By Remedy Rule, Swimming World College Intern
Fifteen years ago in Stowe, Vermont, Mrs. and Mr. Karosas dropped their 5-year-old daughter off at the pool for swim lessons, initiating Tasija Karosas’ passion for the sport. Present day, you can find the little girl all grown up at the University of Texas, breaking team records (100 back 51.40, 200 back 1:50.49, 200 medley relay 1:36.32, and 400 medley relay 3:30.46), publishing nutrition articles, and leading her team as captain.
Swimming World recently sat down with Tasija to hear about her key ingredients to successful swimming, nutrition and life.
Q&A with Tasija Karosas
Photo Courtesy: Griffin Scott
Swimming World: What are one or two things you currently do in your training that are keys to your success?
Tasija Karosas: I treat every race practice we have almost like an actual race by getting into that racing mindset every single time I have to go fast. When we aren’t going fast, I just try to focus on the little details to maximize each set and workout.
SW: How do your thoughts in racing differ than your thoughts in practice?
TK: I guess it isn’t super diferent. With racing, I get into my mindset earlier than practice. My [racing] mindset usually starts 24 hours before the first day of the meet. I think about the events I will be swimming and how I am going to race them, how I will go out after it. While in practice, my mentality starts once I start the main set.
SW: Do you have any recommended resources to share (books, seminars, websites)?
TK: Actually I follow this one blog, Nutrition Stripped. It’s all about healthy meals and it gives a lot of nutrition tips and self love articles. It’s something I read every day and it always makes me happy. It’s a good one to follow.
SW: Have you ever read comments about you? If so, what’s the most ridiculous one you’ve read?
TK: I can’t remember a specific one but I think the most ridiculous stuff is how people pronounce my name, spell my name, or try to enunciate it in parentheses when they spell it out. It’s always really funny (laughs). They never get it right. (It’s “TAH-see-ah ka-row-SAS” by the way).
SW: What is your favorite home cooked meal?
TK: My dad makes really bomb salmon with asparagus and sticky rice…it’s actually risotto but we call it sticky rice. We always have that meal whenever I go home. I actually made it two nights ago, except with chicken not salmon, but I made sticky rice.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
SW: What is the best advice Carol Capitani or Roric Fink has ever given you?
TK: I’m a planner. I like to plan out my day, my school, and my future. I chose to become a nutrition major at 19 years old. I thought that I wanted to do the dietetic program and graduate from my undergrad, then go straight into being a registered dietician. This program was extremely rigorous and required more school than I had time for with my swim schedule. As I was struggling with where I wanted my future to go, Carol and Roric sat me down and reminded me I was 19 and I didn’t HAVE to know what I wanted to do with my life. They told me that the beauty of being in college is not knowing what you want to do, but rather creating experiences and memories to figure it out. As small of piece of advice that is, it was probably the best piece of advice I have ever gotten and I remind myself of it whenever I begin to stress about my future.
SW: Speaking of the future, what are you looking forward to most in life after swimming?
TK: I’m looking forward to discovering my passions outside of swimming. I’m excited to become a pescatarian because I don’t specifically enjoy eating chicken; I eat it because it’s a good source of protein for swimming. I’m also excited to spend more time with my sisters and my family since I’ve focused so many years on swimming: going to every meet, having short Christmas breaks, and staying at school during summers. I went to boarding school when I had just turned 15, so I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my family to begin with. I’m looking forward to making up the time I missed.
SW: Anything else you’d like to share?
TK: Stay in school, kids (laughs). It’s easy to lose sight what swimming is all about. Pay attention to the reasons why you started the sport and why you love the sport. It can get you through each and every hard practice, especially when you want to give up, feel like you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, or just watching people beat you and you’re getting frustrated. Figure out what you want to gain from your swimming experience. I’m approaching my last and final year of swimming; it’s weird to think that I’ve put in all this work just to drop seconds in a race. But it’s so much more than that; it’s building character and discovering who you want to be in your life after swimming. Owning into that when you’re training and just taking it one step at a time makes the whole swimming thing easier and more enjoyable.
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