This past spring, when Caeleb Dressel thought he would be in serious training, weeks ahead of the U.S. Olympic Trials and the Tokyo Games, he instead hiked 10 miles a day for six days on the Appalachian Trail.
“Olympic Games [in 2016] was a great experience, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t a life-changing experience,” Dressel, 24, said in June on “The Ben and Caeleb Show,” a podcast he co-hosts that’s on an indefinite break due to busy schedules. “I feel like I learned a lot more about myself, my family and everything going on around me more on the trail than I did with the Olympic Games.