This article originally appeared in Mile High Sports Magazine. Read the full digital edition.

Each month MHSM catches up with a leading figure in Colorado sports. In February it was four-time Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin, as interviewed by Doug Ottewill

“It’s actually been pretty different, being back now versus when I was training in high school. I’m in an awesome little post-grad group that’s out here now, so I’m swimming with Colorado Stars again. We all train all together every single morning.”

“I’m a completely different person than I was four years ago. I have experienced completely different things within the sport, outside of the sport. You learn so much when you go to college; you learn so much about who you are and especially at the program at Cal.”

“I think there have definitely been challenges that probably any college student can attest to – when you have that kind of independence and then you come back and start living with your parents again. My parents have been wonderful. When I decided to come back, we did sit down and talk about, ok I am going to be living with you guys again but I am not 17 anymore. And I really didn’t even have to say any of that, my parents came to me right away and said, we realize this, we understand this, we want to give you your own space, your own time and have very open communication.”

“My relationship with [coach] Todd [Schmitz] has changed so much. Our relationship has grown and it’s really special to see where it’s gone. When I was 17 and we were at my first Olympics, he really had to drop the hammer. I was young. I had never done something like this before. He was really the go-to of what do I do, how do I do this. Whereas now I have a little bit more of that experience under my belt and so it is really more of a partnership.”

“I have very different expectations than I did in my first Olympics. My first time, my expectation really was to have fun. I was just so happy to be there; I really just wanted to enjoy the experience. And all of that is verbatim for this time around, my main expectation is to enjoy this. This is something that so few people get to do, and it’s such an incredibly opportunity, so I want to enjoy it first and foremost. But now I kind of have that experience and I have the results of my first Olympics, so now it’s different having expectations going in there and really wanting to do well again and really wanting to defend the titles that I was able to get in 2012. It’s a whole other kind of challenge.”

“With my decision to come back and do high school, my biggest concern and the first thing I was thinking about was how is this going to affect my teammates, my coaches and the other swimmers. It was a little bit harder to make that decision for high school because I felt like me swimming or not swimming would have a bigger impact on that high school scene.”

“High school swimming is really what sparked my love for team sports. There wasn’t really anything like being on a team until I got to Regis where you would get to “A league” or get to state and your sole purpose was to get points. That’s all it was. It didn’t matter what your time was, your goal was to get your number as low as possible so you could get points for your team. And that was so special, that’s where I realized how much more you are capable of doing when you were doing it with other people who believed in you and you believed in them.”

“I’m a total people pleaser. And at the end of the day, I want to be able to give everyone what they want and what they need. I think after London, I’ve kind of learned where the bottom of my “give tank” is. And if I get to that point, there’s nothing left to give. That’s not really fair to me, and that’s not really fair to the people I want to give to. I think I’ve learned so much more about the balance of being able to give and doing interviews or being able to do different events – but also making sure I’m getting the me time, that I’m getting the time to just be a normal 20-year old girl. I can go to Nordstrom’s and window shop for two hours, just everyday stuff that reminds me that I’m still me at the end of the day, that I’m still Missy.”