Amid daunting 7,000-meter practices and countless hours of underwater solitude, marathon swimmer Haley Anderson admits her mind occasionally wanders.
She is the only female American swimmer qualified for the 10,000-meter open water event at the Rio Olympics. The 24-year-old often focuses on a familiar figure at the bottom of lane seven at the University of Southern California pool.
“There’s this splotch that, over the last six years I’ve been training there, has come to look like a guy wearing sunglasses, so that’s what I stare at every single day,” said Anderson, who swam for the Trojans for four years (2010-13).