T10:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=6269"},"modified":"2012-07-04T23:43:06","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T03:43:06","slug":"age-is-just-a-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/age-is-just-a-number\/","title":{"rendered":"Deb’s Moment With Dara Torres – Age is Just a Number"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dara Torres back at home (South Florida) in 2009 at a photo shoot for a fitness nutrition line she was endorsing. Photo courtesy of Dan Power.<\/p><\/div>\n

I don\u2019t know how many of you are following the qualifying rounds for the Olympics, but when I watched Dara Torres miss making a record sixth U.S. swim team by nine-hundredths of a second, finishing fourth in the 50-meter freestyle on\u00a0 the last night of the trials this past Monday, I actually cried as I saw the look of defeat in her eyes. Sometimes the split second, blink of an eye\u00a0randomness of life just seems so unfair – an entire future shaped by nine-hundredths of a second…\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We’ve all felt defeat at one point or another in our lives and the degree of severity varies significantly. For example, although I was very happy for all the Nose-to-Nose Awards winners at BlogPaws, I have to admit I felt a little disappointment that I was not bringing home a victory bounty of Halo pet stew for my local shelter like I had hoped. But, it\u2019s not like the whole world was watching, wondering how Zee & Zoey would do. Plus,\u00a0these contests happen all the time to raise food for pets, not just every four years like the Olympics.\u00a0 I honestly don\u2019t even think my mother knows I lost, let alone too many others outside of my immediate cat circle and chances are good\u00a0 that I will have an opportunity to try again for some canned kitty gold. For Dara, this was nationally televised, and the whole world was watching to find out if this 45 year old would beat the odds and be given the chance to compete in yet one more Olympics\u2026<\/p>\n

Dara will not be competing in any more Olympics. This was her last hurrah, but, the thing about defeat, is what you ultimately do with it. Dara is the epitome of a survivor and believer that you can do anything with your life and she will be fine.\u00a0 Since 1984, she has won 12 Olympic medals, tied with Jenny Thompson as the most decorated U.S. female swimmer, and has the distinction of being the first American to swim in five Olympics and the oldest female swimmer ever at the games. Impressive no matter how you look at it.\u00a0 Not to mention, she has a 6 year old daughter, Tessa,\u00a0 who will be entering first grade in the fall. It will be nice that Dara can spend more time with her, as I am certain she would feel Tessa is her most incredible accomplishment.<\/p>\n

It is hard not to define Dara \u2018s accomplishments by her age, but to her, \u201cage is just a number\u201d and that is the title of the inspirational and well-received book she published in 2009\u00a0 about\u00a0coming out of retirement to pursue her dream at age 41 to compete in the Beijing\u00a0Olympics where she subsequently won three silver medals.\u00a0 With humor and candor, she revealed how and why the dream came to her and the overall message of the book is one of staying fit, aging gracefully, and pursuing your dreams. I love that message and it is one that guides me\u00a0every day. Dan and I actually met Dara back in the summer of 2009 through a marketing client of ours. We were hired to help design and launch a website and product packaging to promote a\u00a0 fitness\u00a0 amino acid complex Dara was endorsing and we were doing a photo shoot with her for that. She trains in our local sports complex and is everything you would expect her to be \u2013 she is strong \u2013 both mentally and physically, funny, smart, and extremely fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Dara and I at the photo shoot. She was 41 at the time, and me, 47. This was before my Zee\/Zoey fame, so you may not recognize me without my trademark leopard ears!<\/p><\/div>\n

She puts me to shame in that department, although I have never claimed to be much of an athlete. My exercise and fitness routine consists of\u00a0 just how fast my fingers go while I am typing and how much muscle I have to use to scoop litter. I can\u2019t even remotely fathom what it is like to be so dedicated to a sport, that your entire life is consumed by keeping physically fit, but I certainly admire and respect her drive. My life is consumed with making the world a better place for cats, so we all have our thing\u2026<\/p>\n

Dara will get over this and\u00a0 I imagine she will do something that will involve coaching, or mentoring, or motivational speaking, or something like that and will excel at whatever avenue she chooses. That\u2019s just how she is and like a cat, she will bounce back and land on her feet.\u00a0 I love that philosophy and that\u00a0 has been my\u00a0 theme as of late too. No matter the defeats life throws at you, it does not mean you did not give it your best or that you are a failure. You get up, move on, and don\u2019t let age determine what you can or can\u2019t do in life. Congratulations Dara! You rock in my world!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know how many of you are following the qualifying rounds for the Olympics, but when I watched Dara Torres miss making a record sixth U.S. swim team by nine-hundredths of a second, finishing fourth in the 50-meter freestyle on\u00a0 the last night of the trials this past Monday, I actually cried as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32,1265,386,84,387],"class_list":["post-6269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration-healing","tag-author","tag-cats","tag-dara-torres","tag-inspiration-2","tag-olympics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Deb-and-Dara.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6269"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6283,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269\/revisions\/6283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}