Phil Rush on his record-breaking swims and coaching the next generations

What a privilege to spend an hour talking to Phil Rush, a coaching and swimming legend. Here are just some of his open water swim achievements:

• Record holder for the fastest double and triple English Channel crossings (his triple crossing was 28h 21m, 140km, in 1987)
• Record holder for the fastest double Cook Strait crossings (only one other person has achieved a double)
• The first person to complete a double crossing of Lake Taupō (in 1985)
• 10 English Channel crossings and 8 Cook Strait crossings

In this episode we talk about how endurance swimming has changed over the years, the importance of mental as well as physical training, monitoring swimmers for hypothermia, working as a team to help people achieve their swim goals, how he swam for more than 24 hours, that crucial final stage of a marathon swim, the buzz of getting swimmers to the other side, and much more.

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Thoughts on this episode? Leave a comment or contact me at swimchatswithshona at gmail dot com.

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome to the Swim Chat podcast.
I'm Shona Riddell, a writer, former journalist and ocean
swimmer from Wellington, Altiro and New Zealand.
For each episode, I'll feature adifferent guest from our swim
community. They'll be dippers, adventure
swimmers, coaches and conservationists with one thing
in common. They all love being in the sea,

(00:29):
so whether you're a swimmer yourself or just interested in
stories about the ocean and people expanding their comfort
zones, I hope you enjoy these swim chats.
Please hit, follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
I'll start recording before I forget.

(00:51):
It's a pleasure. Yeah.
It's a pleasure to chat to you. We haven't.
This is the first time we've talked.
I've heard a lot about you from my other podcast guests, what
we've had John Hancock and Brianna Ward to name, right?
Oh well, you've had some good ones then.
Yeah, we've had, I've had some quality gifts and also I know

(01:13):
you coach my friend Gerard. Oh, right.
Yes, yes, no. He's a good man.
He's a good man. He is a good man.
Yeah. Well, let me just quickly
introduce you for listeners who don't already know about your
professional highlights, in casethere is anybody, I'm sure most
people listening. No, you're you're famous.

(01:34):
Yeah, I'm about that. My own lunch box.
So Phil Rush, you're the world record holder for the fastest
double and triple crossings of the English Channel.
You completed your swims in the 1980s, but your records are
still unbeaten to this day. Only four people in history have

(01:54):
completed the triple crossing ofthe English Channel.
You're one of them that you're the fastest.
In total, you swam across the English Channel 10 times.
You swam across the Cook Straight 8 times.
Just jump in. Correct me if I've got any of
these numbers wrong. You're 1 of only two people to
complete a double crossing of the Cook Straight and in fact

(02:18):
you completed 2 double crossingswhich were in 1984 and another
one in 1988. These days you coach other
swimmers, you've taken many of them across the Cook Straight so
they can achieve their own goalsand I know you've taken a few
across Fogo Straight as well. Correct.
Yeah. And we also do Lake Taupo, take

(02:41):
them across Lake Taupo as well, or any piece of water in New
Zealand that they need to safelyget across.
Right. And you were the first person to
do a double crossing of Lake Taupo, is that right?
Correct. Yes, correct.
And yeah, and and the first one to do cook straight and dumb
cross and cook straight as well,so.

(03:03):
Incredible. And so I've listened to a couple
of other podcasts where you've told your your, your history and
how you got into swimming. I know you that you started
swimming in Dunedin as a as a teenager.
Correct. Yes, No, as a yeah, very, very
young. I swam with Duncan Lang, who
also was a top coach and and obviously got medals at the

(03:28):
Olympics with Daniel Lyder. Yep, amazing.
And so that would have been a good introduction to cold water
swimming starting in Dunedin. Oh totally then.
And I used to work on the rubbish carts as well.
You'd be running around in the winter in shorts and AT shirt
lifting bins and, and and throwing rubbish around and all.

(03:52):
And I've never, I'm not that slim.
So I'm, I'm, I always had a coating, we'll say, which kept
me, what probably made me in theday, one of the better cold
water swimmers in the world. So I was quite fortunate.
Well, yeah, lifting rubbish bins, that would have been what
we'd call cross training now. So you would have been building

(04:12):
your strength, your cardio? Yeah, I mean that the, the boys
that we used to, we used to workwith, we, we that tie my side of
the step up. So they, they, they called me
the, that I, that I was, they were my coaches as well.
So basically would just run for 2 1/2 hours lifting bins and
they'd always pick me up from the pool.

(04:34):
So it was more endurance work and I put down to the, you know,
the engine we had was all to do with the, the total package of
training we used to do. But I mean, it was a job at the
time time, but it also it it it really helped with the
endurance. And you discovered quite early
on that you had a talent for endurance swimming, right?

(04:54):
So was your first swimming of the cook straight at 16?
1515 I think we're, we were, we were, we were up there.
And I think we're #12 or 13, I think was the, you know, it's
the 13th person to go across. And, and yeah, I was, I was a

(05:17):
good pool swimmer. I'd make nationals.
I'd, I would never really, I'd make finals, but I'd always be
7th. So, but I had a big motor, so
we'll, we'll call it. And I could keep going and going
and going and going. So Duncan put me to a a three
mile event that there was a national championship and that's

(05:40):
where it started really. And it just grew and grew and
grew from there. And you know, when we finished,
we were 100 and 110 kilometers across English Channel three
ways. So and probably not, you know
why I don't know how far I can swim.
Could, could have. I'm not saying I could now.

(06:01):
It's very ugly now. So are marathon swimmers built
differently from other swimmers,or is it more about the training
and the mindset that makes someone a marathon swimmer?
Marathon swimming back in the 80s was very big in New Zealand.
We used to have races, round races round New Zealand and all,

(06:25):
all the bits of water, differentbits of water.
I think marathon swimmers and the day was just somebody that
could plod along at the very start when I started was just
plodding along and eventually you would get there, you'd get
washed up on the shore or you wouldn't make it or you'd spend
hours out there. I'd like to think we were the

(06:50):
we. I always say we because myself
and my coach were, you know, it's a, it's a team effort on
anything. In these swims.
We were the sort of new breed that came on and we swam fast,
Poplin, swim fast. The sooner you get in the water,
the faster you swim, the sooner you get out the other side.
And in those days, it wasn't just about wallowing around out

(07:14):
there. So and that's where it started.
I mean, I could sit in the end when I finished, I would be able
to have the English Channel. I was sitting on 4 1/2 KS an
hour at night. And then when Dave came round,
we'd pick it up to five KS an hour and that was, you know, 28

(07:35):
hours and being able to hold good.
And I, I always talk about it with all of the swimmers being
able to hold good pace, the faster you can hold it, then
you've, you've got least problems with tide.
You're out, not out there so long the weather's not so
troublesome to you. So And I, I wasn't a racing

(07:57):
sardine or you know, I, I, you know, I, I, I always carried a
little bit of weight no matter how much training we were doing.
And all of that gave me good endurance.
But I still talk. You can have as much endurance
as you like, but if you're not swimming fast or swimming

(08:18):
properly, we're wasting, we're not wasting our time.
But you know, it's just painful.I find it really interesting
that a lot of your records are unbeaten because, you know, it's
been 40 years and you would you could argue that now we have
better nutrition, better technique possibly, but

(08:39):
obviously whatever you were doing was working.
Yeah, I, I'm, I'm quite proud of.
And now I look back on it and think, wow, how do we do that?
You know, it seems a bit surreal, but I was a good
trainer. I love training.
I, I was the first in the water in the mornings and I was last

(08:59):
out and I'd do more than anybodyelse.
And, and I don't think I was talent.
I wasn't a talented swimmer, butI worked hard.
You work hard and anything we do, you get good results.
Let's talk about your Let's talkabout your triple crossing.
Is that your longest swim? That was, that was my longest

(09:20):
swim and it took 4, four years to get the weather right to be
able to swim for that. And, you know, we, we'd, we'd
turn up there and we'd go. We, we, we turned up a couple
of, I was, I was, I was only young, still relatively young.

(09:41):
You know, I was 25. I think it was we Now you look
at the range of marathon swimmers here, they're huge.
That's huge. You know, age range was probably
more mature people than younger people.
But we turned up there and they said, look, we're here to swim
the English Channel three ways. And they just laughed at us, the
English word. But Oh yeah, right, yeah, right.

(10:03):
You know, he's this boy from thesticks down in the antipodes
come over here to swim the English Channel.
But the first year we broke the double crossing record.
So all of a sudden they thought,oh, well, maybe.
And we, we took an air off it. So it wasn't just a little bit.
And and realistically for the next 4 years we waited to get a

(10:26):
nice calm day to do a triple crossing.
And every time we hopped in the water it was to do a triple
crossing. It was never just to do a one,
but my coach would always, when it got rough, we would always
have to complete one crossing. He would never say, oh look it's
rough you know, we'll be gone 3 hours, look let's pull the pen.
He'd always make me finish the first crossing no matter what

(10:50):
the conditions were like. Wow.
So what was it about the triple crossing in particular that was
in your mind? Like what gave you the idea to
do that? Well, we've done the double
crossing here in New Zealand. We've done a double crossing in
of like Taupo, which was, you know, that was 23 hours.
So we were getting up there as far as time goes and it was

(11:12):
doable. You know, Tony believed that and
I believed that I could do it. And at that stage, they'd only
been one other person swimming the triple crossing and got John
Erickson and it seemed it seemeddoable.

(11:33):
I mean, you know, on the, on theand that's what I was good at,
cold water, long swims. Right.
So, and we'd always, before we'dgo to England, we'd go through
them. We used to be like a
Professional Golf circuit for marathon swimming.
You know, you'd get 100 US an hour for swimming.
And it was, it was good money. And the warm shorter swims, the

(11:57):
Americans would come through because they were just off the
Olympic program. And then they'd eat them.
The cold long swims, odd 1. So you know, my Forte was cold
water from coming from Dunedin and the longer the better.
So we're talking about 1987. That was your triple crossing.
It took you 28 hours, 21 minutes, according to Wikipedia,

(12:22):
over 100 kilometres. You broke five world records
alone during that one swim. It was 38 years ago now.
Does it feel like a like a dream, like a distant dream?
Or do you still remember it vividly?
I remember parts of it vividly. The pain is gone, pain something
that goes the the pain is gone. But I do remember quite a bit of

(12:45):
it because at this, once again we got the phone call from the
skipper and he said, right, it'sgoing to be a beautiful night.
It's going to get your butt down.
And I'm thinking here, right, here we go again.
It was just another swim popped in and it stayed dead calm like
a cup of tea. Dead, dead calm.

(13:06):
And so the first lap I felt really good and we weren't far
off the shore and, and 7 1/2 or 6 1/2 hours.
And Tony said if you give it a bit of, you know, give it a bit
of medicine, we might break the record.
And sure enough, we gave it a, you know, gave it a bit of a
squirt. And nobody, you know, everybody

(13:28):
was starting to laugh. Oh, he's gone out too hard.
He's, you know, this isn't goingto happen.
We went 7 hours 40 or something on the first lap and broke the
record and the fastest crossing across the English Channel.
And, and so we turned around, came back and then it was 8
hours 15, another record from the other side.

(13:49):
And you know, I'd broken my own double crossing record again by
an hour and an hour and a bit. And so things just fell into
place. I mean, we think good things
happen to those who wait we've been waiting for.
That's right. Yeah, four years.
In in Dover as well, which isn'tthe most desirable place in the

(14:10):
world. Right.
So tell me, tell me about the the logistics of doing a
crossing where you you're crossing from England to France,
you reach the other side and then what do you do?
Do you step out onto land or do you touch a rock?
Like how do you? Confirm Clearwater.
You have to Clearwater. So if you, I was lucky enough
each time we just hit some beaches, they just walked out

(14:32):
and but you're not allowed to stop in France.
You have to exit the water, get straight back in again.
So at all. So it's a mind thing.
You're allowed. I say, yeah, you're allowed 10
minutes on the shore. But you know, once you sit there
and scratch your belly button and have a look and think, I
don't want to be going back here.
So get in, turn around and swim out to the boat, have a good

(14:54):
feed and on we went again because we were, everyone was
buzzing, you know. But saying that, not always
talking about the team again, the skipper that we used had
said to me to us beforehand on our brief issue, I reckon we can
get across and seven and a half,eight hours for the first lap.

(15:15):
You've got the speed and worked it all out each lap.
He was about 5 minutes out on his timing, so he knew that that
was going to have, I didn't knowit was going to happen, but, and
then it was just a matter of chipping, you know, chipping
away at it. And, and, but the weather stayed
dead calm. Dead, dead calm.

(15:37):
Which was very unusual, wasn't it, for that question.
But for yeah, yeah. And, you know, there was
swimmers out there that were passing.
There was, you know, there's still a lot.
It's very popular place to go swimming and you know, we were
passing boats and, you know, everybody was talking about it
and it's pretty, it's, it's a very cool memory.
Yeah, and you've talked about the importance of training your

(16:00):
body and your mind. How do you train your mind?
It's a hard thing. I mean, you've had you've had
John Hancock's on on on your cast before.
Now there's a very active mind. John's is just and problems we
had with John was slowing that mind down to so that he didn't

(16:23):
exhaust himself by just overthinking.
And that is a, excuse me, that is one of the things that
marathon swimming, if you've done the training, then you have
to train the mind. You have to train the mind too.
And I'm not saying think about nothing, but think about
nothing. So you might and you might be

(16:43):
able to. I used to just count my strokes.
By the time I got to about 200 strokes, I'd be out.
I wouldn't remember the next half hour.
And at night, you know, the night was the best place to swim
because it's pointless lifting your head all the time.
There's nothing to see. There's no, there's nobody
walking around out there. So and then you just set

(17:04):
yourself off and, and, and don'tthink about time.
Time is the worst possible thingyou can think about because it
just goes and, and and once you're in that frame of mind,
time just disappears. Like at night time, we nobody
was allowed to talk. We were all like, Tony would sit
on the side of the boat and watch me the whole time and but

(17:27):
we'd stop for a fade every half hour.
Just get the drink, bang onto it, onto it.
Once you start stimulating your mind, then it starts running,
racing around the place and you think, oh, that must be half an
hour and it's bloody two or three minutes.
So you. Sounds like you.
Sounds like you put yourself into a kind of trance when
you're swimming. Of hypnosis I, I didn't know

(17:49):
what I was doing at the time because if you didn't it hurt it
would hurt your mind to be son. I don't want to be here.
I don't want to be, you know, this is painful, but it's really
your mind is just trying to beatyou, so to say.
And if you could do that, then, you know, I, I, I was, yeah.

(18:11):
I, I became very good. I could lie down and go to sleep
just like that, then count from 5 back and I'd be out.
That's quite a good art. Yeah, that's a lot of people
have trouble with that. Yeah.
Oh, totally. And, and that's what I with the
swimmers, you know, you can see,I can see when we're taking a
swimmer like what's looking, thelook on their face, what's going

(18:34):
on. And because I've been there, I
know that it hurts. You've got to stop overthinking
things and just relax and get onwith your stroke and and get
hold of the water and just swim at a good pace but keep that
mind relaxed. Right.
It's good advice. And a lot of people who are
swimming across a body of water,they're, they're just trying to

(18:57):
get to the other side. But for you, it was obviously
more than that. You were, you're aiming for
world records. That's another level of
pressure. How did you handle that while
you were swimming? Was that another thing that you
just tried not to think about? Well, we weren't aiming for
world records. It happened.
Oh. It just happened.
Yeah, literally all of the our goal was to swim in this channel

(19:18):
three ways. It wasn't to break any records.
It was just to do it because I knew one other person had done
it and that was the goal. The, the records happened after
the first lap because I rememberTony saying, he said, just be
careful. I don't want you to go too hard.
We've got a long way to go yet. And you know, I was, I can, I
can feel it now. I've actually got goosebumps

(19:38):
talking about it. I can feel that just things were
happening and I was it was just unfolding in front of me.
And the benefit was, you know, we're done in double crossing.
We'd already broken three world records and, and then you know,
the last lap because of the tide, we were sort of basically

(20:02):
about 8 hour crossings obviously.
And then the last lap was 12 1/2hours because the tide wasn't
allowed. So we literally at one point
just swam around and I didn't realise at the time but the
skipper swam, swam me around in circles so that we wouldn't go
out into the tide too quickly. So that's why I say it's a team
effort. He was job was to get us across

(20:25):
and amongst the all the boats. Tony's job was to keep me alive
and my job was to swim, so we all did our jobs well that day.
Yeah, like how you say we. Yeah.
Yeah, importance of time. A lot of people would mention
that, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, so, and that's what makes, you know, that's, and I, I still
use most of the philosophies we did back then now with the

(20:48):
swimmers and, and just to, to, for them to be, to, you know, to
get them to be successful. What were you eating during your
triple crossing? Well, you know, as you said
before, there was. These days, you know, you've got
money, a roast meal and a gel sort of thing.
You can have whatever flavor youwant, whatever.

(21:09):
Yeah, it's quite incredible. Back in those days when I first
started open water swimming, it was sort of Coke and chocolate
and of course you'd have these almighty highs where you felt so
good and then when you fell off the top, down the bottom wasn't
a very nice place to be so. And then we'd do have more Coke

(21:29):
and chocolate to bring it back. That's right.
And bring it back, but it's under there all of a sudden then
it just levels down and just just get further and further in
a hole. So now back then there was
things like it was comp plan or Sustagen and, and there was only
ever one electrolyte replacementon the market.

(21:49):
So it was a lemon lime flavour and and we had that, but we got
into there used to be a a, a, a,a chicken place, a homestead
chicken. And they used to do baked
potatoes and baked potatoes, spaghetti, biscuits, whatever.

(22:11):
But moderation, just every half hour though Bang would be into
it would be into it just and keeping that energy level up all
the time. Right.
And compliance still around. Is that something you'd
recommend now for? For comments, I think I think
well, John Hancock, that's what got him across.
Cook straight. He couldn't hold anything else

(22:32):
down. And I said to him, I said go and
find this. It's called Sustagen or Complex.
It's the same thing. I mean, it keeps old people
alive in hospitals and homes. That's yeah, it's a great piece
of food that's been around for so long.
Yeah. And yeah, like you say, you can

(22:53):
have it in liquid form anytime. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's and you know, it's fullof good.
It's just full of carbohydrate and, and, but you know, these
days you've got stuff, you've got carbohydrates with
electrolytes and salts. And I mean, it's amazing how
much stuff is out there now. Yeah.

(23:13):
The fundamentals are the same, you know you've got to keep the
the motor fueled and with good quality food to keep you going.
You've you did 10 English Channel crossings.
You did 8 cook straight crossings.
You've also helped other people do the crook straight.

(23:33):
So you must be very familiar with these bodies of water.
Can you talk me through the differences between between both
of them in terms of you know, what you say, what you, the
water quality? Well, the English, we start with
crook straight. It's one of the most beautiful,
horrible pieces of water in the world.

(23:53):
I mean, we, I've, I, you know, every year I spend the summer
looking at the weather, thinking, you know, we just have
a nice day. You know, we only really get one
swim away every set of tights. But beautiful and clear,
beautiful fish life when it doescome around, you know, dolphins,
you know, beautiful. It's, it's just an amazing body

(24:17):
of water. And what you see on the top is
of what you get because it's very tidal and very, very hard
if you're not swimming at a certain pace to get across so.
And it's ruthless. The weather out there can change
just like that. In half an hour we can have

(24:39):
beautiful calm conditions and inthe next half hour we could be
in Gale force winds, having to pull swimmers out.
But that's the nature of the beast.
That's what makes it so popular,The English Channel and I think
everybody that goes over, it's not a hard piece of water.
This one, it's just because it'sthe Mount Everest to vote for

(25:01):
water swimming. Everybody's been doing it since
Captain Webb did it and it's it's duty.
There's not much lives there. The water, you've got tankers
going through the English Channel and you've got ferries
going across and you know there's about 400 shipping
movements a day. Go through the English Channel

(25:23):
and you've as a swimmer you haveto give way to them.
The tides aren't as fierce but it still works on the same
principles and it's a wee bit wider.
So the tide isn't as aggressive where the tide and cook straight
is very aggressive. And you know, when it turns it

(25:44):
because it we've got a narrow gap that all that water's
getting forced through and cook straight, It makes it difficult.
With English Channel. You, you know, you stay out in
English Channel, eventually you'll get there.
No matter how long you're out there, you wash up in Europe
somewhere you've got all of thatcoastline to land on.
That's reassuring. Yeah.

(26:06):
So, so. Yeah, but but both, I mean, any
of the swims that we do, they'veall got the the little, little
problems, we'll say. I mean, I've in the last three
or four years I've taken young Caitlin O'Reilly right around

(26:26):
the ocean. 7 And you know, some of the tough ones that we were
told, oh, there are the North Channel was going to be tough.
It wasn't you get stung to bits by Portuguese man wore
jellyfish. Nothing touched Caitlin.
We went across in 10 hours, did flat day and it was about 17°
unheard of. We just locked it.
And that's the nature of the beast of what we're dealing

(26:48):
with. But we got stuck in Hawaii for
three crossings and and we got there eventually and that was
sort of, it was just our sort ofAchilles heel.
So all of these swims are different in their own ways.
You mentioned jellyfish just then.
I know a lot of people think about sharks for marathon

(27:09):
swimmers, but I think jellyfish are more of an issue, aren't
they? Yeah, but, but, but in New
Zealand they're not so bad. We're we're pretty lucky.
We have blue bottles that give you a wee bit of a sting.
In Hawaii with Caitlyn, they've got these big things that wrap
themselves around. It's like a piece of barbed wire

(27:29):
and that just rips you to bits and eventually the sting of
them, the antibodies build up, build up and there's been some
pretty harsh, but it's once again each piece of water, like
the English Channel, there's nothing.
It's too dirty, right? It's too dirty.
You know, you've got boats dumping the crap going through

(27:52):
there and it's brown. You can't see your hand under
the water. It's a brownie colour.
So we're cook straight, beautiful and blue.
You know, you can see miles downand most of the swims are like
that. But they've all got their little
problems. And like in Hawaii last year,

(28:13):
they've got these sharks, they call them cookie cutter sharks
and they're just like a cookie. It gets cut and it sucks onto
you. It spins, takes a piece of fresh
out. Hideous things, hideous things
and it's only certain times of the year, but there's been three
bites of vet in the last season,which was pretty.

(28:35):
That was a lot, but it's just we're in somebody else's piece
of water swimming and you've. That's what Bob Watson says as
well, Bob. Yeah, it's come with Bob Watson,
she said. Remember, you're in their home.
That's right, that's right. And we we've had sharks and cook
straight come and be noisy and, and, and things like that.

(28:58):
But you know, they're not, you know, favo straights, one that,
you know, we started doing and you know, that's renowned for
the white pointer sharks. And you know that it's they're
huge. They're huge down there.
But once again, we're in their territory and you've just gotta

(29:19):
we'll be careful. We you know, that's what my job
is, to keep the swimmer alive and not eaten by shark.
It's an important job. And you also completed a double
crossing of like Topol. Yes.
And you were the first person todo that.
It's 40.2 kilometers each way, is that right?

(29:40):
Yeah, correct. In the mid 80s.
So did you have people telling you that you couldn't do these
things before you did them? Well, no, because we would
always would try them. You know, we'd, I'd swam Chapo
one way and we were just gettingbigger and bigger swims to

(30:00):
nobody really. We'd we'd sit down each year and
say what are we going to do thisyear?
Why don't we try this and then put it together.
And I had a great support network of people, but that
helped me and with sponsors and things back in, back in the 80s,
you know, I had one of the biggest sponsorships of open

(30:21):
water swimming that in, in any sport.
And it was, it was, you know, this little fella washes off a
rock, away he goes. It's the last you see of him for
a couple of days and and then hecomes back, you know, you're
out. But we didn't.
Who was your sponsor it? Was AMP.

(30:43):
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, the insurance
insurance company, investment company and they were really
they gave me a job and then obviously the 87 share market
crash came and and and, but I was getting to the end of my
tether then. And if you are ranked in the top
ten in the world, the governmentsupported you through the Sports

(31:04):
Foundation. And and so, you know, we were,
we were, we were looked after for a sport that was pretty
individual and. Did you stop marathon swimming
because physically it was just getting too much that you were
starting to feel it more? I gave up because we were

(31:25):
getting longer and longer and longer and my body was tired.
I was exhausted, probably more mentally exhausted.
You know, it was hard to and I loved training.
As I said, I I was having trouble training.
I've got bad arthritis and base two shoulders were because we

(31:49):
were going further and longer and colder and just it wasn't,
it was appealing. I, I got often some good money
to carry on swimming, but enough's enough.
Yeah, you know, it was, it was. So what was next, you know, and
I've, I've, I mentally couldn't cope with it anymore and that it

(32:10):
was just too much. We were doing 1010 marathons a
year, 10 swims a year. And you know, we'd come back to
New Zealand after being overseasand we'd do something around New
Zealand. And then I don't have a month
off a year, like a month, no training and, and trying to get

(32:32):
the body back in shape and cortisone injections and
everything. So it was sort of, it was coming
to an end. Yeah.
Apart from the triple crossing, do you have a swim that you did
that was up there with your favorites in terms of location
or experience? I love Lake Taupo.
I, I love that double crossing of Lake Taupo and it was, I can

(32:57):
still see it that we came into the finish and right from the
Yacht Club down to the down pastthe fire station, there was
10/15 deepen people. All you could see was people.
So so, yeah, that was probably that was probably my favorite.

(33:18):
And you know, it was we were, wewere at the time that was one of
the biggest swims ever done in the world, you know, with and,
and speed wise. Yeah.
So how? Did you find the experience of
swimming in freshwater versus saltwater?
I, I don't like saltwater. I I love the light water.
It's because it's just so much bitter on your body and the salt

(33:40):
and the. Yeah.
And it can be as ruthless. It can be as ruthless as, as the
sea, you know, like when it getsrough.
But I just, I just really enjoyed the lake, lake swimming.
So that would be yeah. But that would be my my next
beast, I think, from the EnglishChannel.

(34:02):
But once again. And then I, I say that the
English Channel wasn't hard. It's not a hard swim, but it's
like Mount Everest. You know, there might be some
mountains somewhere that are harder than climbing mount, but
it's got hasn't got the name of Mount Everest right.
You're not an American swimmer until you swim the English
Channel. And you have to be a certain

(34:24):
speed to get across it. Is that right?
Because across currents. No, no, no, like straight you do
might put a speed limit on it and you know, you need to be out
like for cook straight we need 3to 3 1/2 kilometres an hour.
And I don't like going out thereand saying like, I'll take you
out, you know, I know you're only swim at 2 KS an hour and we

(34:49):
won't get there because the tides are moving so quickly
through with the English Channel, you just do burger
loops and burger loops and you'll eventually get to the
other side where we can't do that.
We've only got 10 KS of land to land on the South Island sort of
thing. And then we're the ducks away.
And the same with, yeah, but thesame here on this side.

(35:11):
So, and you've got to use the tide to your benefit.
But if you're not swimming fast enough to get over the tide,
then we're we're, we've got problems.
And now you're coaching people, getting them from one side to
the other. Would you say the fundamentals
of marathon swimming are the same as they were when you were

(35:33):
swimming in the 80s or has much time?
Well, we've got GPS on the big phones and, and you know, we're,
we're, we're connecting GPS to the swimmers.
Well, pretty much to the swimmers.
We've got trackers that you can see exactly every you know, you
follow the dot across, cook straight or wherever the swims

(35:53):
are. It's great fun for us people who
are. Following along, yeah, I would
hate to know how many wasted hours are not wasted hours, but
hours spent. So.
So yeah. So that I mean that all those
the foods better. We know more fundamentally what

(36:17):
we did for my cook straight swimis the same as what we do now
with having the boat right beside you, the small boat
beside you to feed you being really close to the swimmer.
And that that hasn't changed. And my philosophy when we're out

(36:39):
there is maybe softened a littlebit, but, you know, it's you
need to get on with the job, hitthe water.
We're not we're not out there for a picnic.
You know, they have a nice lunchand and they carry on swimming
because of we have to keep going.
It's at pace to achieve the goaland it's about achieving our

(37:00):
goal in the end. And this technique changed much.
Now, swimming technique, oh, I say that slightly.
We've got more video footage nowthat we head back then, so you
can see where your hands going with you.
And I always talk, you know, my squad that I've got, you know,

(37:23):
if we're dropping our elbows, fundamentally, if you drop your
elbows, it's not getting hold ofthe water.
So if you keep your elbows up and feel with your fingers, it's
the start of having power all the way through your strike.
And if that hasn't changed over the years, the training's got
better. You know, we try to do things

(37:43):
now with less training. I mean, I, I think I, I was
talking to a young lady yesterday and I said, look, we
could, we can probably get you across like Taupo with about 40
KSA week, you know, a good buildup and things like that.
Because most of the swimmers that come to me now are all a
bit more mature and they have got jobs that they have to

(38:06):
function in as well. But they've had these goals.
So we try to train wiser. Would probably be the fear fear
fear would would but I it's I mean I was 100K's a week bang at
night. I swimming pool of some more
laps of the old 9. I swimming pool than anybody but
we'd be week for three months preparation building up to go

(38:30):
away. We'd be 100 KS a week no and and
we're now you might do one week of 100 KS.
We did three months of 100 KS and you were wrecked the whole
time and so my real recovery so you know I need to do 100 KS.
We probably not, but that's whatwe thought back then.

(38:51):
You know, the more you do, the more you're, the better you, you
know, the faster you go, the bigger endurance you've got and,
and, and that sort of thing. And now is it like over a week
you swim the equivalent of whatever distance you hang on?
No, not really. It's more I I'm very much, you
know, we don't need to be wallowing around in the sea all

(39:11):
the time, you know, going out, doing a 5 hour swimming out in
the sea. Yeah, we do it occasionally.
You don't need to be doing what you need to be doing.
You need to be in the pool swimming fast, using that clock
on the wall. And that's my philosophy on some
people agree, some people don't,but the philosophy being is
right. So we're in the pool, you've got

(39:31):
to swim a pace, the pace you're going to swim at.
And then if we want to go out and do sea swim is something can
be done on a Saturday, but get the base of your work down in
the pool, which will build the engine, you know, exactly how
fast you're going. You know, in the sea that people
come out with your watches. Oh, I've done it.

(39:52):
I was holding 140 pace. What was the tide doing, you
know, or what it 130 pipe? What was the tide doing?
Oh, well, yeah. So you don't really know how
fast you swim. So.
But Nepal you do. And it's just good training.
And what advice do you get for people swimming in rough

(40:12):
conditions? Rough, relax, you can't fight
it, so there's pointless fighting.
You might, depending on how rough it is, you might have to
shorten your stroke a little bitor or lengthen it, you know, and
the light when it gets rough, itcan be quite it's a very short

(40:35):
chop. And so we, you know, sometimes
shorten your stroke. But if you start fighting it, if
your mind starts fighting it, it's over because you just, it
just gets worse and worse and worse.
You have to hold, you have to hold technique.

(40:55):
But that's what when when they start getting bashed about all
the time. It's like somebody hitting him
and he he with a hammer all the time.
Bang, it's all it doesn't, it's constant, it's constant, but you
just have to relax and relate because you're not going to be
able to stop what's happening. So you just got to go with it.
So you know, your straight may well feel shitty because it's

(41:18):
rough, but just got to keep those arms going over and just
shut off to what's happening around in the environment.
Right, that's good advice. I've been told this might be
urban legend, but I've been toldthat you can just look at
somebody and tell whether they're able to swim across the
straight or not. Is that true?

(41:43):
I've got a pretty good idea. I mean, you've got to remember
I've, I, what was I #13 cross cook straight and there's near
on 200 swamit now. And I think I've been involved
with everything after 13. So yeah, I, I, I, I mean, I, I,

(42:04):
I coached for New Zealand as well.
So I, I can look at, you know, and, and that's what Duncan Moy
coach was very good at, was looking at talent and saying
that that guy's going to be a champion.
He did that with Daniel Lyda andand you can see the way people
swim and whether they can be trucked, whether they're
trainable a lot of the time. And that's the big thing.

(42:27):
You know, people say, Oh yeah, I'm going to swim cock straight,
being, being or whatever piece of water.
But if you're not going to do the work, you're going to
struggle. And it's like anything in life.
If you put the work and you get the result and that's, that's
that, that that's very true and whatever sport.
That's a really good point because you must have people

(42:48):
just contacting you out of the blue all the time going oh, I've
decided to swim the cock straight, you know, can you help
me? And we sit down.
You're really going to listen. Excuse me?
Yeah. We sit down and talk to them,
you know, like, like, like we are.
And they, they actually. Oh, oh, I didn't realize there
was so much involved and I had to do so much work.

(43:09):
Even though we've tried to minimize the work to get the
result, we still need to do someform of training.
It's just you can't front up andsay, oh, let's go, you know,
let's let's give it a go and, and and go from there.
Do you have people swimming the straight who have only trained
in pools in terms of like if they're from a landlocked area,

(43:30):
landlocked country? Yes, yes, but you still need to
once again I say we don't need to do a lot in the sea, but we
do need to have cold adaptation and that is that is hard to get

(43:51):
in the swimming pool. You know there's so we do the
distance in the pool, we do the cold in the sea poor and we
review King. Speaking of cold, I've heard
that you ask swimmers how cold they are at a 10 during their
swims to keep an eye on how they're tracking for

(44:11):
hypothermia. Do they always tell you the
truth? And if they don't, do you know?
No, Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, 'cause they keep repeating
what number they've got stuck intheir head and and they know
that if I if, if it gets too, ifit gets too high, being 10,

(44:31):
being frozen, but I'll pull themout.
But I, it's only to keep their minds.
So they're actually thinking about what's going on in their
body. And I do the same with energy
levels like 1 to 10. You know, if you've got no
energy, you're sitting on A1. I'm we're, we're in trouble.
But they're they're more honest about the energy levels than

(44:52):
they are about the cold. Right.
I can take a look at you, your, your, your lips may go a
different color. You'll go very pasty white on
me. And I had a swimmer this year
who from Dunedin, he'd done a lot of wetsuit training because
water was too cold down there and pushed off within the first

(45:15):
half hours. Brother was sitting in the front
of the boat I think and I said to him, I said he's going to be
out soon with hypothermia. 3 hours later he was in the boat
just about unconscious with hypothermia.
So, you know, stroke rate drops,you can just see by the colour
of the skin, by what they're talking to me about, you know,

(45:37):
I'll get them to talk to me. And, you know, sometimes they
just talk a whole pile of rubbish and you know, we've got
another half hour here and then it's all over.
Right, so you know the signs. You're swimming.
So how do you how do you ward off hypothermia during a a long
swim? Warm drinks you can if you
control it. So you have warm drinks.

(46:03):
We did a research paper, excuse me, with Target University
Medical school and there was 4 things come out of it.
You know, we take everybody's cool body, you know how much fat
they had, water temperatures, blah blah.
The fundamentals of it is as soon as your stroke rate drops,
it is very hard to get that stroke rate back up again.

(46:23):
Warm food, so all of your drinksjust warm water hot, you know,
try to feed them as hot as you can because that's putting the
warm into your stomach, which then radiates out.
And if we don't control those two things or it's a one way
track and it just slowly eats your way and then bang, it's

(46:45):
over. And, and you know, that's, I
mean it, that's we, yeah, I'm, I'm very good at hypothermia
and, and, and also looking afterthem afterwards, you know, which
it's just a slow, you can't panic whether you've just got to
get on with it and, and slowly warm them up and, and and go

(47:07):
from there. But you can't stop it.
And body types, I'm sorry if you've got the other one was if
you've, if you release some 15% body fat, we need to take up
eating pies and drinking beer. I think that's a bit of sport
for you, no? That sounds.
Good. It's yes, yes, it's not.
It's just because we need that bit of, we'll call it fat or

(47:31):
insulation round just to keep that cold out.
Yeah. And you can't wear, you can't
wear neoprene on a long swim. Is there anything you can put on
on your skin to sort of insulateit?
No, you know, no, we're only really allowed budgie smugglers,
male and female togs, you know, they've got to be nylon type
togs. You can probably put grease on.

(47:55):
It's like an Axel grease once again, once the colds and it's
insulated it and we really need to, we really need to, you know,
keep that warmth going, keep it going.
But really, there's nothing. You're not allowed to, you know,
11 swim cap, pair of goggles, pair of togs and way we go.

(48:18):
Not much, is it, when you're getting to the end of a long
swim and a a swim is starting toand now they need some words of
encouragement from you. Do you say different things to
each swimmer depending on their personality, or do you have a
sort of rallying speech that yougive to everybody?
I won't repeat a lot. Of the speakers.

(48:40):
I've softened, I've softened. I, you know, there's some
people, you know, some people I've given them.
You're surprised you didn't hearme, Beckham, Wellington And just
really given it to them and we've we've got them across and
others. It's pointless.
Me, I don't know if you had Karina Connors, right.

(49:04):
Well, it's pointless. She's a lovely, lovely person.
And it would be pointless me losing my rag at Karina and, and
just giving her the medicine. We, you know, you just sell her
the deal differently. Come on, we've got a yeah,
everybody, everybody's different.
And that's probably the the, thefun thing about it, getting the
best out of people, you know, Brie, Brie was, you know, we had

(49:27):
to get at the end of Phobos straight.
We were struggling a little bit and and you know, she just
wanted to keep stopping. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We've got to keep going. Got to keep going because once
again, the swimmers swimming, we've still got tides that are
happening that we can't control,right.

(49:47):
That could be fundamentally, we get so close to the shore.
I think the closest we got was 50 meters with one swimmer a few
years ago. And we got swept out.
We got swept out to sea. It was heartbreaking.
I was sitting in the in the IRB beside the sky and I could see

(50:08):
what was going to happen and allthe tears were running down the
bloody face. But thinking he's deserves to be
the he's there. And next one up we got.
Yeah, I mean, 50 meters, that's like the distance from the
pontoon to the beach at Freiburg.
It's. Correct.
And you know, you can see it wasdark, it was black.

(50:29):
And I could see the last point coming.
And we were just blowing past itlike there's no tomorrow.
And it was, it was sad. It was sad because these people
have worked bloody hard to get to that position to be so close.
Yeah, that's so close. And like you say, not everybody

(50:50):
who attempts a big swim makes ita cross.
So what do you say to those people?
Like is there anything you can say?
Well, it's always a very long trip home.
Yeah. When we haven't been successful,
yeah, I haven't been successful due to if it's weather, we can't
do anything about the weather tie.

(51:10):
We try to control it the best wecan.
Some people just haven't got anything left and we're going
back, you know, we're moving backwards through cook straight
or getting pushed out of cook straight and you can't come back
from it. And it's a hard conversation to
have, but we, we have to. I, I all, I think swimmers trust

(51:32):
me enough that if I say it's over, I believe in what, you
know, the process and why. And I'll explain to them, I'll
explain to them what we're goingto do and what we're looking at.
And if we don't, you know, we doall sorts of tests with the
tides and things. And if we're not making certain
place to a certain time, we haveto, it has to be, it has to be

(51:57):
over with do. You have many people come back
and give it another go. Oh yes, I've had, I think the
most I've had. I had a lady that had bad asthma
and we, she had four attempts and got there on the fourth
attempt over 7 years, you know, So it was, it was a big, it was

(52:21):
a big goal, but you know, because it's a great achievement
once you've done it, any of these swims, once you've done
them, it's just feels so good. Yeah, it must be such a buzz for
you seeing people do. It seeing people achieve I I
really enjoy, you know, and as Isay, young Brie was a prime 1.

(52:42):
You know, the first time I took her across cook straight, I
said, right, we're going Brie. I actually went up to her house
to help her pack, to get her gear ready because she was in a
wee bit of a tizz and, and, and you know, she's grown, grown,
grown as a swimmer since and it's absolutely.
Phenomenal. She's done.

(53:03):
She's done very, very well, very, very, very proud of that
young lady. And you've, you've.
Coached people in their teens and you've coached people in
their 70s. Is there is there a difference
in terms of their mentality and how you, how you?
I think we, we, we. I mean, I always, I meet the

(53:24):
swimmer with the overseas, I meet them the night before, not
normally or the, you know, the weak of the tide.
And it's quite good because everybody is different.
Your makeup is different. My makeup is different too.
And it's just a matter of seeingwhat works for them.
It doesn't matter what age they are.

(53:44):
You know, young, young Caitlin was 13 when I took him across
Cork Straight. She didn't.
She didn't tell me she was scared of the dark until it
started. We started getting to the end of
the swarm and it was getting close.
It was getting darker and darkerand all of a sudden she was
getting faster and faster and faster until it was pitch black

(54:06):
and all. I can still hear it.
He is just whimpering. She was crying her eyes out and
we were swimming faster and faster and she wouldn't stop.
And I've got these light sticks,you know, like a traffic light
thing. And I'd literally setting it on
her head like a cuddly blanket so that she could, you know, and
she hit that rock. She jumped onto the rock and

(54:27):
straight into the IRB and one fell swoop and she's crying.
I can still I can hear it and but we didn't cover that but
off. Yeah.
Well, yeah, I was actually goingto ask you.
I mean, you've done so many crossings.
Are there things? Are there things that still
surprise you? And it sounds like there are.

(54:48):
Oh, there are people. Yeah.
Everybody's different. Everybody's and that that I find
that's the enjoyment part of it,getting the best out of somebody
that I don't really know. But if we follow the the
process, we'll be successful. Does anyone still attempt double

(55:09):
crossings of the cook straight? Well, we don't get there.
I mean, you're, you're a good Wellington person.
We don't really get that good ofweather.
Right. I yeah, there's they.
We don't get the, the time, you know, 16 or it's 24 hours of
good weather out there. And so there's a couple of

(55:32):
people in the tent this year, they were nowhere.
They didn't even get one way or they got one way.
And that was that was a it's a, it's a very much a mindset of
turning around and going back again.
It's not whatever the swimmers and, and you know, you're
sitting there, you know, you're allowed 10 minutes.

(55:53):
We never used to use it. But you sit there and all of a
sudden you're thinking, oh, it would be nice to have a nice cup
of tea or, you know, dinner or Imight go all the way back there
again. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's
definitely, it's a hard one. You've got a time, right?
Not all of that sort of thing. Yeah, and Speaking of cups of

(56:16):
tea or maybe something stronger,do you remember what you did to
celebrate after your triple crossing?
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't eat. Well, I could eat.
I'll, I'll, I'll give. Yeah.
Afterwards, at the end of the third lap.
I have, I have a regret and I've, I've told this on quite a

(56:37):
few podcasts things before. I have one regret in life.
And we're sitting on the shore. Tony came up to me and I can see
him waddling down the beach towards me.
He said, you know, bloody great.You know, we just mashed.
We were on the front page of theLondon Times and all this sort
of stuff. And he said that.

(57:00):
He said that he, he came up to me.
He said, look, I'm not going to touch you just yet.
And he was a hard bastard. He was this band was, you know,
and he said how far back can yougo?
He said I'm going to walk down the beach and come back anyway.
He came back and he said how farback, far back can you go?

(57:23):
And I said, I reckon I can go halfway.
He stood there for a minute. He threw the towel over me,
picked me up and said Oh well. He said it's better be knowing
the one that did. Three good ones and 3 1/2.
That prick should have pushed myass back out there and had to go
because if we got halfway we might have got all the way and

(57:46):
then. You could have been the only
person to do 4 crossing that's. Right.
Yeah. I can understand that.
Yeah, I've heard you. I've heard you say that on on
another. Podcast and and and I I I will
never give somebody a soft option to get out.
We will try until I know that there's going to be no way we

(58:07):
can get there. There's no soft option.
You've you've done the work. We've got to carry on.
Yes, we've got fundamentals thatcan't that whether in the
English Channel stayed like thatfor another two days.
You know it, it wasn't whether and, and to get to that position
and then come back, you know, you had to yeah, There's so many

(58:31):
things that we should have done.We should have done it.
We should have had a go at it atleast.
I can understand you thinking. I can understand it cause I
mean, your big swim, it was 28 hours, which at the time, you
know, you were in it doing it and now you've had 40 years to
back over. And yeah, you would, you would
be processing it thinking, oh, Icould have done this differently
and. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(58:53):
And I think realistically we couldn't have done anything
better, but we should have had to go.
Yeah. We should have had a go and
because remembering the the 4th lap, we're back to a good tide
again as well. So I would have, would have been
there was there for the taking sort of thing.
But anyway. But afterwards I had a really I

(59:13):
slept all the way back to Dover and then I couldn't sleep for a
week. Yeah, from the adrenaline and.
Yeah, I was just wired in the end.
They put me into hospital and I,I, they put me on drips and bits
and pieces. But the first meal was still
very hard was pork chops and a few points of tenants extra.

(59:35):
Tastes good. You would have felt like you
really earned it and. You know, back back then there
was, you know, you've got to remember back then that, you
know, you didn't get a, a text or a congratulations you, you've
got telegrams from around the world.
And yeah. So no, that's.

(59:55):
Awesome. Have you still got?
Have you still got the front page of the the?
Time I've got yeah, my, my mum did a big book on the English
Channel, a big bound book on theEnglish Channel stuff and and to
talk straight. So yeah, that's I hope.
You advertised it. So.
For the future generations. Yeah.

(01:00:16):
Oh, no, it's good. It's, it's I, you know, I'm 61
now and everyone says. Oh, why don't you?
You know what? I I wished I had.
I hadn't given up swimming. I wished I'd deprogram myself
and still been swimming, but I just had too much for too long.
It's a huge physical toll to take.
Yeah, yeah, slightly into swim again.

(01:00:38):
I've just had a knee replacementso I have to start swimming
again to get the mobility back and.
Oh, that's exciting. Where are you going to be
swimming? I'll be in Friberg, be being in
Friberg, just in, in, in the pool.
But that's, that's, that's ugly.That's ugly.
That reminds me, I'll just circle back because there's

(01:00:58):
something I forgot to ask you. I was talking about the
importance of stroke rate, yes. How do you measure that in the
pool? Just count, just count our time
count, you know, just using the clock eye, you know, for for a
minute to see what the rate is. But once again, it's all right
giving a high rate. But if you're not pulling any
water, yeah, you know, if you'reslipping the water and and once

(01:01:22):
again, that's all about you try and get out of a swimming pool
and drop your elbows down. You can't get out.
You're not strong. But if you've got your elbows
up, then it's real. It's the strongest part of our
our body then that's why we needto keep our elbows up when we
swim. Yeah, that's to get that catch,
isn't? It yeah, to get the catch at the

(01:01:43):
front. And once you've got that, that
will flow all the way through. But as soon as you drop, as soon
as you drop your elbows, it's like the wind in the sail.
Once once it's gone, it's you'renot getting it.
Yeah, and everybody wants to be faster.
Oh. They do, they do.
And, and. Yeah, yeah.
And or swimming against somebodyand, you know, I'm I'm beating

(01:02:04):
you this week or, or what training they've done.
But that's that's because open water swimming has become the
marathon running of the 80s. Now everybody's here.
You look on a Saturday and Sunday in Oriental Bay, the
place is chopper. You just walk on people all the
way out there. It's brilliant, isn't it?
Oh. It's true.

(01:02:25):
It's great and it's great for for people.
I mean, now they're getting intothe I'm not so keen on this one.
I'm into the ice swimming and all of this sort of thing.
And but it's it's, it's getting out there and doing something
because swimming's so good for you it.
Is Yeah. And the people are awesome.
Oh, it's great. It's a great community.

(01:02:46):
You know, it's a great communityand from all ages and, and oh,
weather's severe. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's,
it's good. It's great.
I've got a listener question I almost forgot to ask it.
So this is from Adrian, who listens to the podcast.
Hi Adrian, She said. I would like to know if there is
one particular marathon swim that he has accompanied which

(01:03:09):
stands out for him in terms of its sheer grit and determination
against the odds, successful or not.
Oh, I would have to say Molokai Channel and it was last.

(01:03:33):
That was last year with young Caitlin.
We had two attempts in it. Now it's a huge ocean going
swim, so big swells, warm water,which makes it harder because
your body doesn't flush out the lactate as well.
And chronic, she'd had two attempts and chronic

(01:03:56):
seasickness. Huge sea.
Closest we got was 16 hours. We were still another 8 hours
away from finishing. And the second time we went
back. Sorry.
The third time, Caitlin and I and the gentleman Mike Cochran
just went up and got there. Weather was going through and

(01:04:20):
chronic sea sickness and both like on talking, looking at me
and just bringing it. Up.
Volume so whatever food went in,we couldn't get out, just keep
coming in, coming back. And we talked about I said,

(01:04:41):
well, this is our this would have been our last attempt
anyway. We got halfway over, she started
C6 started and I couldn't feed her.
I said we're not feeding it because every time we feed you,
you've got to stop three times to be sick.
So we didn't feed her and just keep pushing on, pushing on,

(01:05:01):
pushing on and we got there. It was just an outstanding and
because of the piece of water and you know, people two days
early. Oh, you know, and the other
attempts it got there, we just had a bad couple of attempts,
but just the determination of being sick for a long period of

(01:05:25):
time. That's rough.
Not, you know, for sort of 678 hours and sickness like you've
never seen before. God are you?
Can you give a swimmer seasickness medication or is
that against the rules? No, no, no, no.
Well, no. It I mean, we had everything.
We had patches behind her ear. We had there's, you know,

(01:05:46):
there's, you know, some big ocean going and medication you
can get and didn't work. The scene was just horrible.
It's just a big, big swells and choppy and it just throws,
knocks about. Yeah, I feel like I'm getting
sympathy, say sickness just. And you know that that's one of

(01:06:09):
the other things, you know, but but that was her Achilles heel.
That swim was every. The rest of them we flew
through. Yeah.
But that was the one that that just tripped her up.
And that was the sickness and, and, and just the determination.
All of the swims I get a buzz out of.

(01:06:32):
As soon as we get that Pierce person on the land, I get it.
That's we've done. We've done our job.
Massive achievement. Yeah, yeah.
And no matter where the swim is or how long it is, you know, if
it's only a short swim, you know, but actually doing it and
achieving it. And especially getting to the
end of the ocean 7, which seems to be the the Chiclets that

(01:06:53):
marathon swimmers want to get through.
And the cook straight is one of the hardest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be that Molokai in
Japan are the are the are the are the hard ones.
What's? The one in Japan.
Sugar is straight. In fact, Graniel Moss, who's

(01:07:15):
also an open water source. She's heading up there on
Wednesday to have a go at it. And but that's, that's different
again. You know, a lot of tide, you can
only swim it during the day. They don't allow you to swim at
night. So there's all these other
little bits that you know, so that means you've got to swim
faster and try and, you know, get across at quicker time.

(01:07:38):
So. So, yeah, but they've all
everyone it's, it's about, it's mastering the beast basically.
Once you, you know, get in and Ialways, everyone always say, I
always say hold good pace and we'll get results.
Yeah. And that's what happens.
You you hold good pace, you get the results.
Well, it's obviously worked out well.

(01:08:00):
Well, a lot of people swim across bodies of water.
Oh, yeah. It's it's.
And you know, it's, it's once again, I, I always say we as far
as team, you put a team togetherthat's going to give you the
best chance possible to, to get there.
And if all you've got to worry about is the swimming, then
we're we're getting there. Well, Phil, you have been

(01:08:22):
incredibly generous with your time this morning.
No, no, that's fine. Really enjoyed our conversation
I'll I'll link to your Instagramand the show notes and then
people can follow along because oh cool yeah you often post sort
of videos in there of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, no, That's, that's cool. Cool.
Excellent. Is there anything else you
wouldn't? No, no, no.
I judge. It's just great that I mean, I

(01:08:44):
yeah, it seems a lifetime ago mymy career, but it's good.
It's good, you know, Yeah. You help people like Bree and
Caitlin and and getting the bestout of them and it sets them up
for life, which is which is cool.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Swim Chats.

(01:09:06):
Please remember to follow or subscribe to the podcast so you
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