Open-water medals and mentoring with Keri-anne Payne

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge and this is.

The tribe athlon podcast.

The thing about home Olympics is the crowds are just incredible and there were 30,000 people standing around Hyde park watching. And the noise of that is. I cannot tell you how, like, still gives me goosebumps today thinking about the noise that the people made when I kind of was called out from Team gb. Kerry Anne Payne. It was just amazing.

That was Carrie Anne Payne. And this episode is open water medals and mentoring. Hey, Claire, how are you doing?

Yes, good, thank you. How are you?

I am good, thank you. I'm good. Now, you've just done your first long course race for quite a wee while, haven't you? So tell me all about it.

Tell us all about it.

Firstly, tell people what you've just done.

Yeah, so Ironman, South Africa. So this is my 2020 race that was being cancelled and. Cancelled and delayed. Like, really look forward to coming out of South Africa for some sunshine. And it's. We've had monsoon weather with a canceled swim because of the winds and because of the sea. Um, and it rained pretty much all the day until we got to the run where it was baking hot. So, I mean, your body didn't know what was going on.

And that's actually.

That's totally the wrong way around, isn't it? You don't mind it raining on the run, but you really want it dry on the. On the. On the bike. So. So let's start with the swim. So tell us a bit about. What were the sea conditions like, when did you find out about the cancellation, all of that sort of stuff.

Yeah. So to be honest, I did actually think the swim would be. I thought it'd be hot, like half the distance, because that's what they did in November when the sea was rough. But I. I'd swum a few days before and it was. I got out after seven minutes and I'm a sea swimmer and yeah, it was crazy. And so the praise did. We literally were all in our wetsuits, ready to go, and then they announced that they were not swimming at all and that the Praise only did 700 meters. But my understanding is, having, having spoken to a couple of couple this morning, is that actually once you got beyond the first kind of sets of waves, they actually said the swimming was absolutely fine. Like once you got, you know, out out there.

So you got beaten up going out, you got a really lovely ride in. But the bit in between was.

And probably beaten up coming in as well, because Unless, as, you know, like with sea swimming, unless you look behind you, like those waves were crashing near the sand. So I think it would have just pummeled people. So I can, I can understand, I think, but from a safety point of view, the, you know, the boats and the paddle boarders and stuff were just all over the place. I mean, I don't think they would see you because of the swell. So I presume just. It was safety, wasn't it? Safe? But yeah, we had classic English weather. It was cold, it was wet, um, we had monsoon weather. So we were stood. Some people had already taken their wetsuits off, so they were freezing. Um, I'd kept my wetsuit on and actually then put my swim cap on. Actually I found one of those, those poncho things. So I had a poncho on, my feet were freezing. It was really cold. But I've never experienced that before, so. Experienced a shortened swim, but never experienced no swim. And although it's cold swimming, like, generally in the uk, you're not warmed up to get on the bike. So it's a really weird experience. Like you haven't got the adrenaline going. You know, when you run in from the swim, you go through transition and like the heart rate's going. You had none of that. We basically had all the time in the world. I actually went to the changing tent for the first time ever changed. I mean, I didn't need to get into changing tent, but it was warm and dry and there was no rain.

You're drying your hair.

Yeah, exactly. Put my dry kit on, ready to go out in the rain again. And then they did, interestingly, they did a rolling bike start. So they, they made you then queue up. So we'd been waiting by this time. I don't think we started on the bike until 8 o'. Clock.

What time were you getting into transition?

So I think I was there either quarter past five or half past five or something. So it'd been a long morning already. And, um, yeah, you just didn't have any of the warm. It's just freezing cold. Like you literally had a queue and then three people at a time just went, um. And the conditions were it rained the whole of the bike. Um, and for anyone that's ever done South Africa before, I'm sure it's a really beautiful course, but I just couldn't even look up. Like the side winds along the coast. Um, and then if anyone's done it before, when you get to the sand dunes, there was sand all over the road. The road Conditions down there are horrendous. Anyway, it was crazy.

It's such a shame, isn't it? Because when you book Iron Man South Africa you've got in your mind this amazing race, this amazing environment and you know, the sun on your back and well, I mean it's basically a similar experience. And we, we got to do the swim in Tallinn. It's very similar experience to Tallinn in that we had 40 mile an hour winds and torrential rain through the whole day. And the only reason actually the original swim was planned for the se but it was. They've now, I think they've just relented on that and just always moved it to the lake. But you, when you've got swimming into waves on the lake because the wind so strong it was still not great. But it just, I mean it does take the edge off what is an amazing experience. But you got to race the conditions that are.

And that, you know what that is? That is Ironman racing. And you have to have an Ironman head on. And that's one thing that I was thinking the whole of the day is you, you have to have a like be 100% committed. And I think that kind of showed in like there were quite a lot of people that from what I could see that were dropping out. There were loads of punches which I'm not surprised by the kind of conditions. But yeah, on the run it was just then because it's just all along the front it's just super exposed and there's no, no shade at all. So it was really, really hot. And they had these weird water packages. I don't know if you've experienced them before. I mean it certainly wasn't. Well, maybe it is environmentally friendly, maybe the packaging is. But I don't think it is. They put water in a tube and you have to rip open the water so you can like suck kind of the water out and then you can put it over your head. But they said they were going to have showers and there were no showers, there was no ice, there were no sponges and I don't know if that's like a Covid thing maybe. So it was hot.

Yeah.

And it was. And it was humid because it was. Because of all the water on the road and stuff. It was. But no, I mean it was, it was a good experience kind of.

And how many, what number? Ironman full long course Ironman, is this for you? I know you've done a few.

18 now.

18 is it? And when's your next long course race?

So I'm not racing long course until August now cause I was racing Mallorca, but that's been put a week forward and I've got another race, so.

So you've got a little bit of a break. But. But it is how. And how pleased, given that you haven't raced long course for four years, how pleased were you with the bike given the conditions and. And also the ride.

Is it.

Is it a hilly bike, is it a pretty flat ride or.

It's really interesting bike because yesterday the conditions made it in a sense, I want to say technical. Not really. It was slightly technical, I guess because the downhill it was like. If you've ever cycled in Lanzarote, it was. The side winds were just like that with sand over the road and whipping side winds so it suddenly kind of catch you. So I would say the bike was like. There was some. A couple of steep hills, but then they were long creeping sort of ascents. So you didn't really realize you're going. This is actually quite difficult and it's just like long roads. But I can see how it could have been beautiful if I could have looked up. But actually I was relatively warm, which was. Because it was quite humid towards the end. So as long as you kept going, that's fine. But the bike. I've been working on my bike and the bike actually was. Was kind of where I was expecting. I think if the weather conditions mean better, I think I would have done a quicker time actually. And then my run is something I haven't really. Apart from our ultra, like, which is.

The perfect training for.

I think I kind of lost it in the middle a bit. I was just like, it's my one area where I know it's my weakest point and I usually make up 10 to 15 minutes in my swimming. So that's my 10 to 15 minute buffer on my run, which I didn't have. So. But that, you know, you can only race what's put in front of you. Can't you say I'm not a DU athlete, but. Well, no, it's not Jew athlete. That's rumble bike run, isn't it? But yeah, I would. I would say I'm happy, I'm happy to have done it.

Brilliant. Well, I think you did amazing. You finished fourth in your age category, didn't you?

Which is age. And then 17th woman overall, so that's fantastic.

So that's amazing. You should be absolutely chuffed to bits with that. I think that's. I think that's amazing. So well done. And is it a race that you'd go back and do again based on in the hope that you might get some better conditions?

I think I would. I don't. I don't actually know what the. It's actually a really nice race to do. I would say that. And everyone's really friendly. Um, it's. At the moment, it's super cheap to kind of be here as well, which, apart from the flights and things, actually, once you're here, it's like crazy. I think I had a massive steak for 13 pounds, which was amazing. It's good. But yeah, no, I think for anybody who wants to come and race it, I think actually it is a really nice race. I just don't know, stat wise, how often that swim happens. I think it's happened quite a few times in the past.

But do you know whether it's been cancelled before?

I don't think it has.

Okay. So this seems like this was exceptional circumstances rather than. Well, that's unfortunate. And what have you got planned for your last few days in South Africa?

So, having been on safari a number of times, I'm actually gonna go on safari for a few days and then I'm gonna do a sea safari actually as well. I've kind of done shark diving. I was actually gonna do that before. Before the race. I thought maybe not the best idea.

Are they doing it at the moment? I. I heard. I read somewhere that all the white sharks have. Have disappeared from Hans Bay, which is where you do it. I don't think it's happening at the moment. And they're not quite sure whether it's because of higher mercury levels in the water or because a pod of orcas have moved into the bay. But one last. I heard all the great white sharks have gone from Hans By.

Oh, that would have been really good to know. Like that swim.

Sorry, I couldn't get. But they could have moved up. It's not that far to move up the coast of Port Elizabeth, so. You know, actually them leaving Hans by might not be a good thing.

Yeah, they might have made.

So where's your water safari? Where's that? Do you know what it's called?

I've got no idea what it's called.

Because there's one.

We're not driving anyway. That's not. We're not kind of. That'd be good actually. They should be that bit cold.

You're not. What?

Diving.

Oh, not diving.

Oh, well, there is.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah.

I think the better diving would be further east of that, wouldn't it up kind of up more Durban and up north of Durban there is a, there's a game reserve called Pinder which is very much water based reserve but that's much further north as well. I think, I think that's north of Durban but that's why I asked where the waters fire was.

I think it's around this area actually somewhere. I think they bring you back, back towards Port Elizabeth actually.

Okay, fantastic. Oh well I'm sure that will be amazing. There's one thing I wanted to share with you because I think when we spoke last time we were talking a bit about sleep and you were saying that you tracked your sleep through your Garmin. Now I am listening to a fantastic book which I know that you went this to, but it's.

Maybe I'll read it.

Who knows maybe. But it's called Superhuman by Dave Asprey. I don't know if you know who Dave Asprey is, but he's a, he's one of these like. Did you ever see the. He had. His first book was the Bulletproof Diet. So it's bulletproof.

I think I've heard of face actually.

Yeah.

So he's like a proper life hacker and or biohacker and basically there's a lot in there on sleep but he's a big fan of the Oura Ring and it got me thinking about our conversation around your sleep tracking on the Garmin versus the Aura. And he, he was actually saying how the aura is far and away the most accurate sleep tracker he's tried and he's tried a lot of them. So I, a couple of nights ago I tracked the sleep on both and it was a night of sleep where I knew that I was sleeping quite lightly. I could, I can remember being awake three times of which once I actually got up and went to the toilet and the other two I just knew that I was awake and then rolled over and went back to sleep. So the Garmin reckon that I had, they both reckoned I had an hour and a half of REM sleep. But the deep sleep, my aura ring said I had two hours of it and my Garmin said only an hour and a half. So that made me question which one was more accurate. But the Garmin only picked up when I actually got out of bed. It didn't, didn't pick up me being awake. So that from what I knew with certainty was the Garmin Garmin was less accurate. So it might be just. I know you know you were kind of measuring your sleep on the garment. It Might be just worth bearing in mind that that accuracy, I think is, is, is, is off. But what's really interesting to Dave Asprey and I haven't got through all of the mechanisms by which he does this, but he. So what you're trying to target is 2 hours of REM sleep and 2 hours of deep sleep each night. And I get to that if I'm having about seven and a half hours sleep and I haven't drunk alcohol and I've not run an ultramarathon the day before. But he can get those two hours of rem, two hours of deep sleep in just six hours and five minutes of sleep because of all of the stuff he's doing. So he'll not look at blue light, so devices, etc. For I think an hour and a half before he goes to bed. He's got red lights in his house and he dims lights. He's got as a sleep tracking app called the Something. I can't remember what it's called something coach. And that's helping him actually get into deep sleep and stay in deep sleep because it plays noises when you're in deep sleep. So there's lots of stuff you can do. But I just think it's really interesting that, that you can kind of biohack your. Biohack your sleep and. Yeah. And basically just boost that recovery but without giving in to, you know, going, you know, I need, I need to sleep for another two hours. Particularly when you were sleeping for. You were sleeping for eight or ten hours, weren't you? And, and actually having only nine and.

A half hours sleep, just waking up and like knowing that that wasn't good quality because I didn't feel like I'd. I mean obviously last night, having looked at my garment, I had no deep sleep. Obviously.

But is that because of all of the champagne you had afterwards?

No. I mean I wish, like I literally as, you know, doing an ultra event, I actually thought, I mean I would never advocate having having wine after training or anything like that because it really does interfere with adaptation. But last night I thought actually might help me sleep, literally. I nursed a glass of wine and couldn't finish it. The same as food. I was like sat there, I was like, I can't do any of this.

So was the steak your post race meal or was that lunchtime today?

That was my pre race, not the night before. Obviously I was gonna say that would.

Yeah.

So what was your post, post mace, post race meal that you were nursing.

That you didn't kind of literally, I went to a local restaurant and I didn't know what I fancied. Like, I had a slice of pizza when I finished and I felt really sick, so I was like, no, I'm not having that. And then I had a. I bought like a banana milkshake because I knew that's anything I could get in, protein wise. So I had that, but it was a bit sweet. And then I had, like, a prawn kebab thing with some fries, and literally, I just couldn't eat. I literally, like, yeah, had pulled it apart, basically. I felt really bad. Nothing to do with the restaurant. Just cannot eat this.

It's interesting, isn't it? Sometimes you're absolutely ravenous after those sorts of things, and sometimes your stomach is just not.

Yeah, I can never eat afterwards, but I think definitely having a backup, you know, and this is what I always say to my athletes as well, is probably the last thing that you want to have is something sweet tasting. But actually just. It's so easy to have like 500 mils or whatever of a whey recovery shake or just make up a chocolate milkshake. You know, use some Nesquik or if you're away. I just bought a banana milkshake. And actually it, weirdly, it didn't taste too sweet because I think it's very different sweetness than what I've been having. And actually having dairy before bed would have been useful as well. So that's my plan.

Well, I think so. One thing that I learned from the Ark was that I should have said to our crew, bring me this at the finish line, because I'd got stuff in the. In the van, like the recovery shake. But it's so easy in that when you're kind of in the euphoria, finishing, and then the exhaustion of just sitting down, whatever it is, and you just need somebody to go, here, you told me you needed this. Get this down you.

Actually, I usually do. And actually I'd left it in the fridge at the Ark, at the house, so. Because I bought a recovery milkshake especially for that, so that you just get it in. And then if you can't eat very much, you know, eating is a bonus by that point.

But it's almost not having it is one thing, but it's having somebody there as well to say, here, have this. Because at that moment in time, you're not thinking. You're just like, oh, there's pizza there, there's Erdinger there.

That'll do.

We did actually have that. They had One of the companies that sponsoring was a recovery product. So they did actually have some way shakes and for some reason I just kind of walked past it. But when I say walk, the blisters.

I had, yeah, they look pretty mean blisters actually, so. Right. Well, on that note, we'll dive into the interview with Kerry Ann Payne. Kerry Ann Payne is a South African born British swimmer specializing in marathon open water swimming and long distance from freestyle swimming in the pool. She's a two time 10 kilometer open water world champion and an Olympic silver medalist. Since retiring from competition, she's been involved in several businesses in the world of swimming, most recently training open water swimming coaches at a phenomenal rate given the sport's explosion in popularity. So I wanted to chat to kerryanne about open water race tactics, making wild swimming safer, the pros and cons of sea life encounters, and also her recent support of Tom Daly's monster triathlon. So I know you're going to really enjoy this interview with the incredible Kerry Ann Payne.

So Kerry Anne, welcome to the Tribe Athlon podcast. Really looking forward to chatting to you and learning more about what has been an amazing journey through the world of swimming. But to kick things off, could you tell us a little bit about your story for those people that don't know that much about you, but about how you got into swimming, about life growing up?

Because I know that part of that.

Was in South Africa. So I want to really hear about that and just. Yeah, how did you get into, into swimming and then your kind of successes through the swimming world?

Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to be here and I think to start off with the journey, if anyone's heard any me explain this anytime, you'll be very familiar with what I'm just about to say, which is I was the youngest of three kids and I was that really annoying little sister that followed my big brother everywhere. Whatever he wanted to do, whatever he was doing, I wanted to do it as well. And he was swimming. And that was just the thing. I know that he really loved and I really loved the way water as well. It was where I felt the most comfortable. So it seemed like the perfect example and an excuse to kind of be in the car, go training, be at the pool. And so he's nine years older than me, so I was really was that annoying little sister everywhere. And my mom tells us stories of I used to like run up and down the side of the pool as he was doing swimming and kick sets and stuff when he Got a bit older. Yeah, I was just absolutely loved him and loved swimming. So it was. It was absolutely like a match made in heaven that those two things combined.

And so I seem to remember there was. There's quite a funny story about that first time you got the opportunity to swim with him. So tell me about that.

So I think the coach was kind of getting bored of me just running up and down the side and they were like, you know, Kerryanne, why don't you get in next time, bring your swimsuit and we'll get you in the water and we'll teach you how to swim. And I totally did not hear the next time. And I was like, okay. And I jumped straight in fully clothed. I mean, I was living in South Africa, probably wasn't wearing that many clothes anyway at the time. But yeah, jumped straight in. And that was it, really. They didn't really have a choice after that part. And I think another story my mom used to tell me was that when I was small enough and not too heavy, I would sit on his kickboard whilst they were doing kick sets at the end. And they were like using fins and stuff. So it was kind of something that I just used to really, really enjoy doing. But, yeah, swimming, my journey from swimming from a starting point was through that. And I had such an amazing coach who actually taught me how to swim all the way through to me leaving South Africa at the age of 13. So she is quite rare, but I think and unusual to have a coach that teaches you how to swim and then becomes your coach as well. And kind of took me through, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. So all those years had the same coach who I absolutely loved. I adored her. She was just like my second mum, really. So I do really miss her. She still lives out in South Africa, so we do miss that kind of connection that we used to have. And her daughter was just about 18 months younger than me and we were really good friends as well. So I just had such a great environment there. From a swimming perspective. It wasn't. I was never forced to go. I actually was the opposite. I used to cry when I realized in the morning that my mom had taken my brother to training and I hadn't been woken up. And she was like, Carrie Anne, you're eight years old, it's 5am I'm not waking you up to go swimming. You don't need to go swimming. And I was like, but I really want to. I certainly am crying the opposite now. When Josephine, my daughter, wakes Me up anytime before 7, I'm like, oh, I don't want to get up now. The tables have turned. But, yeah, so I just really loved it. The environment was great, like I said. And my coach was really lady called Di Williamson. She was just an amazing person. She wasn't even when I then got into competing and racing and all that kind of stuff, I never felt any pressure from her whatsoever to perform or any pressure to win medals. It was all about enjoying it. It was about loving, was about, you know, these. There's some great opportunities here for you to travel around South Africa and, you know, go to school, swimming competitions and all that kind of stuff. And there was never a compromise. I think sometimes I quite often hear now there's compromises between, you know, kids taking up other sports and swimming. And at some point, you know, a kid will have to decide which one they want to do. But there's some horror stories around, you know, coaches forcing kids to make decisions too early. And. And I was never in that. I was again, like I said, I was the opposite. My mom would make me do other sports. She was like, you can't just do something, you've got to do more. So I did. I did cross country, I did shot put, I did hockey, I did netball, I did ballet, I did Irish dancing, believe it or not, but my grandmother was from Ireland and she did a lot of Irish dancing. And I wanted to kind of take that heritage. I did enjoy that part of it, but I always came back to swimming, no matter what happened. Swimming was a thing that I just absolutely loved. So I think I had a great journey in the lead up to it, which I think really helped me have such a long swimming career in the grand scheme of things.

And I think there's going to be a lot of us that are jealous listening to that, thinking, you know, you know, I remember playing lots of different sports when I was a kid and, you know, my girls are 12 and 15, they're playing lots of different sports, but not one of us has a burning passion for one sport. And I think, you know, for me as a parent, it's about trying to give my children the opportunity to find their element by giving them lots of different experiences. But isn't it amazing when somebody sort of finds their element so early on and actually, yeah, you're almost fighting away the opportunity to experience other things. So that's fantastic. Just talking about your coach, is there one thing that, looking back, you think, and maybe something. This is something you've tried to incorporate into helping swimmers Yourself. Is there one thing that you took from that coach that you think made it so special and that allowed you to progress without feeling the pressure?

Yeah. I think for me, she was just so amazing at, like, getting us to love the water. It wasn't about loving training or it wasn't about loving racing or it wasn't about, you know, all the little bits and pieces. It was about just loving the water, being really happy in the water. And maybe it was because I'm just remembering now a bunch of stories and, like, one consistent thing I remember is on poolside, there was a couple of different squads and different swimming clubs, you know, training in the same pool at the same time. And I remember, I don't know how many times we did this, but we'd be, you know, we've done one set as an example, and we'd all be leaning over the side of the pool, pool going, die. What's next? Die. What's next? Die, die, die, die, die.

Die.

What's next? Because she was, you know, not that she wasn't interested, because she was, but she was probably talking to a coach or a swimmer or a parent or something along those lines. And, you know, we'd have to try and get her attention. So maybe it's because she wasn't so forceful with everything. She wasn't like, and here's the next set, and here's the next set. And sometimes we'd spend five minutes trying to get her attention, but secretly we're all pretty happy that we. We were having a rest and we could have a chance to talk and stuff. And, you know, eventually someone would get out and be like, di, what's next? Tell us what the next day is. And that just kind of, I guess we just loved it. It wasn't like annoying or anything. It was. She just had such a great way about her. And I think the one thing I remember the most from that part of my life was just loving the water. So, you know, we would do things like Hell Week, which is, you know, but we'd all actually really look forward to it because it meant that we got to spend a week camping and spending time together. Yes. It meant lots and lots of swimming and other stuff, like gym, work and all that kind of stuff. But we were all together, we all really enjoyed it. Die made the experience and the environment really good one that we all were desperate to be in. And then we'd have loads of fun and games as well with that. So quite often I remember us playing, you know, this sounds and sounds ridiculous. We can do this kind of stuff in South Africa, but we would play underwater hockey with a pineapple. Not pineapple, watermelon. So we didn't have snorkels or anything and we'd have to just go down and we'd be in teams. We'd be playing, playing with it, trying everything we could not to break it because it's not a good idea to break it in the water. But that was just, you know, some of the stuff that we used to do and have fun with. And I think that was probably the biggest thing. It was the environment she created was a really, kind of really good one.

Yeah, fantastic. And I would imagine growing up in South Africa with a, you know, much warmer climate and, you know, lots of outdoor activities. Did that help you kind of embrace swimming from an early age? I know it obviously, I think. Did it. Did it even influence you switching to open water? Which we'll come back to later on. But how did South Africa change your approach to swimming?

I think it definitely did from my parents perspective and that was probably part one of this kind of puzzle that we're trying to kind of paint here, I guess, or picture we're trying to paint. So my mum actually doesn't swim and I think she probably could save her life if she needed to. I'm not actually sure if she could now because I don't even remember the last time she got into the water. And she was just desperate for us not to be like that, especially living in somewhere like South Africa. Everyone had swimming pools and all that kind of stuff. And she was just really scared and worried having come from, you know, from Manchester, North Manchester, Berry Way, and not really having the access to the pool and, or even wanting to because she just didn't enjoy it. She used to always say she didn't like getting her hair wet and splashing around and stuff. That was like always her excuse, which we kind of got because we were always really splashy anyway, so it kind of made sense. But what I know now as an adult growing up is that she just really just a bit scared of the water and never really had the opportunities that we did to learn how to do it from a young age. So there's, you know, the younger we are, the less fear we have. But she really wanted to make sure we could all swim. So we did, you know, the controversial here in the uk, the controversial drown proofing, I think it's called, you know, where they, you know, it is a bit rough, but we did it in a very, very good way. She, you know, she did her research and found the person, the perfect person, because she was so worried about us, you know, getting out and crawling into the pool and all that kind of stuff. So that was kind of part one. That definitely made a massive difference for us because I wonder if, if we'd been in the UK with less, less access to water, whether she would have been so, so forceful about us having to learn how to swim and save our lives from such a young age. And I think that's definitely made a massive difference. So the connection for South Africa and the warm weather, that was definitely that, you know, I might have only learned how to swim at school potentially if I'd been here. So. And that could, I guess it'd be a completely different trajectory. So that was definitely part of that. The second part was that actually in South Africa there is a massive, a much bigger kind of open water scene, although we didn't really call it that, although it was, it was mild swims basically. So like one weekend would be a pool competition where you'd race your pool stuff and then the next weekend would be a mile dam swim is what we would call it or whatever. Very rarely did we do them in the sea. There was a few, but I never raced in the sea for obvious reasons out in South Africa, but they'd basically be like inland bodies of water. And the reason we would do that was because we would qualify for something called the mid mile mile, which is still to this day one of the biggest open water swims in the world. And all the races that we would do would be to qualify for that end of season, the big race. If you won that or did really well in that. There's prize money and all sorts of things for that kind of competition. So it definitely made us want to do that. And it was a travel and it was a competition away. So that was just so regular. It was so normal. And I don't remember, I don't remember ever not doing that. So even when I was probably too young to swim on my own, my dad would take me and we'd swim the family swim, because it always had a family swim. So whether, you know, a parent would swim with a child. I think I must have been like seven or eight. The first swim I did with my dad, which was like a 500 meter or 200 meter swim or something like that in the open water. And then as I got old enough, I got a bit too quick for him, so I had to kind of start swimming them on myself. And he used to Always say that he. Because I'd get out and be like, I beat you. And he'd be like, no, no, no, I got out halfway and I went to the pub, I had a beer and then I got back in. So that's, that's why you beat me. And I believed him for years. And I remember being like devastated when I realized there isn't a pub on the other side. You're lying. But it was all like, you know, it was just part of life, of what we did one weekend was this, the next was that. So that again is another reason, I think for me by, when I, when I decided to make the switch to open water much, much later in my career, it wasn't so scary. And that's, I think the big issue that we've, that I find we have in the UK right now from that kind of next up and coming young athletes coming through is that a lot of them are only ever doing their first open water swim when they're 15, 16 years old. And they're so used to a swimming pool, black lines, you know, people not touching them. Whereas actually from a really young age I was used to mass starts and people running in and not getting swum over, but just, you know, just used to that kind of environment and not being able to see the bottom because there was many dams that were really muddy and you just couldn't see the bottom. So I didn't have the fear that I think some of the athletes now that have come from pool backgrounds do when they get into open water for the first time. So I think it's a combination of those two things.

If you're doing open water swimming in the uk, yes, it's a bit awkward, you know, it's a bit nerve wracking being sort of maybe a bit reedy, a bit muddy, a bit, you know, there might be a pike in there or something. But I did a swim once at Plettenberg Bay and it was about two days after I'd come from Hans by where I'd been seeing the great white sharks. And it was like, is this. I don't even know if this is clever doing a swim now. It seems to be a very popular beach. But you know when, when, when you're being, when you've been preconditioned to worrying about being attacked by a shark, kind of the odd little pike or slimy thing is probably not to be too, not to be too concerned about, is it?

No, it's not. But I still absolutely have my jaws moments. I am never gonna Let Josephine watch Jaws. And the movie buffs out there might be like, no, you have to. It's a classic. And maybe when she's like, much older, I'll let her watch it. But that movie, absolutely. I don't say ruined me, but it probably is one of the reasons why every. And it honestly doesn't matter. Probably should be, you know, admitting this, but every swim I do, whether it's a lake, whether it's a river or whether it's the sea, more so in the sea. I have a moment where I'm like. And I'm thinking, this is.

This is it.

This. I guess it makes sense. This is where the way I'm going to go, something is going to eat me in the open water. And everyone will be like, oh, fair enough.

Well, I was going to come back to this, but we'll talk about this now, actually, because this is something I think a lot of people struggle with and, you know, rightfully so. I mean, I was. I was swimming when we were on holiday in Mauritius last year and got stung by. I'm not sure whether it was either a box jellyfish or a Portuguese man of war. I was very close to calling an ambulance. My heart was all over the place and fortunately I sweated it out and I was okay 24 hours later. But it wasn't very nice. But people do get worried about that, you know, and whether it's sharks or whether it's. I remember reading Sean Conway's book and also Ross Edgley, where they're swimming into jellyfish and getting stings on their face. So you've had a few encounters with wildlife over your open water career. I seem to remember there was something about jellyfish and also turtles. Tell me a little bit about the sort of the pros and the cons of wildlife in open water swimming.

I'm glad that you talk about the pros because I think a lot of people just talk about the cons and the things they're scared of. But actually I've had equ. Equal. Probably equal amazing and terrifying experiences. And the terrifying bit is just internal panic. Really, in the grand scheme of things, it's just internal panic. So I'll probably start with the one that was the. The hardest. There's two, really. But the, you know, that were the hardest for me mentally, and that was the. There was a swim that we used to do out in Hong Kong in a place called Repulse Bay. It was beautiful place, really amazing, like seaside beach town, gorgeous sand, and there was this amazing water temple and it was just a setting like no other basically. And I remember looking at the course and seeing all the boys out and then kind of looking to my right and seeing a bunch of boys on the beach and I was like oh, what are those boys for? And I could see everyone was being a bit sheepish about it and I was like what are those boys for? Someone please tell me. And basically they were shark nets. And I was like I'm sorry, what? So we, we're not going to swim in that bit. We're going to swim in that bit on the, on the other side of the shark nets. And they're like yeah, but don't worry, there hasn't been a shark attack for about seven years. And I was like I am sorry, seven years is not long enough. I definitely need like 70 years. Never seen a shark attack here. Seven years is not that long. And I must admit on that swim I normally my normal race tactic back then was to lead from the front and just go for it. On that swim I was in the middle of the pack, I was not leaving the pack for anything. Just cuz I was like this is numbers, it's totally fine. I know I can be quick to sprint if I need to but yeah, so that was definitely a cut and we did that swim at least five times. So it was like knowing. So the first time I was like yay. And next time it was like oh. And you know there was nothing ever happened. Like it really didn't. And, and I don't think that there has been a shark attack there since but it definitely played on my mind during that swim and I adjusted my tactics as a result of that. And my coach was like shaking their heads, just shaking their heads at me like this is literally your job. Like yes. And I was like it is my job but it's not my job to get eaten by a shark. Even though that was probably very unlikely to happen. And then the next one that was very much mental for me was a swim out in China and for whatever reason I was the first athlete out because I'd come from somewhere else and and there was no other swimmers out there and the pool wasn't open yet so I had to basically go to the venue that we were swimming in which was a lake. Man made huge huge man made lake in the middle of China somewhere. I can't even remember the name of the place we went to. And it was a 2 1/2 k course and like the beach was here, the bit that we started in and then it was Like a thousand meters down and then 250 meters across, a thousand meters back, 250 meters across. And my coach, well, he's actually the performance director at the time, not my coach. And he was like, right, you're gonna need to swim for at least half an hour just to kind of get the. The flight out your system. I think I traveled for like two days straight. You know, you could really do your swims in a couple of days time. We need to. I need you to at least half an hour. And he kind of knew what was coming. And I was like, okay, I can swim for half an hour. And he's like, just do. Just do one loop. It'll take you about, you know, around about half an hour to do that two and a half K loop. Just, you know, do one loop and then you come back in. And I was like, nope. He was like, what do you mean no? And I was like, I am not swimming a thousand meters away from where you're standing right now to have some thousand meters back by myself. It's not happening. He was like, well, I don't have my paddle board with me. I can't come with you. And I was like, I'm sorry, but I'm not swimming on my own a thousand meters that way. He's like, fine, what can you do? And I was like, I'll swim this 250 meter loop here. So I basically kept as close as I possibly could to where the shore was. And I was just like, it was just playing over my head. Playing over, playing over. And I do a couple. And I'd be like, how long is that? And he's like, literally five minutes. You've got 25 minutes to go. Carry on. And I was like, okay, so I'm a bit more, some. A bit more, doing a bit of backstroke, trying to like, calm myself down, back onto my front, swimming a bit more. How long is that? 15 minutes. Oh, this is taking ages. Swimming, swimming. And I'd like, again, the panic. There's only so many times you can kind of bring the panic down. And eventually I was like, right on my back, really trying to breathe it out, trying to really be like, trying to bring logic back into it, but I think it was too far, too far gone for logic. And I swam into something and I screamed so loud because I was on my back, massive scream, turned around and sprinted back to the side and got out and standing on the pontoon. And as my. The performance director, Bernie said, as soon as he heard me scream, he was like, session Over. She's not going to get back in today. And literally, I swam into a twig. It was nothing, but I had, like. I had literally had built up. There was some, like, monster in there, and it was going to come and get me because I was the only person swimming in the water. And it's. It's. I am going to totally blame Jaws for that because you've seen those times, and I probably watched it when I was too young, and it really kind of had a massive impact on me. But, yeah, so that's kind of. Those are two moments where there wasn't actually even anything. But my brain played that much of tricks on me. But quickly run through a couple of others. Many, many, many, many, many, many jellyfish stings throughout the years. Thankfully, nothing quite as. As bad as the two that you talked about earlier, but still some that had toxins and toxic stuff in it, and we had to kind of deal with those for a couple of days. I definitely have scars on my body from jellyfish, like burns and things like that over the years.

But none of your face?

No. Well, there was definitely a few, but they're gone. Thankfully, there's no scars left for that. But. But, yeah, I mean, jellyfish, they're not. I'm not a fan of jellyfish. I'm not a fan of fish, to be honest, either. So I'm not really, like, I'd rather steer clear of them. And the only reason I can tolerate jellyfish is because I know that sea turtles need them to eat. So that's the only reason why I can tolerate jellyfish is because I know that they're food for my absolute favorite animal, which is a sea turtle. Which then leads me onto some really amazing stories of swimming with sea turtles through the channel between Nevis and St. Kitts, as a swimming do out there. And I very, very nearly went completely off track because I was following a sea turtle rather than, like, swimming across this channel to get from one side to the other in a race. The same in the Cayman Islands. We had the most incredible experience. It sounds a bit weird saying out loud, but the most incredible experience of seeing two giant. Giant sea turtles. I mean, they were ginormous sea turtles mating. I kind of. Obviously, when we saw they were mating, we're like, we'll leave you guys alone now. But it was an amazing, like, something that you, you know, hardly anyone's ever kind of witnessed and seen, but I saw them kind of pop up, and I was like, I'm going that way. Because at the time, my husband Was swimming like he was towing the kayak because we needed to train for the swim. We're going to swap over then I was going to tow the kayak and swap, swap. And he was in the water and I was trying to get his attention to say I've seen some sea turtles over that way. And I couldn't get his attention and I basically just, I fell out. I like jumped out the kayak and like, I was like, I'm not waiting with you anymore. I'm going to go and look at these things. And eventually he followed and saw what I was looking at. And yet just some amazing fish. Never seen any dolphins. That's probably, I'd like to say it's on my bucket list of things to see, but I think I would be too terrified if I saw any kind of fin and be it, you know, a dolphin fin, I'd probably think about it.

For Mauritius is actually a great place to go for that because Mauritius is on the west side of Mauritius. So when we were there in October, we, we went specifically to this, this part. I've been lucky enough to swim with dolphins in New Zealand and then. But that was like a long time before children. And so we were out there. I think it's called the Black river area.

And you can pretty much most days.

Of the week you can swim with dolphins. Albeit it is a very fleeting affair because there's probably five other boats around trying to do the same thing. But it is incredibly special, is a wonderful thing to see. I'm big into my scuba diving so I, when I'm open water swimming, I have sort of mixed emotions. There's the diver in me that wants to see everything possible. Sharks, you know, amazing jellyfish. And then there's the swimmer in me that's like, I really don't want to swim into any of these things. I'm feeling rather exposed here.

But.

But it is, you're right, there is, there's way more positives to what you see than the negatives. It's just. I suppose the problem is that with swimming there's a lot of time for thought, isn't it?

Yeah.

And that means there's a lot of time for building up those negative jaws type thoughts. Have you, have you worked out, have you got any tactics that you use to kind of eliminate those nowadays?

I guess the tactic is for me and I probably, you know, would have helped me to do this that time I was in China was just to allow and acknowledge that there was panic coming. So rather than going, let's Just no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't panic, don't panic. There's no reason to panic because it's irrational. That's, for me, that's absolutely an irrational fear. I know that there's no sharks or there's. I know there's no, like, giant man made monster that the Chinese, you know, that they were trying to, like, get to eat people. That's just not possible. Like, my rational mind now can go, that was ridiculous. But it's an irrational fear. So I think it's just acknowledging that, you know, I'm feeling that, you know, this thing is triggered, and that's okay because I know that this is one of my things. So I think acknowledging it kind of gives it a moment to be like, okay, but it allows you to stay a little bit more in your rational mind. So there's kind of two parts to our brain. There's the front part, which is common sense, problem solving, creativity, rational side of our brain. And then there's the back part, which is our caveman, fight or flight instincts. Now that caveman instinct is still incredibly prehistoric. So whenever we're in a stressful situation and we're in fight, flight, or freeze, we either think a saber tooth tiger is coming in to, you know, our cave, or that we have to hide somewhere and freeze so that it can't get us or whatever it is. Even though we've evolved hugely since then, that part of our brain hasn't. And if you're in that part of the brain, you can't access your rational part and kind of vice versa. So it's about trying to stay and maintain, staying in your rational brain. So if you feel like you might have that moment, take a couple of breaths at the beginning. So what I do is I run through a cycle of breathing in for three and out for six. And I do that four or five times. And I know that that little reset is bringing me straight back to the front part of my brain, and I'm not going back to the back part. And then any other moment that I feel like I'm starting to panic, I'll turn onto my back and I'll do the same, take those breaths in and then allow. And just kind of allow myself to go. You're having a moment, which is totally fine because, you know, you're allowed to have these moments because of everything that's ever happened to you and everything you've ever read. It's not nothing to be ashamed of. Like, irrational fears are irrational and then going, okay, yeah, I'm okay. I feel better now. Right. And then carry on. And I guess the only other tip I have is just never swim alone. That's pretty much it. Never swim alone. And that'll be much easier for you in that sort of scenario.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. The reality of life means that that's not always possible, is it? I end up doing a fair bit of swimming alone, particularly when I'm doing sea swims, that I spend quite a lot of time down in Cornwall, so. And from a safety point of view, I know it's not great and obviously I'm going to come back to open water safety in due course, but. But yes, I think that's great, particularly with the breathing and your explanation of the front brain and the back brain is kind of referring to what Steve Peters would call the chimp brain, isn't it? So I think that's really, really good advice. You had an amazing career through, whether it's the Olympics, world championships. Obviously we haven't got time to go through that chronologically, but what particular highlights stand out for you in that amazing run of swimming?

Definitely a couple of moments. My, you know, winning an Olympic medal is like no other feeling I've ever felt. I guess maybe, you know, having a daughter, having a child, getting married, those sorts of things. It certainly sits up there with those sorts of feelings. That was really amazing. And I went into the Beijing Olympics, which was the first time open water had been in the Olympics, you know, ever. And, you know, making history is pretty cool as well. Not just making history on a medal table, but making history from a history making perspective. It's the first time I'd ever been in, you know, coming away with a silver medal. So I'd gone in, in eighth position. I was eighth, ranked eighth in the world, essentially. And I just thought, if I can do eight or better, I'll be super happy with this performance. And just kind of went in. My mindset going in was, I have nothing to lose. It's an Olympic Games. I might never make it to another one. I'm here because I want to be here and I want to do as well as I can. Let's see how well I can do. And that kind of was my mindset in the lead up to the swim. And going to the swim, through the swim itself, and coming away, you know, with a silver medal was amazing, like genuinely an incredible experience. And I really do feel like I won that silver medal. Although if you watched it, you may have, you may have seen or thought that I had lost the gold because I was in the lead all the way pretty much the whole way through the swim until the last 50 meters. But having said that, open water swimming isn't just about how good a swimmer you are. It's about your experience, it's about your tactics, it's about all that kind of stuff. And I'd only ever done, I think, I think that was my fifth ever 10k. That race was my fifth 10k. So from the grant in the grand scheme of things, I was a baby. From experience wise, I knew I had the speed, I knew I was quite fast down the last 800 and 200 meters. On paper, I was the quickest over the 200 meters and I thought, thought, you know, if that's how it works for me, let's give it a shot and see how we get on. But the girl that won, the Russian girl, she did an incredible swim. Tactically her swim was spot on. She saw the opportunity, sat on our feet the whole way through, conserved her energy and she was, you know, again, on paper, one of the really fast swimmers as well. And then just the last 50 meters found her opportunity and she was gone. And it was, you know, textbook. She was something like the 17 or 19 times world champion in the lead up to that. So incredible amount of experience from, from her perspective. And yeah, so I could really couldn't be, couldn't be happier with the performance because I couldn't have done any more than I did. And I learned so much from that swim. I did vow for that never to happen to me again, certainly from her, by her, but I did, you know, I learned a lot from it. And it kind of went through, you know, forwarding then on to the 2009 World Championships where I again, the mindset was she ain't going to do it this time. And I led every single meter of that whole 10,000 meters. All the things I did for myself, you know, to make sure I was in the right position, the best position, a couple of tactical things and then we can talk about that a little bit later if you want. Or I can dive into it now if you want.

Well, I was going to ask you about the tactics actually, because I seem to remember that when you swam in Beijing, that was really the first time you went out the front, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Is that right? And that was, that was because. So tell me a little bit about the tactics of those two races in particular and how you approached it.

Yeah, so again, like I said, I just thought, you know, I've got nothing to lose. Now, I'm going to be completely honest with you about where my mindset was. So I'd come from, you know, South Africa, where I'd done open autism before, but I'd spent, you know, from 13 to 18, swimming in the pool, getting so used to swimming in the pool. And then, you know, around about 18, that's when I got back into mortar. I did not want to swim in the pack. That was absolutely another big reason for me leading from the front was because I thought, you know what? I. If I'm in the front, I'm controlling the pace of the race, I know where I'm at and I'm also not anywhere near the fighting that can all happen behind me. You know, a bit like when you're a kid and maybe you won't have this experience, but, you know, I remember very specifically going from netball at primary school to going to netball in high school, and just the difference was crazy. Netball at primary school was about fun and friends and, you know, doing things. And then literally that leap up to the next year was like, competition and fighting and tactics and dirty stuff. And I just was. It completely threw me. I was not prepared for that at all. And I dropped it because I was like, that's not the sport for me. So I'm not really a conflict kind of person anyway. So that was another reason why it worked for me to go out in front. I knew. I knew I had the stamina, I knew I had the speed. I could control the pace of the race, how fast, how slow we went. And I knew that if someone wanted to pass me down the last bit, they would have to try and pass me. And that's kind of where the tactic for Beijing came in. And then it worked incredibly well. And I thought, I'm going to work on this now and keep going through to the World Championships to see how this goes. And there was a little bit of chatter around some of the other swimmers that there was going to be a little bit of tactics coming my way. Um, and my coach was like, you know, you should think about this. Like, what do you think is going to happen? And the. The race was meant to be a dive start. And normally dives, like, they're normally always dive stars, which are. That's where I'm kind of the strongest. From a pool. From the pool background, I would be making the most of the underwater work, um, because I didn't want to be in the fighting. And you're faster from a dive underwater than you are on the surface. So I would swim, you know, diving, and I would swim, you know, 20 meters underwater, butterfly kick and pop out in front of everyone because I had a really good start and I wasn't in the washing machine. But this particular swim at the World Championships, they had a massive storm a couple days before, and so the pontoon was completely washed away. This brand new, like, million pounds, million euro thing washed away. So we had to start in the water and my coach said, look, I've got an idea. Let's roll with it and see how it works. So I was on the starting line, ready to go, and I had a black hat on because we always have to have, like our flag on the side, black hat on. Just about to get into the water and I could. I could feel there were a couple of girls not leaving my side. And I was like, I don't really like where this is going. Maybe he was frightened, but maybe I was reading into it. I don't really know. Got into the water, they were still on my side, you know, tried to move positions, went under the water, they kind of got back again and the chatter was they were going to stop me from getting out in front. That was kind of what the tactics were. And just about 30 seconds before the start, I went underwater. And when I was underwater, I actually took off the black hat that had on and actually had an orange one underneath. And so kind of stuck that in the back of my swimsuit and then popped up with an orange hat on in a different place. And the buzzer went and I was off. And then we kind of went and I literally got in the front straight from the beginning and I led every meter of that whole 10k from that swim and became, you know, world champion as a result of that. So that was an interesting scenario, I guess, from that perspective.

Brilliant tactics. Did you ever. Do you ever learned to deal with. Well, I'm sure you have, but tell me how you learned to deal with being in the pack and, you know, with elbows flying, particularly, you know, I come from a triathlon background and the start of that is always chaos. So what. What advice can you give us on swimming in amongst the chaos?

Yeah, honestly, this did not happen to me until after the London Olympics. I thought, this is my tactic, it's working really well. Why change it? I'm leading from the front, you know, and no one challenged me through that ever, until the London Olympics. And then we can talk about that in a moment. That's another, because you asked me a question earlier about stand up moments that definitely a standout moment for me.

Yeah, I was going to come back to that. So don't worry.

Yeah, probably not for the reason that you're thinking, but we'll talk about it in a little while. I guess to kind of give you a little bit of an insight. It didn't go the way I had planned, essentially. And I found myself in the middle of the pack having to deal with it and I just wasn't ready for it. I hadn't prepared for it and I just thought, what an idiot. How would I, why have I, why have I not ever done this? So I thought, if I've got any chance of trying to go to Rio, trying to make it to a third Olympic Games, I'm getting older. The kids are getting younger, as they like to say. They're getting faster. More and more pool swimmers are coming in. I'm not the fastest anymore, but I've got the experience now. I need to try and make the most of it as much as I can. And I'm going to have to deal with swimming in the pack. Now, I'm not suggesting everyone go out and do this, but the thing that helped me was I ended up having a judo lesson which with a lady called Gemma Gibbons and Sally Conway. And you know, Gemma won a silver medal in London. So on paper, when I was thinking about it, this is a great idea. She's going to teach me all the moves. It's going to be great. Until I was faced with the two of them in their turf, in their arena, thinking this is a really bad idea. Why did I decide to have a lesson with these two, which eventually I ended up spending 45 minutes being pinned to the ground. But what I did learn from that scenario was that actually it's okay if I can deal with that on land, I can totally deal with it in the water. You know, nine times out of ten it's accidental when someone swims into you or swims over the top of you or that any of that kind of stuff. It's not, you know, the people aren't actively going out to hurt someone. Especially in the world of triathlon. It's kind of just what happens. I don't think that's good. I think that definitely needs to change because it's not the mindset that open water swimmers have going into open water mass participation events. So I still think we need to change that mindset. But it's, it's normal, it happens, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I had to learn how to deal with it. And then from there, my training for, in a very specific scenario was I remember going out to Italy, which was the swim I did just before that China swim was to dive in, as we normally would do, get out in front, as I normally would do. And then I basically had to turn onto my back and I had to let the whole pack pass me. I had to make my way through the back of the pack, people swimming at the top of me, around me, figure out what I could do to deal with that at the back of the pack. And then I had to work my way back through the pack, back to the front. And then once I got to the front, I had to do that again, tend to my back, let them also move me. So the swim wasn't like a major swim. It was just a training swim, essentially. And that was the training. The learning experience I had to have on that one was just dealing with what that felt like. What I learned from that was that your elbows are probably your best form of defense. And I don't mean using elbows. That is not what I mean.

But, I mean, you've been talking to Alistair Brown.

What I do mean by that is, you know, normally when we're swimming, we like to be nice and. And neat and nice and kind of like really efficient and all that kind of stuff. But actually, if you feel like you're trapped in a scenario you don't want to be and you can't get to the side or to the back or, you know, you're not in a position you really enjoy, like I said, nine times out of ten is accidental. Someone bumps into you, they generally correct themselves. So if the first thing they hit is your elbow. So instead of being nice and long like we normally like to be, you might sacrifice a bit of that length for a bit more protection. So it's not that you're actively using your elbow to hit anyone, it's that your elbows are your protection. So you might go slightly flatter in the water to have a greater surface area. Your elbow is a bit more out, so it's a bit more like a merge between swimming and water polo. And what happens with that is you then own your space a bit more. And I think owning your space gives you a bit more confidence to be like, that's okay. If they come into me, I know I still have the space, I might be able to adjust myself a little bit as well as you go through. So that's kind of what I learned, mainly learned from that. But I needed, for me, I needed that initial kind of Experience of experiencing it on land before I could take that into the water.

Brilliant. And is there a way of owning that space at the start as well? Like while you're all sort of hanging around waiting for the gun to go?

Yeah, I think it's preparation, preparation into where you want to be and then knowing a little bit about the pack that you're going to be within. So you know, if you're the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst, worst. Worst place to be is the middle of the middle of the pack. So do whatever is within your power to not be in the middle of the middle of the pack. If you're not that fast, you're probably better to situate yourself on the outsides towards the middle, if not towards the end of the pack and work your way through. If you know that you're a bit quicker and you want to get out or you want to stick with that top pack, then you stick to the outsides, but towards the top of the pack. So it's being aware of your ability, being really honest about your ability. And then I would always suggest steering to the sides is better because again, I've done many swims where I actively went to the side and swam alongside the pack and actually passed the pack because, because of all the fighting that happens, everyone's a bit shorter with their stroke. They were a little bit scrappier. So if you don't want to be within that pack at the start, you're actually sometimes faster, more efficient to be on the outside and just make your have a bit of clear water to get into the position that you want to be in, to draft of the people that you want to draft off. That, for me, is one of the best ways of doing it. I suggest, anyway, what I suggest to my.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

And just let's circle back to London 2012 to kind of tell us what happened there and what you learned from it.

Yeah, so it was. I was double world champion, Olympic silver medalist, home Olympic Games, you know, I was definitely the favorite going into that swim and I worked incredibly hard with my coach, my psychology team and all the sponsors and that I had to take the pressure away. So it wasn't, you know, lots of them tried to have like a winning medals clause and I was like, I don't want that. I'm not interested in that. If you want to sponsor me, this is a journey. This is about going on a journey together. And regardless of what happens, you know, you still back me as an athlete. So I was really kind of very strict and picky with them. I wasn't interested in bonuses. It's not, it's not about that, especially in the world of open Morse, because anything can happen. So I didn't feel pressure in the lead up to it. My coach was great. Sean Kelly was, you know, he'd worked really well. Lars Humour as well was a hugely instrumental part of that, that, that, that kind of phase, if you like, as well. So, you know, my coach, Sean got ill, so he was out of the picture for a little while. But my, you know, Lars then took over and seamlessly took over and did a really great job of getting me from the position I was in. Like, oh, I don't have my coach, you know, he's been with me every meet for the last nine years to, you know, to be ready to take on that, that challenge. And I felt ready. I really did feel ready. I couldn't have done any more in the pool. I couldn't have prepared mentally anymore for that, that process and stuff. So my usual tactic was to lead from the front. And actually this was the first swim where someone made an effort to do the same thing as me. So the girl that ultimately eventually won the swim, she decided, hey, it's a pretty good tactic. If it works for her, it can work for me. And to be honest, I was surprised it took them that long to kind of do the same thing. So she was next to me and we kind of fought it for a little while but. But I was really keen to be on the inside. I wanted to be on the inside of the course, to have the best racing line going round because this, this course was in the serpentine, which is a much smaller venue than most other places. So Instead of a 2 1/2 k loop, it was 1.6 k. So it was 6 laps of 1.6 k and lots of turns. And I just, I knew that turns were absolute pinch points and I wanted to be on the inside at the front so I could get around them as quickly as possible because the extra effort it takes to go around boys is enough. Never mind having to do. I think it was something like seven turns, seven boys we had to go around times six laps. Like it was a lot of turns we had to navigate and deal with. However, the feeding station was on the outside of the course and the suit I was wearing didn't have. It was a new suit. I wasn't wearing the suit I normally would have worn. I mean, I'd been training in it in the lead up to that, but it didn't have an open back, so normally I would have had a gel or two with me. This one had a closed back, so I didn't have that as an opportunity. So I had to go into the feeding station. And I still don't know to this day whether it was a tactical thing on her part or whether I just didn't take the opportunities I needed to. Um, but I couldn't get into the feeding station. She wouldn't quite let me get past her forward or back or however it worked. Um, so I missed it on the second and third lap, which is when I would have gone in. So I was kind of thinking, I really need to find an opportunity to get in to this now. But I really don't want to sacrifice my position now because we're halfway through, nearly. Um, anyway, coming into the fourth lap, I found an opportunity and I made my way over to the feeding station and just a rookie era, I just. It was too high. I missed it and had to kind of like, oh, put the brakes on and then go back a bit and then take my drink. And by the time I was drinking, everyone else that was behind me had nailed their feeds and they were already swimming, so swimming pretty much over the top of me to get through to carry on swimming the race. And the girl that was next to me didn't go into feet. She carried on. So she'd kind of taken the pack off and that's why I didn't want to go into the feed station, because I knew that might be a risk anyway, so I'd gone in in joint first and I came out in like, 12th or 13th place and again find myself in the worst position possible, going, what have you done? Not being angry with anyone other than myself. Just really, really. Cross is probably the best word. Really crossed myself. Why did you do that? Was very silly. Sorry about that. Yeah, very silly. Just, you know, why did you do that? And then I basically had, like, two options. I, you know, I definitely had a black eye, so I thought, you know, I could probably stop. People will have seen that. I'll have a black eye, a pretty good shiner, or I can just kind of carry on. And the, you know, the thing about home Olympics is the crowds are just incredible. And there were 30,000 people standing around Hyde park watching. And the noise of that is. I cannot tell you how, like, still gives me goosebumps today thinking about the noise that the people made when I kind of was called down from Team gb. Carrie Ann Payne. It was just amazing. But I could see People, because it's such a close venue. I could see faces, I could see people cheering. I could see their signs saying, Go Carrie Anne or Go GB or whatever it was. I could hear people, like, it's unusual to hear anyone in, you know, when you're swimming, to hear anything in your ears. But I could hear people shouting, go Kerryanne. And I thought, I can't stop now. I've got to carry on going. So I just kind of put my head down and worked my way back through the pack and finished in fourth place by 0.4 of a second, which, I'm not going to lie, is brutal. Absolutely brutal. Heartbreaking. All the words you can imagine that go along with coming forth at home Olympics by such a small margin over a two hour swim, you know, by, I think I was four seconds behind the winner and then 0.4 behind the bronze medal. So, yeah, just devastated with the, with the performance. I had about two minutes to kind of bring myself together to then speak to Claire Boulding and the BBC and, and everyone that was watching. And it wasn't until I got out that I see the program, that Olympic program for the day. So this was for every sport, every venue. So every day they had an Olympic program. And I was on the front cover of that program of that day. God, I didn't see that before I got in. And yeah, and I was just like, I got nothing for you. It was just a mistake. Made a mistake. It'll sit with me probably for the rest of my life, but there's nothing more I can do about that. I'm proud I managed to carry on and work my way back from where I was to finish. I'm really proud of that. And I think interestingly, that swim could have gone, you know, the aftermath of that could have gone either way. And although that was probably one of the hardest moments of my career, it's actually also one of the proudest moments that I do have. Not because of the way that I made my way back to the pack, but actually it proved to me that medals are just one part of this whole incredible journey. There is so much more to swimming and the Olympics and being an Olympian than winning medals. It's about, for me, it's about inspiring people to take up the sport. And even still to this day, I have people that message me saying, because I watched your race in London, you inspired me to take up open water swimming. And now I'm swimming. So I didn't even win a medal. I didn't win a medal. And there's still people, you know, coming to me saying, I watched your swim, you know, it was amazing, you know, sorry or whatever. But it inspired me to take up over more swimming. So that for me kind of proved. And I think, you know, having seen the trajectory of open water swimming and the uptake of that and as well, you know, triathlons has just been incredible. So I really feel like that's a pinnacle moment of my kind of my legacy, if you like, in a way is that moment. It was the hardest, but also the most proud. One of the moments I'll never forget.

Amazing. Well, and it's fantastic that you've been able to kind of. I'm sure it must be absolutely devastating at that time, but also amazing that you've repositioned it as. And so you've taken a huge amount from it and also learned from it as well. You talk about the kind of the wave of enthusiasm that comes towards open water swimming in recent years, particularly because of COVID I think I wouldn't have been swimming in the river up and down the river neen if it hadn't been for the fact that the pools were shut. But what a wonderful experience as a result. So at the moment you're spending your time coaching coaches for open water swimming. So tell us a little bit about that and your experience of the rush of enthusiasm towards open water swimming that we've seen.

Yeah, so I guess just to kind of finish off my swimming journey which led me to this moment was that I did, you know, I did carry on swimming and I did make it to the third Olympics. And through that journey, the thing that, you know, the reason why I wanted to, to go to the next Olympics was because I saw the impact that London had on people. So my mission then became, as I said earlier, about inspiring people to take up more swimming. That's what, that's what got me up in the morning. That was my why, that was why I carried on swimming. I didn't need to, didn't have to, but I did. I wanted to do that. And that was the reason that, you know, I was delighted with, you know, seventh place in Rio because I could not have done any more. I did absolutely everything in my power to do as well as I could, but I couldn't have done any more. And I, I was just the seventh best swimmer in the world and I wanted to continue that. I knew I was going to finish in Rio. I knew that was my last Olympic Games, but I wanted to kind of work out how I could do that, which Led me through to kind of to ultimately two businesses. Business one is, was triskate which was the first thing, which was, you know, that, that remit of inspiring people to take up over more swimming and that was, you know, swimming holidays and coaching. So I did, you know, my level one, level two triathlon coaching qualifications and you know, worked my way up through there and what I learned through doing those qualifications was that there wasn't an open water element or there isn't. Certainly when I did it back in 2016, an open water element to the triathlon qualification, I was lucky because I had that experience. So I, I'm, you know, totally happy going and sighting and boy turning and all that kind of stuff and taking on, you know, mass starts and run ins and transitions and all that kind of stuff. And that's when round about that time, sort of 2018 was when I joined forces of the Swimming Teachers association and they were creating this or recreating an open water coaching qualification they had and they were looking for someone to kind of be the face of it. And I said yes, but I'm not just the face, I want to be involved, I want to kind of give you my experience experiences and, and I want to really make sure it's a great qualification. And I don't think they were quite prepared for how involved I got. Basically changed most of the qualification, all the coaching stuff, the open water skills, the front crawl swimming side of things that that came from, from myself and my husband and our years of coaching and years of swimming. And since then, you know, that's been pretty much my day job. It's completely taking over from, you know, from the Triscape, you know, swimming retreat, holiday coaching people to, to now my day job is literally running qualifications. And the reason it's my day job now is because since 2018 when we launched it, I've qualified just over 400 coaches. Last year alone I qualified 165 coaches which is, you know, a lot of work, great work and I love it and it's amazing and just so incredible to see so many people taking it out. But you know, there's lots of paperwork and delivering a three day course and all that kind of stuff. You know, it's very much a warmer weather thing as well. So although we were running theory stuff through zoom through the winter, I still have to qualify people in the summer months. So it's been a lot of amazing but a lot of hard work coaching coaches and then kind of what we, what we saw from there. So that, that, that business is called Straight Line swimming, essentially, which is part methodology, part coaching, tutoring, the qualification. So the swimming methodology that we use within the qualification is based on our straight line swimming methodology, which hopefully makes sense to the world of open water swimming. Ideally, everyone's to swim in a straight line if possible, which is kind of where the methodology and the name came from. But we also realized from there that there wasn't really a resource for coaches to come to, to continue to learn. So it's a three day qualification. You get your manual and all that kind of stuff and then you're expected to just go out and do it. And I think what we've seen in that world specifically, which I think is quite unique, is that 80% of the people I've qualified are women and they're women over the age of 35. You know, 35 to 65 is pretty much the majority of people I've qualified. And I thought maybe it was just because I'm a female tutor, but actually, in total, the same stats pretty much apply to everyone that's done the course specifically. So there's a real amazing network of female coaches. But I think what comes with that is the worry that you're going to do it badly. So we wanted to create a space and a platform for coaches to continually learn. We run kind of podcasts, I guess, in a way, but live versions of podcasts as well, where we, where we allow our guests to come in and, you know, people to come and watch it and ask questions live and that kind of stuff. So it was about creating a resource for people to learn. There's courses on there, there's, you know, there's offers with partners and all that kind of stuff to just help people feel supported through that kind of coaching journey.

Brilliant. And if people are out there looking for a coach, is that also a resource that allows them to find a coach so they can get into it? Where would they go for that?

Yes, if you head to the Straight Line Swimming website and you click on the Coach Finder sect and there'll be, you know, there's qualified coaches around the country on there. We're adding new coaches and more coaches every day as we go through. But there is a coach finder on there and you can be rest assured that they're vetted and they're qualified, fully qualified, insured open water coaches who will really. And from a coaching, I guess this is really great actually, to be on podcasts like this to explain what coaching is. And I think that the thing I find the hardest is Trying to kind of unlearn previous, what was called coaching behavior was actually trainer behavior or dictator behavior, which was, you know, stop watches, get on with it. Ready, steady, go. That's not the style of coaching. We've gone for way more of facilitative style of coaching, which is like a guided journey. And it's about the person you have in front of you. And I think that's why it's been so popular, because people really love the idea of it being not holistic in a, you know, in a holistic kind of way. But it really is. It's about the person as a whole. It's about their life, it's about their fears and worries and it's about confidence. So it's about all those things, knowing all these things and then helping to work someone through whatever their, their journey or challenge is. I think that's why we've. It's been so popular and I think again, why the rise in lots of this last season of people are wanting to just help people into the water. They've loved it so much, just getting in, just dipping through the winter. They've loved it so much, they want to just be able to offer out that to other people as well. So we're qualifying a huge range of people, triathlon coaches, club swimming coaches, swimming teachers, looking for another avenue for kind of revenue because pools being shut and all that kind of stuff. And then that dipping market as well. So the ones who are loving it, I've loved it so much, I just want to be able to pass that same passion on that I got from doing this to other people. So. And then, you know, even as far down the line as I smiles and channel swimming coaches and all that kind of stuff, it's just the world of open water swimming is so vast.

It's absolutely brilliant. I think, you know, it's been a wonderful thing that people have embraced it as a result of COVID And I'm sure, you know, people will stick with it now that they've fallen in love with it. One of the things that open water, one of the difficulties around open water swimming is the safety aspect, isn't it? You know, I remember somebody saying to me that his dad told him as a kid that the sea is always trying to kill you. Never forget, the sea is trying to kill you. And it kind of sticks with me. Is there some advice you can give us on people that want to get into open water swimming, around the safety aspects of it?

Absolutely. So safety for us is absolute number one priority and not Just the safety of swimmers, but the safety of the coaches as well themselves. And although it can seem quite dramatic that saying it kind of is true. It's not trying to kill you, but you'll never beat the water. The water is, you know, it's mother Nature is powerful and it has to be respected. I think I'd rephrase it in that way that it's not trying to kill you, but you won't beat it if you're, if you think you're going to beat it, that's an absolute recipe for disaster. I would never expect to be able to swim against the current unless I knew what it was like in that sort of scenario because I know how powerful the sea is. So that's kind of part, part one of it. And let's be completely honest, open water swimming is a dangerous sport, but it can be done really safely. So a huge part of the qualification for me from a coaching perspective is the safety aspect. Making sure that the coaches know how to do safe introductions to the open water, how to pass on that safety knowledge to their swimmers. Which is why I always recommend if you've never gone into the open water, find a coach who's running an introduction to talk you through the ins and outs of kits, time of year, what's good to know, what's good to not know, that kind of stuff. And actually just about to launch a brand new thing which I am really proud to be part of. So there is a new app, a wild swimming app. So it's called Swimwild app, which is the webpage, but also it's a downloadable app on the iOS for Apple and Android as well. So if you search for wild swimming app, it'll pop up. It's a blue logo with a W on it. And this is like a wild swimming location spot around the country, around the world actually, be honest, it's worldwide and each location has. So the really cool technology behind it is that it's specific forecasting for swimming. So the likes of like Magic Seaweed and those sorts of websites are specific to surfing. So you know the swells based on a surface sitting on a board, whereas this is more based around a swimmer and it's a 10 day forecast so you can start to see what's going on. It's very, very cool integration. You can see whether swim spots are accessible or things around them that might be good to know. Like in lakes, blue green algae, there's an alert system, all that kind of stuff, pollutions, alerts, that's all coming as well, in the pipeline pretty soon. But the thing we've been working on is trying to put a bit more, not ownership, because it's not about that, but a bit more understanding for the swimmers themselves to take a bit more responsibility for their skills. I think a lot of swimmers want to take responsibility, but don't necessarily know how to. So one of the things that we've done is to create this. We've called it safe outdoor swimming. So essentially, there's a safe outdoor swimming assessment that you do, which is about the knowledge, it's about safety advice where we talk through, do you know what cold shock is? Do you know how to deal with it? Hypothermia, do you know what a riptide is, how to spot one, what to do if you get yourself caught in one. You know, stuff in the RLI from ocean generation as well, which is all about sustainability. So there's a huge amount of information on it, but the first part of it is about you gaining the knowledge that you need to be as safe as possible. And then there's a dynamic risk assessment, which the aim is that everyone will do just before they get in the water. Every time it takes a minute, two minutes maximum. And it's just a checklist of all those things from the safety perspective, from ourselves as a human. Like, how am I feeling today? Is it a good idea for me to go swimming today based on these certain criteria and then a site specific one. So it's specific to rivers, lakes and coastal regions and seas and stuff like that. So really interesting stuff within that. And that's literally just about to be launched in the next couple of days, which I am really, really excited about. So, you know, you talk about safety, that's one avenue that we're just trying to get more and more people out of. And that's specific to the spot that you're in. So if you're in a coastal region, it's going to give you the coastal version. If you're in the river, it'll give you a river version.

This sounds brilliant. I will be downloading it as soon as I can find it because I use magic seaweed for the surf. Not I'm any good at surfing, but I use it just to see what the surf is doing. But, you know, in St Agnes in Cornwall, where we spend a lot of time, it's a. It's absolutely stunning swimming along that coastline. In fact, both Ross Edgeley and Sean Conway mentioned that specific stretch of coastline in their books because it is absolutely stunning. And there's A bit that you can swim out to bolden rocks, but I've never dared do it because you can't. I'm never quite sure of the sea conditions when you're kind of going further out. But yeah. So things like that sound fantastic. One of the things I. It's just occurred to me, I didn't plan to ask you this, but one of the. So I usually almost always swim with a swim buoy for, you know, in case I get cramped, make me visible for boats or if I'm having issues. One of the things that occurred to me last year was it'd be quite useful to be able to put a little, a little flare in there in case you did ever have problems. Can swimmers buy flares that can kind of alert people on the shore that there is an issue?

I must admit I don't know if you can buy flares. I'd imagine you can. You know, if you're going to, you know, boats and you know, people going on boats would buy them, I'm sure. I think a flare is an interesting one definitely. If first. My first thing would be don't ever swim somewhere where you might need one. That's probably the first part which I know sometimes isn't that helpful. But there are other things that you can use like swim whistles. So you know, that's really easy. You can. The reason I say specifically swim whistles is because if there's like a pee in it, the water, you know, it won't work. So finding a specific swimming whistle and a light that you can stick onto your toe float essentially to make noise and to make some light would be really helpful. So definitely the brighter colored toe floats that you can get, make sure you always have it with you. The other thing you can do on your toe float, this isn't going to make you more visible, but it's to write your mobile number and any kind of medical stuff that would be a need to know basis. So if anything, I feel lost it. Someone would be able to get. Get it back to you. But also if there wasn't ever an issue, you. That someone will be able to contact your next of kin from that perspective. And actually the app I was talking about also has a beacon service on there. So it's. It's integrated with what three words. So before you go swimming it kind of advises you to send this beacon to your emergency contacts on there so they'll know where you are and if you're not back, you know, I guess, you know, you make a little pact with Whoever gets the beacon, if I'm not back or haven't sent you a message in two hours, then basically send out search party, that sort of scenario.

But so does that beacon track where you're swimming, so they'll know from there whether you're swimming north or south?

Not necessarily. Not just yet. There will be sort of, you know, Strava type, but it's going to be really tough. I don't think even on Strava, you wouldn't be able to know exactly where someone is at any moment unless you have kind of a share my location thing, which you totally could. You know, your emergency contact could. Or you could use WhatsApp as an example. And what you could do is stick your phone in a waterproof bag and stick it in your toe float. Because toe floats are generally. They serve two purposes. It's a safety thing from a visual perspective, but also a dry bag. So you could stick it in there and if you have signals, someone will be able to kind of see exactly where you are. But the main thing of the beacon is just to give your emergency contact the time that you've gone in and also the what, three word location for where you're at the starting point in case you don't hear from someone within that kind of region. But yeah, so I think a flare, you know, could be something that might be helpful. But my first point of call would be to make sure you're never in a position where you need a flare.

That sounds like sensible advice. And yeah, I think the app sounds fantastic. And you know, I suppose I could track my. I could. You can send out a beacon from your. A live track from your. From your Garmin, can't you? But, well, I never remember to bother doing. Setting it up. I've never quite worked out how to set it up. So that sounds really interesting. Now, I know you've been working with Tom Daly recently. Tell me a little bit about what you've been, how you've been helping him and what you've been up to.

Yeah, so Tom took on what was called one hell of a homecoming. And it absolutely was one hell of a homecoming where he, he had to get basically from the Olympic Aquatic center in London down to Plymouth, which is his hometown, hence it being a homecoming. And he basically, there was four modes of transport that he was going to use to get there. So it's a version of a triathlon, I guess, which was to row along the Thames. It was then to swim in the Matthew Pinson. Stephen Redgrave. No. Is that right? Pinsent Redgrave Lake, I think it's called, sorry, Caversham area. Some a mile in there and then basically cycle down to Southampton and then, you know, cycle along again to Bovey Castle and then an ultra marathon run to Plymouth. And he was doing this in four days essentially, to get from one, one place to the other. So I was asked if I would be his open water coach specifically because this was done in February. So it was done just about a month ago. The water was 5.2 degrees, so we knew it was going to be cold. I kind of thought it'd be about six. So it was, it was almost a degree colder than I was expecting. And he'd never swam in the open water before, so. And we only started training in December for, you know, it was nine weeks. I think, the preparation. So, you know, they needed to get the expertise in to kind of get him as ready as we possibly could do. So the same from a rowing perspective. He'd never been on a rowboat before. Never. He actually, the first time he went on the Thames was during his challenge. So he did a lot in Surrey Keys and got used to it, but it's much flatter and calmer, whereas the Thames, if you've ever been down to London and looked at the Thames, it's. It's very different, it's very wavy, there's lots of boat traffic, all that kind of stuff. And just then, you know, swimming part, swimming a mile so he could swim, which was great. Obviously, I knew he was comfortable in water. I didn't know how comfortable he'd been not being able to see the bottom or whether he'd be able to swim, you know, front crawl for, you know, a mile, which is a really long way, um, for someone that's never really swam. So we were in a great position because he could swim pretty well. So we did a technique session where we just kind of made him more efficient, which was really helpful. And then I basically took him into the open water, but we did it more as dipping. So the open water stuff to start with was more about acclimatization. So even though he was going to swim in a wetsuit and a balaclava and gloves and booties and stuff, he still needed to be acclimatized to the cold as quickly as possible. So I made sure he didn't wear any wetsuits for those swims. You know, he went down to Plymouth. Every time he did a rowing session, he got into the water without his wetsuit on. So he was really acclimatizing. Himself. And I was so impressed with how dedicated he was to that because he was the most worried about the cold. He absolutely hates cold and he was not happy about it at all. But he really just, you know, took it in a stride. And then we added in some open water sessions in his kit so that he felt prepared with the goggles, with the gloves that he was going to use, because we had three or four different pairs and the first pair were terrible from a swimming perspective, so just too big and filled with water. But then a slightly thinner pairs, thinner pair actually worked really well because it meant that he could really grip and he could swim through that kind of stuff. So we kind of worked up his distance swimming start with 600 meters, then 800 meters, then a thousand meters. And then basically the first time he swam a mile straight, 1600 meters was on his challenge day in the cold. Not the coldest. He'd been in a wetsuit before. Um, we'd went when it was just under 5 degrees one day, but we're only in for two minutes. And he swam an incredible swim. Like he swam a mile in half an hour on the dot, which I still can't quite get my head around how well he swam that swim. It was just amazing, fantastic.

And so how, how did you, how. What exactly were you asking him to do to acclimatize him to the cold? Was it literally just, you know, how often was he getting in for how long?

Yes, the consistency is the key. So short, consistent dips is what's going to help your body acclimatize, become habituated to the cold. So the more you do it, the quicker your body will acclimatize to that. Using time is from a safety perspective. Again, I'm going to say this now, a dangerous thing. If someone's ever told you that you should stay in for a minute per degree, please take that out of your memory bank. It is a dangerous, it's well, well thought out, not thought out. It's, well, you know, meaningful advice as a starting point. But it's very dangerous. Everyone is very different. Everyone's ability, where they're at, you know, everyone's different. So to use that as a starting point, you know, if I'd said that to Tom, it's five degrees, you should stay in for five minutes for your first time. He could potentially have died from that. I don't think he would have. But, you know, hypothermia sets in very quickly. I'm not sure you can tell, but I'm really passionate about making sure we get rid of bad advice. And that is again as well meaning as it is, it's bad advice. So time is not helpful. Who you are on that specific day is far more helpful. And there are, especially when the cold is involved, that there are certain things as we as humans interact or interfere with way more than the conditions on the day. So eating is incredibly important. How, how well fueled are you before your swim and post swim? How quickly can you fuel yourself from the cold, how hydrated you are? Again, so hydration is obviously important for our body and the joints, but also from a decision making process, the less hydrated we are, the, the decision making process becomes compromised. Then we have sleep. How well rested are you if you've not slept very well? Again, your, your body is already stressed and then we add a stressor like cold onto your system, your decision making criteria is diminished and then the same finally with stress itself. So if you are quite stressed, if you're stressed already, you had an absolute bend of the night before, you're quite drunk still, you haven't slept well, you're really dehydrated and you feel really sick because you're still basically a bit drunk. It is absolutely not advised to go swimming. And that's why for me, I cannot watch the news post Christmas and Boxing Day where people go and do these Boxing Day dips. I totally see the excitement of it and it can be done safely. But if you're any of those things, you have to adjust the time that you're in the water for. So you might be used to swimming for five minutes in five degrees. But if any of those things are kind of big triggers, then you might only dip for a minute. Because actually that post swim high that you hear so many people talk about, like, oh, I went to more shrimp. I feel amazing on top of the world that actually the process where that high is created is within the first 30 seconds. So the longer you're in doesn't equal the greater the high. It's. It happens pretty much within the first 30 seconds to a minute. Because what happens is it's really interesting. So it's the cold shock response that helps kind of generate that. It helps a shock. Cold shock response is very dangerous. We'll talk about that maybe in a second. But that's where the high is created because you're actively putting yourself under external stress like cold. So you're actively putting yourself into somewhere you know will be cold and will probably burn. But you know it's worth it. So that's kind of part One that helps out our resilience to know that we are actively putting ourselves in a stressful situation, because I know it's worth it at the end. What we tend to do, without even realizing it, is we regulate our breathing as quickly as we can. And that's how we deal with cold shock as quickly as possible, which is, you know, to get your breathing back to normal. Quite often when it's cold, people like this and the breath is really kind of short and they end up hyperventilating themselves. If you don't get your breathing under control and in check. The easiest way to do that is actually to run to the same breathing stuff I talked about earlier. In for three, out for six. The aim is to breathe into your lungs, not just into your neck, neck, and it's that bit. So where we regulate the stress of our body, that's when we. And it's actually, it's the act of breathing out that is a calming trigger for us as humans, which is why the breath out is longer. That is when all those amazing hormones, the endorphins, are released through our body is in that moment. And that literally happens within the first 30 seconds to a minute of us getting into cold water. So the point with that is that high, if you're looking for the high, it can happen really quickly. So the longer you're in doesn't automatically mean the longer the high. The longer you're in actually reduces the high because your body has to work harder to warm you up. And then hypothermia becomes an issue and all that kind of stuff down there. So, yeah, really, really interesting stuff.

This is great news for me. I hate the cold as well. And the fact that 30 seconds is all I need is because I have to admit I see people heading into the sea on whether it's Christmas Day or New Year's Day. And I'm looking at. I'm not really sure, but if I was going to get in at that time of year, it probably would help if I had a load of alcohol still flowing through the bloodstream. Actually, the fact that you've told us this is the worst time to do it, or at least shorten the time, is great advice. What you mentioned there, cold water shock, tell us a little bit more about that and how people can be aware of, you know, the risks of it.

Yeah. So cold shock pretty much happens to everyone. Every time you get into water that's considered cold, which is in the UK, it's deemed as 15 degrees or lower, which basically means that it's cold all the time. There's not many bodies that get higher than that. And it can happen, you know, up to 18 degrees. The reason cold shock, or the cold shock response is really what it's called, it happens, is because of the change in temperature. So on a really warm day in the summer, we can still experience cold shock, that cold shock response, because our temperature outside might be 35 degrees, the water might only be 18, so that's a huge difference in temperature. And what happens with that, like anything else, is that that back part of our brain is triggered and it's fight, flight or freeze. So as humans we are not actually designed to swim that we don't have gills, we don't have that kind of stuff. We are designed to be land based animals and that's because we need constant access to oxygen. So you can see how, you know, putting yourself into a situation like that, your brain might override and go, oh, what are you doing? Get out of here now. And that's kind of when that starts to happen. So that the real danger of cold shock and it's unfortunately, it's one of our biggest cases killers around the UK for, for drowning and deaths. And it's because most people, I think it's something like 80 to 85% of people that drown in the UK never intended to be in the water in the first place. And the reason that you know that, that they die, unfortunately or drown is because they experience that cold shock and don't know what it is, don't know how to deal with it. So the easiest way or what happens then is if you've been in the water quite a few times and you know what happens, your body knows what's coming and you know what's coming, so you automatically regulate your breathing without even realizing it. But a lot of people get quite shocked when I say everyone experiences it every time because when we get in, and even, even at the 15 degree mark, it still feels pretty chilly when you're going in and you're like, this is a bit chilly, that's still cold shock, it's still that response. Obviously the colder it is, the greater the shock response. Now the reason why, again, as I was saying, it's so dangerous is because of how people get in the water. So it's advised never to dive in, especially if it's your first time. Not only because you don't know what's underneath you, but because our natural response to shock is to take a gasp of air in that kind of like when we're Surprised. Now, if your head is underwater when you do that, you will take in the legal or the lethal amount of water to drown. And that's, unfortunately what happens with a lot of people that drown in the UK is because of that, that response, that gasp reflex that happens and people take on water. It's something crazy like it takes. So there's a lady called Dr. Heather Massey, who's the absolute expert on cold water, and Mike Tipton in the uk, both incredible people. And she, she gave me this visual once and I, I'm going to give it to you, you guys now, so you can visualize it as much. And this is why it's so dangerous. I want you to imagine 10 pints of Guinness on a bar. So you imagine 10 pints.

It's sounding good so far.

So far, so good. It doesn't get good in a second. Ten pints again, let's imagine that. Ten pints. Now imagine that, just three pints of Guinness. So those three pints, now that is the lethal amount of water into your lungs. So sorry, the 10 pints is our lung capacity. Start again. So the 10 pints of Guinness, that's how much volume we have in our lungs, which is mind blowing. How great our lung capacity is. It's incredible. So that's the volume of our lung capacity. So let's break it down now to just three pints of Guinness. That is enough to drown. So taking in three pints, Guinness, which is still a lot, totally, it sounds like a lot. That is enough to. That's the lethal limit for drowning or someone's like average gasp. So that, like that bit, which is a really short, quick thing to happen, that for the average person is the equivalent to half of your lung capacity. So that's five pints of Guinness that we can take in in a gasp, which is two pints more than the lethal limit that can take, you know, that can drown you. So it is really, it's a massive thing and it's. That's why for me, you know, it's so important to just give the education to people for this, because it can totally be taken out if you just enter the water feet first, find somewhere that you can get into the water, have your toe float with you. If you can't put your feet on the ground whilst you deal with cold shock, you've got your toe float to kind of lean on for a minute to keep your airways above the water. The more you do that, the more your body habituates itself to knowing what to expect. So that Cold shock response lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes. The first time you get in it'll be two minutes. The second time you get in it'll be 150, 141, 31 minute. And basically you bring it down to that 30 seconds sort of scenario. That's what makes us resilient people as well, is that, you know, the constant bit around that. So there's so many amazing benefits to it, but people need to remember that it's dangerous. But again, there are easy ways of mitigating that danger.

Brilliant. Well, and you know, if 80% of the people that drown didn't intend to be in the water in the first place, then of course this isn't. It isn't for them they're gradually getting in piece, is it? It's the fact that if they've been out open water swimming elsewhere, then they train their body to do this, which means that then if they do end up in the water accidentally, they don't have that same reaction, which is fantastic. If, I mean, we all know that, you know, there's amazing health benefits for the cold and open water swimming and the community around it. But also to be able to reduce that, that drowning figure would be, would be another amazing benefit from it. It seems ironic that more people swimming in open water would lead to less drowning. But, but, but, yeah, amazing advice. Thank you. I always, I'm conscious that we're running out of time here, but I always ask everybody for a book recommendation. Now, before I ask for yours, I'm actually going to give one out to the listeners because when you were talking about the fear of deep water and open water and Jaws and all that stuff, I remember buying a book for my daughters because one of them, the elder of the two, had a real fear of being in the water for those reasons. And an Aussie friend of mine recommended a book which I think was called the Deep. And it's an Australian book that is a child's book, but it was all about helping her understand that actually there wasn't scary things there that were trying to eat you. And it was brilliant. And now she's qualified as an open water diver and really, really happy with it all and loves the water. But it is a fantastic book. If anybody's got children and they're worried about being in the sea, it's a great book recommendation for me. But are there any books that you found really brilliant that you would recommend, you find yourself recommending to people or books that you found really influential in your swimming or in anything else, really.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not a massive book person. I never really. I really struggle to read books. I think I'm like, there's something dyslexia in there somewhere. It takes me ages to read. So it's got to be a book I really, really love. But what I do love about the world of open water swimming is its community. And actually the book that I was really taken by was Wild Swimming Stories. So there's a couple of different versions. There's Wild Swimming Scotland and England and Wales. Now it's not. Not only is it a really cool guide to, you know, it's a book version of the app, I guess, in a way. You know, swimming locations around the country, but it also really goes into the people that swim there and the locals that swim there and the communities that are created as a result of people taking up open water swimming. And that's the stuff that gets me hooked in the stories, people stories. And, you know, seeing how they got to it, why they've done it, where they do it, what it's helped them to do. Now, that's the kind of stuff that I absolutely love. So, yes, there's Wild Swimming Stories Scotland, Wild Swimming Stories England and Wales, and then actually the precursor book to those two because they're done by the same authors. The precursor that is called Take the Plunge, which again is kind of probably that first step if someone's unsure about it, but they don't really know. I think there's a bit of safety in that stories, why it's helpful, that kind of stuff. And Take the Plunge is another really good book.

Fantastic. They sound brilliant. And I will be checking those out. And I totally buy into the whole stories piece around it with we down in Cornwall, we occasionally see the blue tits out swimming somewhere. If ever there was a great name for a club, that is it. I think that's fantastic. But obviously Rick Stein went and swam with them as well. That community piece and you know, through Covid, the communities that were created by just going and swimming with people you wouldn't normally swim with in places that you would have never dreamt of, swimming is a wonderful thing. Kerryanne, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. There has been so much great advice in there, but it's an inspirational story just to kind of understand more about what you've achieved through your swimming career, but also then to see how you're now creating this amazing open water swimming community through training coaches. So thank you so much for your time and I Wish you well with the Swim Wild app, which by the time the podcast goes out, we should be able to put the details in the show notes.

Yeah, definitely.

If you want to find out more.

About Kerrianne on Instagram, she is kerriannpain. On Twitter, she's kerryannpain. Straightlineswimming.com is the best place to find her there. And also, if you like the sound of that app, it's wild open water dot com. All of those links are in the show notes. So, Clare, what did you make of the interview with Kerryanne Payne?

Yeah, it was, it was really interesting, actually, and really interesting to kind of listen to kind of something different from sort of triathlon as well. I know we have a number of athletes and people that come and speak, but it was, it was really interesting to talk about open water swimming. And also, you know, with the big rise in wild swimming and open water over Covid, you know, there's so many people that have taken it up now as well. And that kind of came across in her teaching, but also in the water safety part of it as well. She gave us so much, didn't she, in that interview, in terms of her background and, you know, her competing and teaching and things as well?

Yeah, I think there was really good advice in there in terms of the safety stuff and kind of enjoying the open, you know, embracing open water swimming, but in enjoying it safely because it is, it is a daunting thing for many people, but it's also very easy, particularly in Covid when we were like, well, the swim pools are shut, therefore I must swim somewhere, you know, and, and you just making up as you go along, really. So actually, I think, I think there's a lot of good advice there. And I also really like the race tactics stuff like the, the ducking under the water and getting rid of a. Changing colored caps to avoid the. Avoid the rabble that we're trying to get, beat her off the front. So that whole race tactics stuff is really interesting. And there was some of that, that we could relate to triathlon as well, wasn't there?

No, absolutely. Like the swimming and they're swimming in a pack. Definitely. Yeah. But yeah, I think, yeah, one of the biggest things that came across is like what she's trying to do with like teaching, teaching other coaches and making, you know, if you're swimming out outside in the open water, actually know, know what you're doing. You'll get a coach to kind of help you do it as well. Because you're absolutely right, you know, and I've. I've swim outdoors for years, but I was exactly the same in Covid. And being sort of based in Birmingham, we don't have. Actually, we do have some really nice lakes, but the closest one, because at the time where we weren't allowed to go that far when the lakes. Well, there was a lake open, but I think it was known for having blue algae. I was like, can I get in? Can I not? And it was like pretty disgusting water. But we were just like wanting to get in, weren't we? And, I mean, I was fine, but, you know, knowing those things, you know, and her talking about sort of the app and things with kind of knowing where to. To swim as well.

Yeah, and. And what? Given that you've just done a bit of swimming in South Africa, you should have been doing more swimming in South Africa. What did you make of. What did you make of her comments around the pros and cons of seeing wildlife in the water?

Yeah, I totally get that. And I'm. I'm kind of with you on the sense that if I can see it and I'm with it, like, if I went diving, I could see it. I feel totally different than if I'm at the top of the water and it's underneath me. But I. I think you have to be. When you're swimming in open water, I think you have to be very aware and very respectful of the water. But also that you. There is a part of, especially racing, there's a part of it that they're not going to put you in the water if there's loads of risk either. I mean, that typical of South African race. Like, it was too rough. We didn't go in, say. Yeah, I think it was really interesting. And when she was speaking obviously about South Africa, that was interesting. Like, obviously being here at the moment with talking about the sharks and the shark nets and everything else. When she was talking about the boys, I was like, yeah, actually, I think we might swim beyond the boys in the race.

Well, funnily enough, I'm listening to Billy Connolly's book at the moment. Windswept and interesting. And he was doing a load of. He was starting to get into open water swimming when he was in Australia. I think it was because Pamela Stevenson, his wife, is an Aussie and. And he said, what's really irritating though, is, is all these bloody car alarms that you can hear while you're swimming. Don't know why the car alarms keep going off. Pamela's like, car alarms. Those are shark alarms. Well, funnily enough, he did. He didn't do much open water swimming after that.

Oh, is that where they are? I didn't know that either.

Yeah, yeah. So you could hear the shark. When you're in the water, you can hear the shark alarms are out there because they have alarm. I think in South Africa they actually have shark nets from what I remember years ago. But the alarms I think are therefore to try and keep the sharks away from the nets. But, but I think that, yeah, the difficulty with open water swimming is that there's so much time to think and therefore there's plenty of time to kind of have those jaws. You know, moments kind of escalate in your mind. Whereas actually, you know, I've done a lot of swimming and diving and everything, you know, and spent a lot of time in the water. And other than that one jellyfish sting which wasn't very nice, you know, I've, I've. Well actually did have a trigger fish bite me once right in the. In between my thumb and my index finger. Little swine. But other than that I've kind of got away scot free. So I think if you respect your environment, you shouldn't have too much issue.

When you were talking about swimming with jellyfish, actually when I raced in Sweden, when Sweden, Ironman was the first year they did that in Kalmar, there were little pink, tiny, like I don't even know what kind of jellyfish they were. They're like pink fluorescent small, like saucer sized and you could see them in the water. We still swam but they literally my face was tingling as we were swimming. It was unreal. I don't know what they were but like you could, you could see them one swimming through. You couldn't really feel them. So I don't really know the jellyfish. There's loads of different jellyfish, aren't there? But yeah, they're like little like. Yeah. Tingling sensation on your face and afterwards, like after the race.

Yeah, I think, I think, I think most of most jellyfish are, you know, it's more, it's more like a nettle sting, isn't it?

And some don't.

I mean we get a lot in the summer you get a lot in Cornwall and you can have days where. But I always think the little purpley ones, fine. It's the one with the long tentacles you really don't want to swim into because that's, that's where you're picking the spines out of your face. So anyway, it's been great catching up. Congratulations again on, on racing South Africa and dealing with horrible.

Conditions.

Yeah, exactly. Well done for exporting the weather and. Yeah. So keep up the training. When's it? When's the next race? A month. So, yeah, they're coming. Coming. Thick and fast. Thick and fast. Excellent. Well, good luck with the training. And for everyone else, keep on training. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do review it and share it, because it helps other people find what we think is really valuable learning lessons from amazing athletes. So please do that. You can also find the whole back catalogue@tribathlon.com and you can also find out about the Tribeathlon app, which helps people find events. Find people to train with and enjoy their events through their tribe. So check out tribathlon.com.

Sa.