‘I just count the laps’

A 99-year-old Canadian swimmer broke three world records in her age class but considers herself “lazy” for only training two days a week.

Betty Brussel, of British Columbia, broke the 400-meter freestyle, the 50-meter backstroke, and the 50-meter breaststroke record over the weekend.

She swam the 400-meter freestyle in 12 minutes and 50 seconds — beating the previous record holder by nearly four minutes, according to the Washington Post.

The Holland-born swimmer completed the other two races in under two minutes.

Although she’s not quite 100, she was categorized in the 100-104-year-old age group as swimming goes off birth year and Brussel was born in 1924.

“I really enjoy swimming. I’d love the feeling of gliding through the water and it just makes me feel very good,” she told The Guardian after her win.

Despite her incredible feat, she still considers herself a slacker, as she only hopes in the pool twice a week and doesn’t practice any drills.

“What can I say? I’m a bit lazy,” Brussel, who has accumulated hundreds of metals in her career, told the British outlet.

But the swimmer could care less about all the gold stacked up in her house, telling The Guardian: “I don’t even think about the records. I just swim. I just do the best I can. And if it’s a record fine. If I win, I’m happy to win. But if I have a good time, I’m happier.”

“But with all of this focus and these records, I’m even starting to feel a bit proud of myself, too.”

While swimming, Brussels doesn’t “think about anything” but maintaining a sustainable pace.

“I just count the laps, so that I know how many I have left,” she told The Guardian. “I always try to find a pace that I can sustain – you’re asking a lot from your body in these races. And on the last lap, well, I give it everything I have.”

Her coach, Stanley Wilson, says the great-grandmother always has energy and “when it comes to coaching I really just make sure that she’s not doing anything biomechanically counter-productive or that she might sustain an injury from.”

“The reality is, here’s a lot of paperwork with world records, and I have to fill all that out.”

Despite being a fantastic swimmer now, Brussel wasn’t always a swimmer. She grew up in a family of 12 and didn’t often get to pursue her hobbies.

She didn’t get into swimming until 1982 during her retirement.

“It was quite a challenge during the war,” she told the Washington Post.

She was in her teens during World War II and had to focus on caring for her siblings. She was also pulled from school at the age of 14 and the family fell on hard times and didn’t have electricity for more than three years, she told the DC-based outlet.

The dozen siblings learned to swim in the canals near Amsterdam, she told The Guardian.

Brussel eventually married and she and Gerrit moved to Canada in 1959, where she cleaned housing for a living and worked as a seamstress while raising three children, who are now 70, 72, and 74.

Her first swimming competition was in 1991.

“I swam one-lane breaststroke, and I did not even do it right,” she said of her first competition. “I started from the ground up.”

Regardless of her error, she fell in love with swimming and started competing at the Canadian Masters level, which is a class for swimmers over 18.

Brussel, now a member of the White Rock Wave Swim Team, has always enjoyed the thrill of competing and calls the pool her “happy place.”

The widow’s family, including her great-grandchildren, attend her meets to cheer her on.

On the days she’s not swimming, she takes 45-minute walks up a hill near her home and spends her time knitting, cross-stitching, and reading, she told the Washington Post.

The nearly centenarian – whose birthday is in July – does not take any medicine or pills either and credits her physical activity to her longevity.

“Sometimes I feel old. My youngest, who’s 70, said ‘Mom, you are old!’ But I don’t really feel old – only when I’m really tired. But for the rest of the time, I don’t feel old,” she told The Guardian.