Age Is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams at Any Stage in Your Life »

DARA TORRES has set three world records and has brought home twelve Olympic medals, including four golds. She is the first American swimmer to have competed in five Olympics. She lives in Florida.

From legendary Olympic gold medalist Dara Torres comes a motivational, inspirational memoir about staying fit, aging gracefully, and pursuing your dreams.

Dara Torres captured the hearts and minds of Americans of all ages when she launched her Olympic comeback as a new mother at the age of forty-one—years after she had retired from competitive swimming and eight years since her last Olympics. When she took three silver medals in Beijing—including a heartbreaking .01-second finish behind the gold medalist in the women’s 50-meter freestyle—America loved her all the more for her astonishing achievement and her good-natured acceptance of the results.

Now, in Age Is Just a Number, Dara reveals how the dream of an Olympic comeback first came to her—when she was months into her first, hard-won pregnancy. With humor and candor, Dara recounts how she returned to serious training—while nursing her infant daughter and contending...

Prologue 1

1 On Diving Back In 11

2 On Making a Comeback 27

3 On Making a Comeback Yet Again 45

4 On Motherhood and Other Forms of Cross-Training 69

5 On Losing My Father and Gaining a Coach 89

6 On Being an Older Athlete 105

7 On Competition 129

8 On Being a Younger Athlete 147

9 On Performing Under Pressure 163

10 On Working Through Pain and Uncertainty 185

11 On Growing as an Athlete 199

12 On Not Giving Up 219

Acknowledgments 227