Not only are the open swimming races at the Olympics longer than the races that take place in a pool, they're also more physical.

"You can get an actual yellow card, red card, you can get kicked out of the race," said Katie Hoff Anderson, a two-time Olympic swimmer for Team USA. "[It's called] 'open water swimming,' but I don't feel like it should be called 'swimming' because it's so drastically different than the pool. Girls are playing games, girls are trying to psych you out, pull on your suit."

In the last edition of In the Village: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast, titled "Day 16: Open Water, Open Conversation," Hoff joins host and former teammate Elizabeth Beisel for a day at the races, where they break down takeaways from their own Olympic experiences over the women's 10k open water marathon.

"From these athletes, their example, the takeaway from them is what they do behind the scenes and the dedication to get up and make sure that they're doing every possible thing to get to the goal," Hoff said. "So that's what I would focus on and get inspired from. Not the medals, but what happened behind the scenes."

Hear all of that and more on the latest episode of In the Village.

All episodes of In the Village are available on the iHeart App, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform.