Champion’s Mojo Podcast: The Friendship of Training Partners Lilly King and Cody Miller

Champion’s Mojo Podcast: The Friendship of Training Partners Lilly King and Cody Miller

Training partners and 2016 Olympic champions, Lilly King and Cody Miller, have developed an amazing friendship while swimming under Ray Looze at Indiana. The pair joined the Champion’s Mojo Podcast to discuss their friendship and how training together has improved both their swimming and their lives.

Below is an abridged Q&A of the interview. You can listen to the full podcast episode #87 at https://championsmojo.com or by clicking here.

Champion’s Mojo: How did the two of you meet?

Lilly King: So at 2014 Summer Nationals, I had just made the National Team for the first time in the 100 breaststroke. Cody had just won nationals for the first time and made Pan Pacs. So (they were) really big swims for both of us. I was still in high school and my club coach swam with Cody in college. I remember I was kind of hanging out with Aaron, my club coach, and Cody walks by and you guys were talking. I was like, good job Cody. You were like, thanks, and just walked off. That was the first time we ever interacted.

Cody Miller: My first memory of you was on your recruiting trip to Indiana. I remember we were having a chocolate slip and slide at the lake. You remember that? All the recruits were there and me and a couple of my roommates were like, who’s ready to get covered in chocolate syrup all over them. Nobody came forward. Then Lilly jumped up and was like, ‘I’m ready.’ That’s the first memory that I have. I was like, this Lilly girl seems kind of funny. It wasn’t until later, in your freshman year, that we really started to kind of click a bit. I mean, we were in the same lane every single day. There was a gap in age, so it was really like a big brother, little sister kind of thing.

Champion’s Mojo: How did you do in 2014 at your first Senior Nationals Lilly?

Photo Credit: Instagram, @_king_lil

Lilly King: I don’t remember, really. I probably swam the 200 breaststroke and it was probably really slow. I genuinely don’t remember. I do remember I swam 100 breast as my last event. I made the final that morning, kind of unexpectedly. Then I was like, oh, I’ll have to beat two people and I can make a National Team. That’s pretty cool. I finished sixth and made the National Team. That was kind of my first big Nationals meet.

Champion’s Mojo: So, after graduating, you stayed on and trained at Indiana. At what point did it change from being training partners to this friendship?

Cody Miller: Probably after the Olympics, I would say. We were, obviously, friends before we made the team, but I think after going through that experience and really dealing with the aftermath of the Olympics, brought Lilly and I closer together in a way that I never really talked about publicly before. You hear about the Olympic blues across the board. These Olympians that go to the Games do really well or don’t do very well and, either way, there’s a lot of hard times that follow that. Going to the Olympics for me really changed me. It kind of made me reevaluate what was important in my life, what I really wanted and my relationship with Ray. Ray is this guy that is always pushing, always go, go, go 100 percent all the time. It was really hard for me to come back to that. Lilly was like a good mediator. She went through similar things as well. It’s been kind of a slow burn. It’s been over time, but really the first year of our relationship, we didn’t really talk much. We were just kind of in the pool together at the same time. I think that we both just kind of realized that over time we were really similar. We kind of thrive under pressure. It’s developed over a long time now. Lilly is one of Ali’s best friends and people kind of refer to us as siblings now which is kind of strange. After Lilly gets back and gets her negative COVID test back, she’s going to be one of the first to hold the new baby.

Champion’s Mojo: You said Lilly acts as a mediator between you and your coach. Can you expand on that?

Cody Miller: Lilly and I both act as each other’s mediator with Ray. We’re both good at communicating with him. As fantastic as a coach as he is, sometimes even the best coaches can be hard to deal with because of how intense they are. Sometimes it takes someone who isn’t in the heat of the moment to step in and convey what is being said. We do that almost weekly for each other. Coming off the Olympics and the 2017 World Championships, we slowly started to figure that out. You come off these giant events and then there’s a big stretch of time where there’s not a whole lot of things coming up. Obviously coaches just want to keep you in line. Keep your training and focused. Sometimes you just aren’t there for various reasons. It’s good to have a teammate that kind of always has your back. The thing I realized about Lilly pretty early on is that she’s a killer. That when she sees weakness, she’s like a heat-seeking missile. She comes in and destroys it. When Lilly is in practice and some of our mid-level breaststroke guys are having an off day, she can smell it. She sees blood in the water and that’s all. I love that, from the jump during her freshman year, how competitive she is all the time. I’m very much the same way. We’re very similar.

Lilly King: With Cody it’s similar, but it’s also different because he’s the fastest guy there. If he’s sniffing blood he’s probably having a bad day. With the mediator stuff, I think we both handle Ray in different ways and I would even argue me and Ray get at it a little more than he does with Cody. Especially my freshman and sophomore year, we were at it all the time. It was never really a bad thing. We’re just both very similar. I think the three of us are very similar and we’re all kind of intense all the time.

Cody Miller; Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Cody Miller: I think passion is the word that we need. Super passionate. Both Lilly and I have developed the skill and gotten better at calming down and coming to our senses faster to help alleviate whatever we’re trying to get through with Ray. Sometimes Ray will give us things that, even though we’re American record holders, we’re just like, I can’t make that. His job is to push the boundaries. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes you get really heated when we’re discussing what we’re doing or what we’re trying to do or a goal time or an interval or whatever it is. I think, over the years, Lilly and I have gotten better at calming each other down or communicating with Ray in the heat of the moment. That’s what’s really important, being able to communicate.

Champion’s Mojo: You have had a huge amount of pressure put on you since the 2016 Olympics. Can you speak on the role that Cody has played in helping with that?

Lilly King: We swim in the same together at least four times a week, so we’re together all the time. I think, especially coming off of Rio, our lives completely changed. We went from where we were obviously good to the Olympics. I think really, like a lot of it was just a life transformation for both of us. We have seen each other at quite literally our very best days and our very worst days. He helped me a lot when I was struggling with post Olympic stuff. I just saw you go through a lot of stuff when your knees started to explode. We’ve really been through it and it’s only been four years, but it feels like it’s been so much longer than that just because we’ve seen each other through so many ups and downs.

Champion’s Mojo: What kind of support do you guys provide to one another?

Cody Miller: I think that Lilly and I have both been through a lot of things that very few people have ever experienced. It’s really difficult to be in one of those situations and feel isolated and feel very alone and sometimes not know how to cope with that. I think that oftentimes the best thing that could happen in one of those situations is just knowing that you have someone that understands what you’re going through. That sense of support. That sense of community. The feeling people have when they look at a family member and they immediately understand what they’re thinking. Lilly and I kind of have that in the pool all the time, like when we’re struggling or we’re doing great. If we look at each other, we know exactly what the other person is thinking. We don’t even have to say anything to each other. We look at each other and we instantly know and we understand. We don’t really talk a whole lot about the deep stuff. We just kind of joke around and try to bring each other up when we can or try to keep supporting them when they’re doing well. I would kind of equate it to just like an unspoken bond. When we’re suffering and we’re having a really bad day and Ray is pushing and you’re right on the verge of like you want to snap, I look over and see Lilly smiling and nodding, and that’s important in that moment.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Lilly King: Yeah. Like, if something goes wrong, I’m not going to be like, do you want to talk about it? It’s not how we are. It’s more about just checking in or distracting each other. I think we both distract each other really well.

Cody Miller: We do this thing where, every once in a while, if Lilly and I aren’t near each other we’ll just make chicken noises like across the pool. We communicate like we’re playing Marco Polo. People hate it. Like, people get so upset when we do it all the time.

Champion’s Mojo: Have you been through any tough times together?

Lilly King: Obviously we’re both difficult to deal with sometimes. Obviously it’s tough when one of us is having a rough week or going through something. If I’m really sad, sometimes he gets a little sad. (laughing)

Cody Miller: I can’t think of a time where I was ever mad at Lilly or didn’t want to talk to her. We’ve never really had a fight.

Champion’s Mojo: Tell us three funny things about Lilly.

Cody Miller: I should have put more thought into this beforehand. This is something that everyone kind of knows, but Lilly always has to be the last one to step on the blocks. My favorite part of the race is the 30 seconds before they get in the water, when there’s these little battles where someone decides they don’t want Lilly to be the last one and they’re holding everything up. She’s gotten in trouble for meet delays before because of it. She is also a huge fan of Harry Potter, just like I am.

Lilly King: On the topic of clucking, we got started doing that while swimming in this dungeon pool for a few months during quarantine. We called it the bat cave. We’re driving like an hour and fifteen minutes there and back every day to swim in a dark, one lane pool. It gets kind of depressing. We just started clucking songs. Now it’s kind of become like our little Marco Polo game.

Champion’s Mojo: What do you think it is that makes each other so successful?

Lilly King: We’re getting deep here. One of the things that makes him so successful is that he’s totally able to go to the dark place. I don’t know how you’re able to do that, but you can flip the switch and you’re in a totally different universe, especially when you’re racing. Even when we’re at practice I can see you go to the dark place before you push off a wall. Your eyes change which is the weirdest thing. I think that’s part of the reason you’re able to race so well, because you can flip that switch. I think this one is for both of us, you definitely more so than me. We didn’t grow up with a silver spoon. We didn’t grow up going to the country club and having everything given to us. We both had to work to get to where we are. I think that’s a huge reason as to why we’ve been able to be as successful as we are.

Champion’s Mojo: What does going to the dark place mean?

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Cody Miller: Well, I mean, I don’t know if the dark place is the right way to describe it because it sounds like a bad thing. It’s just an ability to get really serious in the moment. I can kind of just flip a switch in my mind and my whole demeanor and my whole mindset changes. I call it tunnel vision. It’s like everything else kind of blurs. It happens a lot when we do pulleys at the end of practice. We’re pulling weight with the belt on and I’ve got a tempo training on trying to hit tempo. A lot of times I’ll be joking around and then, before I leave the wall, I’ll shut my eyes and just visualize the Olympic Trials pool or the Olympics pool. I’ll physically take myself to that place in the moment and then push off the wall, explode and sprint that lap. It’s just about getting really serious. I think that the best athletes in the world, swimmers and others, have that ability to kind of hone in in a moment. Lilly certainly has that as well. It’s probably just not as pronounced because she isn’t as animated as I am all the time. I thought about this before, about what makes Lilly really, really good. I remember when I was 16, I was on the National Junior Team and I met the great coach, Jack Roach. I remember asking Jack at the time when I was like 16, what makes Phelps so much better than everybody else? I was just obsessed with Michael Phelps like everybody else. Jack said that there are great athletes and great swimmers in this world that love to win and that thrive off of winning. They just want to be the best. But nothing compares to someone like Michael who hates to lose. He hates to lose more than anything else. That is how I would describe Lilly. She hates losing more than she likes winning. That is a rare trait, a very, very rare trait, even among some of the best athletes in the world. I just watched the Michael Jordan documentary and that was a guy who hated losing more than he loved winning.

Lilly King: I don’t want to compare myself to Michael Jordan, but there were things that he said in that documentary that I swear I say all the time. I texted Cody about that. I get embarrassed to lose. That’s my mentality. It is embarrassing for me to lose. If I lose the 100 breast, that will be the article that’s written, about how I lost. I think it gets to a point where it does kind of become embarrassing to lose. I don’t know if it’s actually embarrassing to lose or if that’s just the mentality, but I don’t like losing at all.

Champion’s Mojo: How has your friendship changed you as people?

Cody Miller: It would have been a real struggle coming off of the Olympics. Me and Lilly have had these really deep talks about the struggles that we have had since the Olympics. Like, there’s very few people that I’m as close with as me and Lilly are. Just a handful of people. People have this perception of us because they see us on YouTube just chatting and talking, being like these open books that like to discuss our problems and talk about everything. We’re not like that. It’s just having someone there that understands what’s going on, because like when we came back from the Olympics or when Lilly broke the world record, we couldn’t walk into a subway without somebody recognizing who we are. We were just like deer in the headlights, like we didn’t know how to handle things. The most comforting thing in the world is having someone there that understands that. If we were to have taken each other out of the equation, it would have been much harder. It just wouldn’t have been as fun either. There are so many days we go to the pool and we know it’s going to suck, but having someone there that is on the same wavelength makes it fun.

Lilly King: We just keep each other from going crazy. I think deer in the headlights was the perfect description of that because we didn’t know what to do post Rio. We had never been through it. Like we had no idea what was going to happen when we got back. Then we got back to Bloomington and everybody knew us and it was crazy. Like I was 19 years old and it was overnight fame. I had to go to class and everyone in my class knew who I was. I think it just made it a much less lonely journey, having someone who was going through literally the same thing.

Cody Miller: Today is me and Ali’s three year anniversary. We’ve been married for a year now. I have a great marriage. She supports me in all the right ways, but it’s not always easy. There have been transitions for me like getting married. Lilly knows Ali really well. So she has been there for both of us. Not that me and Ali have big fights or anything, but she’s just a constant, a glue in certain situations. That’s something we’ve never really talked about, but it’s real.

Champion’s Mojo: Tell us a little about being in quarantine together and about the disappointment of the Olympics being postponed.

lilly-king-4x100-mixed-medley-relay-final-2019-world-championships_1

Photo Courtesy: Becca Wyant

Lilly King: I think we all kind of had different reactions. We’ve got this group of like 10 of us in our pro group. We see each other and we go to the pool and we go to the grocery store. For the most part, we don’t really go anywhere. It’s been nice to have that group of 10 or so people. As far as when the Olympics were postponed, we all reacted very differently. I think, Cody, you were bombed. I was really down. I was like let’s go practice and push down these feelings. So really, like all quarantine, I was like, I’m good. Let’s go. Okay. Then I had my Olympic meltdown like three weeks ago.

Cody Miller: It all hit us at different times. For me it was like right away, because I had had this vision in my mind of planning the pregnancy around the Olympics and having the baby after the Games. That kind of went out the window. Everything was thrown out the window. It hit me right away, whereas it hit Lilly a lot later on. During quarantine we were driving three hours a day to a one lane pool. The whole time we were doing it for a variety of reasons. It felt like it was the right thing to do. It was the only option. To pass the time. All of your emotions are just bouncing all over. Everybody is stuck at home, not working, not training, whatever it is. Cabin fever is real and it eats people up. Fortunately, we had some semblance of a normal schedule. You could pick apart our pro group and kind of point to when they kind of hit that not rock bottom moment, but that moment where they just kind of all let it out. And it hit Lilly not too long ago.

Cody Miller: I’m super weird. I will repress every feeling I have until one stupid little thing will set it off. So, three weeks ago, my mom got the Olympic flag framed and sent me the picture. That was it. I lost it. All these feelings that I repressed just coming out. I’m very good at compartmentalizing and very good at just putting it off in the back of my mind. My dad passed away six months before the Olympics. I was devastated and sad for a number of weeks, but I was really able to compartmentalize. When I got to the pool, I was locked in and I was the same exact person. All of these weeks of quarantine it was just building. For everyone listening, we’re all human. We’re all the same. We all have feelings and emotions. At some point, it hits us.

Champion’s Mojo: What are your thoughts on the documentary the Weight of Gold?

Lilly King: For me, it was nothing new. I’m watching all these people, but OK, we have very similar accolades. Pretty much everyone other than Michael, obviously. I’m watching and I’m like, yep, done that. Felt that. That’s happened to me. I’ve thought about that. So, for me at least, it was no new news for me. I was actually watching it with a couple of my friends and they were like, oh my God. Like, this is groundbreaking. I was like, this is the stuff I’ve been going through since Rio. I’m fine now, but I was in a pretty dark place for a while. So, unfortunately, it was nothing out of the ordinary for me to hear, but I think it was good for the general public to understand.

Champion’s Mojo: When we talked to you before Cody, you talked about how you’ve been planning the next segment of your life. Is that a way to make the post athlete transition easier?

Cody Miller: It’s not possible because in order to achieve that level of greatness or that level of success or those gold medals, you have to be machine wired to do one thing. All you have to do is focus. You have to be a selfish individual. I’ve talked about this before. Like in the year prior to the Olympics, I was the most selfish I’ve ever been. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because every aspect of my life revolved around swimming fast and being fine tuned for going to the pool. That meant that every other aspect of my life had sacrifices. I said no to a lot of things. I said no to family functions. I said no to weddings. I said no to get togethers. I didn’t have any late nights out. It was hard on Ali and I’s relationship because I was basically a robot. That’s not always fun to be around. I I think that the best thing that you can do is try to educate people, particularly up and coming athletes, because we had no idea. I love that story in that documentary where Lolo Jones talks about how she had already gone to the World Championships. She’d already been to the Olympics. She had done all these things, and she told a story of people recognizing her while she was making smoothies at a gym, basically living paycheck to paycheck. For most people who didn’t know about that, this documentary was a little bit of a wake up call. I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s a good piece of education. The best thing that we can do, Lilly and I, is openly discuss these things.

Champion’s Mojo: What’s the hardest part?

Lilly King: I think all of it. I was 19. Like what 19 year old thinks they’re going to fall into this depression after the greatest summit of their life. Nobody. You’re 19. You’re invincible. I remember Camille Adams telling me to make sure to check in with someone. I started to realize later on that was really good advice. You’ve been training your whole life for one minute. That one minute is over and whether it was good or not, it’s over. Luckily, as an Olympic medalist, I don’t have to worry about finances too much. Only medalists really make enough money to live off of. A lot of other swimmers have to get other jobs. It’s crazy to think that you’re an Olympic athlete who’s working at a gym or wherever. Oftentimes the general public kind of misinterprets fame. They associate being famous with being wealthy.

Cody Miller: Most athletes in the world of Olympic sports are not really all that wealthy. There’s very few Olympic swimmers that are doing really, really well financially. Fortunately, Lilly and I are doing OK. With the ISL, hopefully that can change. I mean, when I graduated college, I had to work to support myself so I could swim. Hopefully in a few years you can just jump on a team in the league and start making money swimming. I think we’re in the early stages of a great transformation for our sport.

Champion’s Mojo: What is a good way to develop a great training partner friendship?

Cody Miller: You gotta put yourself out there and see what people think. It’s a game of catch and release. You’re in a group of people. You have to start goofing off and see who takes. It’s hard to replicate this synergy that Lilly and I have, but it can be done.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Lilly King: People just have to, I think, realize who their person at practice is. My people at practice are Cody and Laura Morley. I can look at either of them and know it’s going to be ok. That person doesn’t have to be the fastest person on the team either. Laura was only in the B-final of Big 10s when she came to the team. She wasn’t the person I was racing, but she was the person I could look to and know things would be ok. I think finding someone who is excited to be at practice and excited to work hard is super important.

Champion’s Mojo: How does your competitiveness affect your friendship?

Cody Miller: Oh, it plays into our friendship. We’re competitive with each other at practice, especially during kicking. That’s because Lilly can kick pretty much faster than ninety five percent of the guys on our team so we get very competitive. Lilly hates to lose more than anyone I’ve ever really met, but it’s only really with swimming. If I’m playing a video game or a board game or if we’re playing hacky sack, like I’ve got to beat you. I’ll find a way.

Champion’s Mojo: Is there anything else that you would like to say?

Cody Miller: I think the one thing that is often overlooked with Lilly that most people don’t know is how kind and compassionate she is, especially with kids. Lilly is going to be a teacher. She’s going to be a PE teacher. That’s what that’s what she wants to be. Most people think of the finger wagging and that she’s this mean girl who said I’m gonna beat you. They don’t realize just how nice she is outside of the pool if you’re not racing her in the pool. She is genuinely a sweet, sweet human. I think that just gets overlooked because she has this persona of being really tough.

Lilly King: Cody’s basically the big brother I never had and I’m just super thankful for our relationship. I hadn’t even thought about what my life would be like without you. That’s just a given. But yeah, just super thankful to have him in my life. You’re like my big brother. I’m grateful for such a great friendship and training buddy. All that mushy stuff.

Champion’s Mojo: Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been wonderful! And we wish you both all the best!

Cody Miller: Thank you! Our pleasure!

Lilly King: Yes, thank you!

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