Swim for Tri with Dan Bullock

Foreign. Tribathlon podcast Finding out how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

It's like a wind tunnel, you know, learning to swim against a current that is that much denser, you know, the water flowing around you can really punish you. So in terms of naturally teaching you swim technique, I think they're fantastic.

That was Dan Bullock and this episode is Swim for Try. Hello, welcome to the Tri Bathroom Podcast. Charlie Redding here and I'm without a co host this week. I haven't got quite organized in terms of lining up the co host I would have liked. So it's just me but I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a couple of things. First thing is that I just have run this last weekend the London Marathon. It's only my second organized marathon. I've run a few marathons as part of Ironman's or just on my own, but it's my second proper marathon. The first one being the the Brighton Marathon which was my actually my first marathon where I snuck at just under four hours, can't remember exactly the time but it was two years ago and it was in the lead up to Ironman Italy as part of my training for that. And it was a brilliant experience but I have to say London was a step beyond. I absolutely loved it. The atmosphere was incredible. Met some wonderful people, ran with some incredibly inspiring people. A double amputee, people running in rhino outfits, trees, a guy in his budgie smugglers called Tom. Just amazing atmosphere. The crowd was incredible. The kind of music along the way was amazing. It was just such a brilliant experience. Definitely a bucket list race and inspired me to go and do more and more marathons as well as things like the Ironmans and stepping towards the ultras soon. So it really was an incredible race as I'm sure you don't need me to say because everybody you know has seen it and knows it. But if you haven't, if you're having any kind of doubt, I just say try and get in because it is a monumental day, one that you will never forget and one that will inspire you to train harder. I set out at the start of the year to do my. Two of my two fitness goals for the start of the year were to do an ironman in under 11 hours. And despite the torrential rain and 40 mile an hour winds, I managed to do Ironman Talon in under under 11 hours in 10:52 and then also I did. My second goal was to do a sub 3:30 marathon and despite running 27.17 miles, so nearly a mile More than an actual marathon, I still managed to get in at 3. 28, which was really pleasing. If only I could have was able to run in a straighter line, I might have even got that down by a significantly bigger chunk. It was my fastest half marathon within that time. So that was really good. It does show you the power of setting goals. I was actually sitting in the pub afterwards. Well, actually amazing experience. I walked into a pub near London Bridge having finished the marathon and the whole pub erupted in a round of applause and cheering because I'd got my medal on which, you know, it was just brilliant. They were doing it for every marathon run of the walk in and it was a real moment that made me choke up a little bit. It was, it was incredible. Anyway, I was sitting there having my roast beef and a pint of real ale, thinking back to the chapter in the Charlie Spedding book, which is called A Beer Drinkers Guide to Sports Psychology. And I was sitting there drinking my nice pint of real ale, thinking about the fact that he was at that point writing down very specific goals and, and ultimately those are the goals he ended up achieving by getting the bronze medal in the LA Olympics. And I was sitting there thinking, right, I've. I've done my two main goals which is the sub 11 and the sub three and a half. And also I had a third goal which was to do a sub five half and I did the Vitruvian in 4:52, I think it was. So it is amazing the power of sitting there and writing goals and being specific. So smart goals, as they say, smart means specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and a time frame. And so by writing goals out regularly and being very specific with them, you're much more likely to achieve the things that are important to you. And definitely Sunday was one of those things for me, completing a bucket list race in my goal time, which was absolutely brilliant. The other thing I was going to talk to you just briefly about on this intro is a few of the books I've been reading lately. Obviously the Charlie Spedding book I've mentioned before, but I really love that from last to first. Lovely book. I particularly like the chapter A Beer Drinker's Guide to Sports Psychology that I think was a fantastic chapter, but a few other books I've been reading. First one was Super Forecasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. Gardner that was actually recommended to me on this podcast by Malcolm Brown, the Brownlee's coach. And it's a really good book. It's got Some really interesting takes on statistics and looking at the numbers and and so was a really fascinating book. Another book which is not sport related at all, but it is about health and happiness and health, wealth and happiness, is the Almanac of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen. Now, Naval Ravikant is a very, very phenomenally successful entrepreneur, but also a modern day philosopher. And he puts that philosophy out mostly through Twitter and through his blog. And Eric Jorgensen has consolidated his best work and put it into a book called the Almanac of Naval Ravikant. And there is so much brilliant wisdom in this book, so many good pieces of advice. One that just struck a chord with me, which is something I've talked about in my financial planning business before, but never really quite so succinctly, is the fact that ultimately there's the three things that we're trying to get, isn't there? There's health, wealth and time. And really what we want in our young, in our younger years. So in our 20s and 30s, we have loads of time, we have loads of health, but we don't have the money to do what we want in our midlife, in our 40s to our 60s, let's say we have money and we have health, but we don't have the time. We're time poor. And then in our later years we have money, we have time, but we don't have the health to do the things that we want to do. And so really hitting the sweet spot of life is trying to get to a point where you've got all three. So you've got time, you've got money and you've got your health. And if you can crack getting all those three at the same time, you've achieved amazing things. The third book I've just finished reading recently was a book called Lifespan why We Age and why we don't have to, by Dr. David Sinclair and Matthew D. Lepante. Or LaPlante, sorry, LaPlante. Matthew D. LaPlante. And that is a fantastic book in terms of understanding aging as a disease rather than just as something that happens to us all and what we could do to stop it and even sometimes reverse it. Brilliant book. Really recommend you checking that out if you're interested in health in any way, shape or form. And then the final one, which is probably more in line with what you would expect me to be talking about on the Tribathlon podcast, but is also a brilliant book, is Relentless by Alasdair Brad Brownlee. And you know, it's looking at the lessons that we can learn from a range of different sports, whether it be from Ronnie o' Sullivan or to Ian Poulter to David or, sorry, Dennis Irwin. It is just a brilliant if you love sport, you will love reading Relentless. There's so many wonderful interviews with incredible sports people and so many brilliant lessons to take from it. So anyway, in the absence of a formal co host, I hope there's giving you some that's given you things that you might want to go out and check out or some inspiration to do something A Bucket list race for next year and so let's crack on with the rest of the podcast. Dan Bullock is an accomplished swimmer and triathlete, being a national Masters Open water champion in 2008 and a former British age group record holder for the 800 meters. But he now spends his time running a business called Swim for Tri, the Swim Improvement Specialists. Dan knows triathlon inside out and particularly how we can improve the swim leg of our triathlon or just our swimming in open water or in the pool in general. So I got the chance to chat to Dan about how we can improve our technique, how we can swim better in those tricky open water conditions like for example I got in Tallinn where we're swimming in a Murky Lake with 40 mile an hour winds creating a hideous amount of chop. How we can swim train during lockdown. Let's hope we never need it again. But just in case or if you're traveling, it's good to know how you can maintain your swim fitness whilst being unable to swim and the difficulty of being a good runner and a swimmer. And we also got to talk about how podcasting has helped him and me get through lockdown as well as helping his clients get through lockdown. So so much brilliant Stu in this conversation that I know you're going to enjoy with Dan Bullock of Swim4Try. Today's show is brought to you by Precision Hydration, who help athletes personalize their hydration and fueling strategies so they can perform at their best. They work with a long list of incredible athletes, including multiple 70 points 3 champions, Sam Appleton and Sarah Crowley. You check out their details@precisionhydration.com and that also includes details of their Quick Carb Calculator to help you understand how much carbohydrate you need per hour to perform at your best. So they're trying to do for fuelling what they've already done for hydration. And as a listener of the show, you can get 15% off your first order of electrolytes or fuel using the code Tribeathlon15 at the checkout. Dan, welcome to the Tribeathlon podcast. Really looking forward to having a chat with you and learning loads about swimming. So to kick things off for those people that don't know much about you, do you want to tell people a little bit about how you got into swimming and your successes over your swimming career?

Good morning, Charlie. Thank you for having me on. Gosh, I turned 50 last year and just reflecting back, swimming has just been a family thing, a whole life thing. We were fortunate that I think we started because my mum was not a strong swimmer, so my sister and I went for swimming lessons. It was like a Friday night treat from a very, very young age. And my dad was quite good. So we picked it up quite quickly at a young age. I mean, we, you know, for all those triathletes that didn't swim as a youngster, here's a good bit of fortune. We started young and the longer you leave it, it is going to get trickier. But so it was a Friday night treat. We would go on a weekly basis. Some of the lifeguards noticed we were doing quite well, suggested we joined a club. And it grew from there, really. It took. We were in Northeast London, Essex County Championship, Southern Counties at Crystal palace, trips overse. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to a really good sort of school in Somerset. Private school that had a swim squad, very well known, very, very strong swim squad, a scholarship to the US and this was all pure pool swimming. I hadn't even heard of triathlon at this time. I was doing okay with running. Some of the coaches I worked with were quite enlightened and we were doing a lot of dry land and mobility work and stretching and cross training, some run. But it sort of felt, it seemed like the. At 16, there was sort of. I was running quite a lot with the school because I was fit from swimming and I sort of had to make a decision. And I'd won medals at junior nationals. And so swimming was really. This was 1986, so triathlon still was not popular or well known. So it wasn't much of a decision really. You know, swimming was on them, on the cards. A good friend had followed the same trajectory. He was a few years older, he'd gone to Millfield School, he'd gone to the US on scholarship and I was kind of following his progress. So there was this little moment that running was popular. I did quite well at school, cross country, but triathlon just wasn't strong enough to lure me away at that point. Even if we had heard of it and it had been an option. So then followed an amazing four years in the US swimming conference champion over 500 yards free. So long distance front crawl was my thing. I had a good engine. Olympic trials in 88 and 1992, they went quite well. Although at this point, speaking to some of our psychology, sports psychologists, I sort of wish I'd had known more back then that I was very much a team player and representing my school and the university, I really performed well. But coming back to the British Olympic trials as a solo swimmer, I struggled to create that enthusiasm. So you know, looking back, I can see where I didn't do as well, which is a bit frustrating. But you know, I can hardly complain. I got scholarships, I traveled the world, it was amazing and it set me on this path to long distance swimming. And I wonder if long distance open water had been an event back then because I had this great engine and a reasonable alternate speed in the pool. Not a bad sprinter, but really a good engine. I could have done well at the 10k in open water and this would have been. But it just wasn't there. We know open water didn't appear until Beijing in 2008. So I was, I definitely hung up my serious goggles by then. I started work actually as a sound engineer and it was quite glamorous. Meeting celebrities at a Soho sound studio in London and most people probably would have given their right arm for this sort of position. But I was still sports focused and minded. And by now 1997 London TRI was becoming a bit more well known. I know Ironman was well established but you know, that seemed like a very extreme thing back then. So sadly we just lost my father to lung cancer. McMillan were advertising for competitors to represent raise money at the London Trine 1997 and that was my first go. I thought, you know, I can swim, biking's not bad and I used to run but by now I'd become a more mature swimmer with the shoulders and the super mobility. Thinking back to what I used to do as a 16 year old and now, you know, being mid, late 20s, you know, my running was horrible. My fitness got me around a 10k, not too bad. But a few years later I found out that a marathon was. And if you notice very few good, good swimmers make the transition to triathlon. It's a, it's, it's quite rare and I mean, you know, it's, there's a couple well known at the moment and we can talk about that later and more if you, if you've got a mind for sort of what makes a good swimmer into triathlon perhaps, but. But yeah, my super mobility of ankles and broad should. It looked like a. I looked like a giraffe stumbling around the docklands off the bike. So. But I enjoyed it. You know, for someone that, you know, after thousands and thousands of meters of swimming up and down, looking at the black line, to be on a bike, to be running, to be open water, this was a whole new world. It was amazing. And it sort of started from there really. A few years of doing Olympic distance. Some people started asking, you know, how do you swim like that. I was exiting the water pretty high and my sister and I, she was already a swim teacher and I had this sort of background in sound, video, audio from the studio work and so I would take cameras to some lessons we got going was sort of bit cheeky. I was doing editing and making DVDs which is quite groundbreaking if you think of it like over 20 years ago. Underwater analysis clients were getting DVDs and it blossomed from there really. And there was enough traction that eventually we quit our real jobs and Swim4Try launched.

Fantastic. And what do you think your highlight of your swimming career was?

Gosh, as a pure swimmer or what? I. Okay, so if you can imagine the enthusiasm for swimming in the US and at a collegiate level and then you've got these dual meet, it's very different to racing in the uk, you know, where Saturday night you'd go to Speedo League gala, represent your club, kind of have a fun evening out. But here, you know, money is generated from the football team packing the stadiums and you know, that pace of scholarships and if you don't perform in the, in your sport, they get a little bit irritated. So the enthusiasm and the dedication, I mean, I swam so far. When I arrived, it really opened my eyes, you know, but I mean to have a 50 meter pool on, on site, 200 meters from our halls of residence. I did. I realized that I'd had fun up to this point, but suddenly it was another level. And I'd already been to like the British olympic trials in 88. And then I arrived in the US and so we hadn't beaten Eastern Michigan in a dual meet in sort of in 20 years. And we had a pretty strong team forming. I'd recruited a young swimmer from Sheffield, he came over with me and we had this opportunity to beat Eastern Michigan and the coach brought in all these old alumnus old swimmers and the pep talks were there, the marching band was on the poolside. And if you can imagine the excitement it's coming down to, we're getting very. It basically got three quarters of the way through the dual meet. I'm swimming the 500 yard free. It's my best event. If I win this because of the way the point structure is organized, Eastern Michigan can't catch us. We win the dual meet at this point, even though there's more races to come, they can't catch us. And I'd swum the thousand yards earlier, hadn't felt that great, but the pressure was on. And that's now looking back, that's what I needed. I needed a, a team, a commitment, a reason. And I was, I was struggling to find that as an individual summer, you know, even though it was the Olympic trials, which is a bit disappointing, but I won the 500 yard free. The building erupted. We'd beaten Eastern Michigan. You know, the alumni were there. I'd rather go to prison than lose against such, you know, like these were old gentlemen in their 60s and 70s back then that had won in that prior era. And that just always sticks with me, that I helped end that dominance. So that was a remarkable day for the team. But I also swam really, really well.

It's interesting, isn't it, performing as a team? Obviously we just had the Ryder cup and not long before that the Collins Cup. And it's very interesting how people perform differently in a team environment than they do in an individual sport. So maybe that's something we come back to. What was your highlight of your triathlons?

I actually took it quite serious around 2000, 2001, the age group championships were. There was Europeans to Holland. My first world age group champs was in Edmonton, Canada. So I was taking it quite serious. I had a very flexible job, I was traveling. I'd enjoyed my time in the U.S. i left the sound studio. I was now working for a software company that sort of. Most of the DVDs you've ever watched will have been transferred onto, from the master disc, onto the disc. So it was, it was a really exciting time. And so I was traveling back and forth to golden, to San Francisco, where the headquarters were racing for Golden Gate Tri. Telling my boss I needed to come over for more training. Not elaborating that I meant triathlon training. He thought it meant, you know, training software on the job. And I was racing, you know, Escape from Alcatraz, Wildflower, all those amazing west coast races that you might have heard about. So, you know, I was really into it back then and having a lot of fun Traveling Cancun was a world age group champs. That was hard, that was hot. But I actually won my first sprint overall outright which for somebody that ran so not so well, I mean I wasn't bad. But you know, if you can swim 18 minutes, bike an hour, you know, 40, 41 minutes is not really on a par, is way off the pace. You know, my swim, I could have maybe joined a few elite races but then once they'd have dropped me on the bike and then I would have been kicked off. But I won a sprint in Thursyfield. It was luckily it was a pool swim so I got a good lead with the tumble turns and a lack of wetsuit obviously hindered a lot of the pure triathletes and I hung on for the win. So that was quite special.

Fantastic. And it's funny actually, an old school friend of mine who was doing Ironmans long before I was but has actually, I think he's fallen off the perch on it at the moment. But he's a very, very strong swimmer as well. And it always makes me laugh that he comes out the water in sort of of third or fourth place and then he spends the duration of the bike and the run being overtaken by other people, which psychologically must be really tough. You know, it's so lovely to, to be overtaking people when you're racing but just to have this constant stream of people coming past you. Would you concur?

Oh absolutely. My first Ironman was Lake Placid in 2003 and this was at a time when the pros might have had like a hundred meter head start in the water and then we waded in off of the bank. So I mean they were, they were away, they were gone and we were chasing and I sort of weaved through, caught quite a few of them eventually and exited quite high. And then after that and actually I think it was. I've still got the footage somewhere. Phil Liggett is commentating and I'm sure he said something like, you know, and here's an unknown up here. Maybe he only did like one lap of the swim but you know, and then sort of the pro women were exiting and there's me sort of looking very amateurish, wandering around what to do, not sure what to do, where to go since transition was so huge. And then I think about 1500 people overtook me the rest of the day. So yeah, I was guilty of that, not working on my weaknesses.

Yeah, it must be, is there. You obviously coached a lot of swimmers in the triathlon. World, Is there anything you, you kind of talk to them about that concept of just, you know, dealing with, you know, being fast out the water and overtaken thereafter?

I mean, yeah, it's, psychologically it is quite, it is quite depressing really. I mean it's exciting for a while. You're thinking, oh, maybe this will be the day. I, I chop an hour and a half off my marathon and I'm competitive, like no, no, no. But you know, you've got, if it's planned well in advance, you know, you can relax back on the swim and you know, you should really. But this is one of the beautiful, the beauties of triathlon, you know, where my super mobile ankles give me a good kick. I run like, you know, I swim like a fish and run like a duck and my feet and ankles are all over. So what do I do? Do I tighten up, do some exercises, some strength and conditioning to make my running better and lose my swim or do I persevere with being very average on the run? You know, these are discussions and it depends on what I mean. I've taught do athletes how to swim better and become pro ironman. And these are interesting debates you have. You know, we all know you can't win the race, the triathlon, on the swim. Obviously if it goes particularly bad, you may not be allowed to continue in its worst case scenario. So, you know, some emphasis has to be placed on the swim and it has an important role and you know, I hope people take it seriously enough that you know, on the bike or the run, if I cramp, if I am unhappy, I can sit down and rest in the water with lots and lots of people around you. It's a very scary place. So I hope people put the emphasis in to at least have a safe, enjoyable swim. You know, a lot of people can wing it and get through but I doubt they'd enjoy it and I doubt they'd want to do it again. So, you know, depending on who it is, where they are, work on your weaknesses. Definitely. If you want to be a well rounded, enjoy the sport, repeat, come back and do it again. That's all, that's all very important.

I mean, I've heard it said that the swim is the journey to the race, to the real race. You know, the race begins on the bike. But you are right in that it actually is the most intimidating part of the triathlon for the majority people, isn't it?

I think so, definitely, definitely. You know, we, for many years we hired the serpentine Hyde park and there was a Run up to the London try. And with two weeks to go, people still were not happy about their wetsuit chafing and goggles leaking. And it was frustrating that people weren't taking this as seriously as they should. I mean, they were paying my wages, so it was hard to be too down on them. But this is that the docks are a very large, intimidating, cold body of water. And here were people jumping in to swim a mile. You know, in the world of Olympic swimming, in the pool, a mile is like the longest distance we race. And here is the starting point of a bike and a run event, the triathlon. And people were just sort of very, very sort of relaxed about it. And that was. I mean, it was frustrating that if they'd come two months earlier, we could have really ironed out all these problems.

Is there any advice you give people that do find. Because it's not the. The body of open water is definitely one of the things that intimidates people, but it's also the triathlon start particular, where you've got arms and feet flying everywhere. Is there anything that you. Any advice you give people as to dealing with that, particularly the start and the. And the fear of that triathlon swim.

It never ceases to amaze me that. Well, from race to race, obviously the depth of competition and the quality of athlete, obviously it's hard to know if you're a regular on the. You know, when I was racing Olympic distance, I would look at my age group and I'd literally know who the good swimmers were, who to follow, where the bikers were on the start line, and so on. I think now it's so such a big sport, such a wide range of races, it's hard to have that. But, you know, if you're a strong swimmer but nervous, you should still be towards the front of the pack. And I know there's lots of different race formats now that are changing this to try to make things a little less intimidating. And again, that's another argument. Is that taking away from the spirit of the original sport? Maybe that's a discussion for another time. But I've seen good swimmers nervous, stay at the back of the pack and then struggle to meander through, you know, the people that weren't sure that went in the middle. And that's dangerous because you've got big kicks and strong bones in the heels and you're jamming fingers in. You know, I. It's a bit old hat now, but, you know, starting wide, if you're not sure, if you start wide and look you know, if it's a clockwise course, you know, start wide to the left so that even if you are faster than the pack, you will merge in and sort of join later on as it dies down. If it's anti clockwise, start to the right and so on. If it's sort of some sort of oval, you know, in our pool sessions, in our training camps in our lakes, we recreate this in small groups. You know, first of all, it's not even drafting. It is just swimming slightly uncomfortable, shoulder to shoulder with your neighbor. And then once you add 10, 15, 20 people beyond the immediate people, you know, it kind of your brain registers and accepts that, okay, well that's, that's what this is. I mean, something simple though. It's funny, isn't it? You watch the start of the London. You're doing the London Marathon this weekend, aren't you? And I know you've got a different sort of start category system there as well. But if you lay flat, if you lay flat at the start of the swim and sort of a little bit of sculling to hold you in position, a little bit of kicking to balance you and just hold, people sort of give you that space and you're already horizontal. So when the gun goes, you're in the swimming position, treading water vertically, people nudge up behind you and you're closer. Suddenly the gun goes. Everyone wants to get horizontal and it's chaos. And it's funny that when you start a marathon, people walk and until it unfolds a little bit and you get the space and then it's a casual jog. I mean, I'm not talking about the elites at the front. That's different. But you know, when you're in those packs and in the pens and on. Is that right? You just walk for the most part until it opens out. The gun goes. In a swim or the start of a triathlon and it's carnage. I don't understand why people want to start so fast. Give yourself some space, start wide, lay flat. People look and think, oh, this person knows what they're doing. I mean, you may not once the gun goes, but at least you've given yourself a little bit of breathing room and that might just help a little bit.

Yeah, I think that's, that's great advice. I think, Yeah, I can, I can see that, that, you know, that would. And I also wonder if lying in the water will, would be more calming, you know, whether it's, you know, because one of the other pieces of advice I've picked Up lately is at the start of the scrim. Focus on your breathing because you know, from a mindful point of view you can, you know, once you focus on your breathing, it's, you know, kind of, of very calming, isn't it?

We, we focus in training, we recreate something called mid race cruise because unavoidably, with the best will in the world, the excitement, most people start too fast. So you've got to get to that first boy and learn to calm it down, get the breathing back under control. Hopefully you've done a good dry land warm up to preempt that impact on the body of swimming. Too fast to start with, solid dry land will get the blood flow, get the breathing going, get you warm and you know, swinging the arms, you know, some, some simple arm movements will just really, really help. And once you get to the first boy, you must calm down, run a little diagnostic, check the areas of the technique that might have escaped from the excitement. And we do a lot of that, you know, break up 400 meters into 100 meters fast and then 300 meters mid race cruise where we run a diagnostic, get the technique, calm it back down to your normal breathing pattern so that you can then sustain that whether it's another half a mile, a mile, 3.8 K or whatever. But you know, breathing is all important. Getting warm, getting ready and practicing in training. You know, if you're taking this quite seriously, you know, these races are too expensive now to, you know, be pulled out at the first boy. I mean, heaven forbid I would have thought that's got to be the most, most upsetting thing you could. That could happen now.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And when I did Ironman Tallinn over the summer, we had beautiful weather the two, two or three days I was in Tallinn before the race. Beautiful weather for the couple of days I was in Tallinn after the race. But on race day we had 40 mile an hour winds and torrential rain. So clearly the rain didn't make any impact on the swim. But bearing in mind that the swim is in a lake now as opposed to the sea, as I think it used to be. It was, it was actually quite, it was more choppy than most sea swims and I do quite a lot of sweet sea swimming because of course once you're in the sea swim, once you get beyond the break, it kind of tends to be okay. But it, because it was a lake and because of the wind, it was just that constant chop and you sort of turned into the, into the wave just you know, after say, you know, A few hundred meters and suddenly it was like, wow. Every time you looked up, there was a wave hitting you in the face and you were going straight into it. Is there anything that any advice that you can give around dealing with those sorts of situations? Because I would imagine, I thought at the time, you know, I'm a fairly confident swimmer, but I thought at the time, anybody that's not confident that is swimming in murky water that you can't see your hand in front of your face in and being hit with these waves, it must have been quite a tough swim.

I think honestly, if there's a disadvantage to being a pure swimmer coming into open water, it's that, that it's the environment, it's the weather conditions. You know, you're used to your private little lane following the black line. Beautiful, clinical, calm conditions. And suddenly, I mean, I lived in Devon for a little while and did some sea swimming and some friends in the pool would not be near me. Suddenly in open water was swimming with me because my clinical style, my, you know, my unwillingness to change anything and adapt. I couldn't read the conditions, I couldn't read the current, the chop. Where they had grown up in the area I'd left London and they knew how to read the open water and they knew how to subtle, you know, subtle modifications to their technique. They had the mindset that, you know, we're in open water, it's this huge expanse, don't panic because it will feel like you're not really making any progress because they're, there's very, there's limited sighting markers. It's hard to check your progress. You know, I was used to the calm weather. I had a very clinical pool based stroke and it was a hindrance. So, you know, now being a more adaptable swimmer is if we have a theory or, you know, a mission sort of statement is, you know, become an adaptable swimmer, read the conditions. If it gets choppy, you probably will need to revert to more of a. If you think about the way your hands are related to each other. Learning to swim, it's quite nice to sort of almost adapt a near catch up style. When you're early on in your swimming, it slows things down. You can work on your accuracy. As you get stronger fit and more confident and you want to swim in less than ideal conditions against a current, you've obviously got to be a little bit more looping or with a pure straight arm. I'm really struggling in my shed, sorry. With a straight arm recovery or, you know, the High classic high elbow. Unless you've got excellent rotation and you can really get good clearance. The high elbow has its limitations, which would have worked nicely in the pool. So all these little things coming from the pool into open water, being adaptable, being able to breathe to both sides is absolutely critical. We train bilateral breathing as best we can and that's not just changing, you know, every third. One, two, three, change one, you know, we might do a length, the left, a length to the right. What that does for your swimming technique, you know, the balance, the symmetry stops, bad habits becoming ingrained. But you don't have to be every three. That's sort of old, textbook. We know in open water that there'll be someone there, there'll be the sunrise. There will be. You mentioned Vitruvian earlier and that sunrise is right in front of you, isn't it? If the sun is rising on that particular year, I seem to remember every star right in your face, you know, and as you turn left, there it is. So, you know, if you can breathe away from the waves, the conditions, these are all the open water things that you really need to work on. And if you're in waves, you've got to get clearance. You still need your rotation. If you're not rotating and suddenly you try a high elbow recovery, you're going to grind your shoulders down. So you need to be first and foremost, work on your rotation, learn how to get the shoulder high and then you've got options as to how that arm recovers, depending on the conditions, breathing pattern, the relationship. I mentioned sort of that near catch up early on when you're learning to swim and developing your catch, it's all quite nice. But if you're against a current, you haven't got the opportunity to glide momentarily. You've got to keep one hand in holding while you're recovering. So suddenly the hands are at 180 to each other. So, you know, these are all the subtle things that we work on.

So that's quite interesting actually, because I was just with you talking about the near catch up. It reminded me of a book I read not so long ago called man vs Ocean by Adam Walker. I'm sure you, I'm sure you know of it and his technique is very much, you know, what they call the ocean walker technique, which is very much like catch up, isn't it? But you're, you're suggesting that into a current, actually you're much better off not doing that because you're not going to get any glide. Is that, is that right?

If you're, if you've got the water strong enough and it's, and it's sort of against you, you know, with catch up. With catch up there is, I mean, pure catch up, if you think about is alternating single arms. Yeah. It is literally one arm and then the next arm. So there's a moment when you've got nothing sort of setting your catch. You've got no hold, you've got no recovery. So what's going to happen if the water's bouncing you backwards? Yeah, you're going to go backwards. So, you know, at the very least, at the very least you should sort of have be setting your catch. And if the conditions are good, here's the real lovely complexities. And swimming biomechanically is very hard to measure. And obviously we're all very different in our fitness, in our range of motion, our flexibility. But as a compromise, obviously pure catch up is not effective. As we just stated this, with the hands at 180, it's very demanding. It takes a lot of fitness to keep spinning them. So as a compromise we sort of work on, you know, if I'm entering, but I'm. If you can see that I'm sort of setting my catch. My forearm is vertical, it's in front of the head. I'm a bit crunched up here. Forgive me, but this hand is about to enter. So now I've got an anchor to hold on to and I've got the hips and the kicking and I'm going to switch and twist into my next stroke.

Right.

And that's a nice compromise if the conditions allow that. Allow that.

Okay, fantastic. But this is, this is also highlighting the difficult because we don't use, tend to use the video so much on the podcast. So it's actually quite difficult getting across swim technique on audio, isn't it? And actually I think you're doing an excellent job and maybe that's because you've had the practice of talking about swimming on your podcast. So one of the things that we've got in common is that we both launched a podcast during lockdown. So tell me a little bit about, about why you launched the podcast and obviously tell us the name of it. But what was the driver behind that and what did you get out of it?

We, we wanted to stay in touch with our, you know, my sister and I run swim for try. We've got a small, it's a small swim school. Basically we do one to one lessons. We started, we started with an endless pool. We do one to one lessons. We've now got a traditional pool, which was fortunate because of the rent on a premises during lockdown would have been catastrophic. You know, it's a funny business model. We literally reacted and offered what was asked of us because, you know, back in 2003 when we sort of launched full time, you know, adults learning to swim faster was quite new. It was, you know, if you'd been unfortunate to miss school swimming and you didn't know how to swim, there were options for that. There was master swimming, triathlon was up and coming, but there was very few people teaching adults how to learn to swim faster. So hence we got going. So we got lots of options for helping people to swim. One to one fitness courses. Then people wanted to go to the lake, we had to find a lake. We found Hyde park at one point. We then offered training camps. So got a real nice database of some lovely people. We wanted to keep in touch with them. We were very fortunate that most of our clients because when lockdown hit, we were mid course. So for instance, our fitness courses run on a 12 week cycle each quarter. So at this point we owed a lot of money if everyone, we would have gone out of business if everyone had asked for their remaining courses to be referred funded. So it was a very critical time. But you know, I think we've done a good job. We. Before it was fashionable, we've been running a, you know, a charitable swim. We've helped aid the refugee. We've sort of put out there enough goodwill that it was, it came back to us and it really helped us and we thank everyone that really looked after us. So we wanted to help. So we offered swim tips from the stairwell. So initially it was a little chat, things you could do while you were locked down. I was doing stretch cords. I showed people how to build their own stretch cords out of an old set of paddles and hanging them vertically rather than bending over and sort of trying to do them horizontally. Worked really well with a set of stairs and a banister and actually sort of standing and doing worked a lot better. A lot of people found that really helpful.

Oh, I wish I, I'd been listening following you at that point because I was doing. Yeah, and horizontal is not very good for your back, is it?

It was very uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. So if you haven't got the benefit of a swim bench to prop you up, you know, this worked really well. So we were standing and we were actually just, you know, with an elasticated pulley system with the paddles and we were actually sort of just Doing sessions, half an hour, three lunch times a week. So it was, it was keeping in touch with our clients. And then from there I thought, well, I'm enjoying this. I mean, even, you know, know, because my wife was at home on mat leave. We had the baby. It was hard. It was really hard. You know, no garden, small flat. Now I'm in the shed in the garden. It's fantastic. I feel, you know, really privileged to have this opportunity. But, yeah, so we. From, from that I thought, you know what, Be nice. I've got my old equipment from my old job. I've got a good microphone. I know a little bit about the editing. Why not give this a go? And I was speaking to my old coaching buddies from training camps, from competition. My dear friend Ralph, who I give a hard time, he was best man at my wedding and I went to watch him in the mid-90s do a race. And he claims to have been a novice, you know, a newcomer ever since. So I listened to the interview of.

Ralph, actually, because he, He. He had a. Had a. He did the Vitruvian as well, didn't he?

Yeah, yeah. And. And for. For years have been. He's one of those cheeky ones. He'll come on a. He'll come on a training camp and I'll give him the first part of the swim session. He'll say, you, I'm not doing that. You can't speak to me. I'm not. I'm the, I'm the client. Get in the water and start training. So, you know, it was, it was speaking to. Of colleagues and friends and coaches and learning, as you mentioned earlier, you know, speak to Josie Perry and learn about sports psychology and understand why I enjoyed my racing in the US and why my Olympic trials performances were average. You know, Joe Beer is a wealth of scientific data and I love working with him on the Club La Santa training campus. He's swim expert. Steve True coach is very different. He went to the Olympics in 2000. People love racing for him, training for him, and he brings out the best in a sort of a fatherly sort of way. So, you know, there's all these things and I'm absorbing this via the podcast. It was a real highlight. It was a real highlight, even though it was obviously a crazy time and, you know, it was a stress not being back on poolside and I missed my swimming tremendously. I do. If you listen to Michelle and Susie, Susie Rogers, you know, Olympian at the Paralympics, Michelle Weltman, one of her coaches over the years, I sort of Co coach with Michelle, with the young Paralympians Paralympic swimmers. I'm sorry. And you know, at the Aquatic center, volunteer at the London Disability Swim Club. And that's a great avenue for. For learning. You know, you think it's hard work swimming, and then, you know, you've got like, Jerry, Jerry Ray at one of our young quadra quadriplegic athletes, you know, missing from the elbows down, from the knees down. Watching her swim, butterfly, you know, that. That just reminds you, you know, you're having a bad day. But, you know, once you see that in motion and that beautiful butterfly stroke she's got, you think, you know what? I haven't got much to moan about.

Well, amazing, amazing. So, yeah, yeah, I think with the podcasting, it was it for me. It was a brilliant opportunity to learn lots. But also, we had all this time. Everyone had time you could get. You know, I definitely found it was easier getting guests at that point because I'd got more time, they've got more time. Maintaining it is still is more of a challenge now that real life has resumed.

Yeah, guilty. I've not. I don't think I've done one this year. And I must. I must get on because I've got some. Got some people to speak to. I'd love to catch up with them. You know, Joe and I have been talking about the January triathlon camp. And, you know, the perfect way to tell people about that is, you know, every week, oh, sorry, can, you know, my wife's on call, he's not at nursery, He. Joe's got family. And then you're just like, oh, it's been two months and we're trying to track everyone down and it's hard, I.

Know, but I think we all need to be a little bit. It's actually something I was talking about on a business workshop I do called Strategic Coach. And, you know, in lockdown, we had loads of times. So me and actually several other people that were on the call at the time had all bought guitars during lockdown and we were learning a guitar for the first time. And guess what? None of us have picked up our guitars for the last three months ever since we have a lift. Has to be a little bit understanding of the fact that, you know, we did have a lot more time on our hands than, you know, we have now that real life has resumed, haven't we? So I think we need to be a little bit forgiving of ourselves.

But definitely, definitely. Sorry, go on. I mean, on a Tuesday, I would leave the house at 5:30 I'd get to poolside for our first fitness session of the day, then I'd do some admin, do some one to ones in the afternoon, make my way across to London Bridge, having started out at London Fields and be home sort of by 9, 9 o'. Clock. I mean that was a, that was my longest exceptional day. But you think, right, and then suddenly I'm waking up, not really allowed out of the house. There's no commute, there's no pool time. I've got my laptop, got my stretch cords. How am I going to fill my day?

There's only so much time you can spend with those stretch cords, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

One of the other things that blossomed in lockdown was open water swimming. You know, so many people got into it myself, you know, we were, we were a group of us going off and swimming in the river Neen, which I'd never done before and absolutely loved. It was, it was good camaraderie, good for keeping the swim technique going. What were your thoughts and experiences around that open water swimming blossom?

I think maybe it was a mistake, but I think the wording allowed wild swimming and so suddenly everyone was jumping into rivers and then suddenly the open water swimming community that had been doing it for years were a little bit alarmed about the dangers. You know, swimming is wonderful, but it is dangerous. Let's not be, be, let's not make light of that. And you know, sadly, people drown. It happens, you know, in a, in a river, a canal, there's, it's hard to know what's underneath, you know, shopping trolleys to get caught on branches. Who knows? I mean, you know, we're not talking about a beautiful clean stream in the Lake District here, are we? You know, so there are, there are dangers and I think people once allowed to go and you know, people that were swimmers that were so excited to go and do some swimming, you know, I hope everyone just did it safely and carefully and you know, once we were allowed to open our lake, which sort of, there was a real tricky time because I remember this, the government wording was, you know, ticketed events still weren't allowed and obviously people purchase because we have to pay to hire a lake. People don't, sadly, don't get to swim for free because we don't get to hire it for free. So, you know, there's this whole circle. So we hadn't opened the lake until this tick titty vent thing was released and then obviously the lake owner had to be happy to let us in. And there was restrictions and Covid restrictions and we need to be careful. But once that happened, we were really excited and pools were still closed. So we were offering sort of four swims a week. And we met, I would have thought originally probably 80% of our swimmers were triathletes. Suddenly they were in the minority. We had people just casually breaststroking round. We had youngsters coming that hadn't been before. We had club swimmers, young club swimmers coming that obviously wanted to maintain their swim fitness because they hadn't been in a pool in a long. Had a real diverse. And it was, it was. It made for a lovely. Far fewer. I mean last summer was that we had some really good weather as I recall the. And wetsuits weren't, you know, we don't stipulate in any way, but. But probably the most mix of age group, really diverse mix of age group, ethnicity, wetsuits, non wetsuits, male, female. It was. It was a beautiful time to be swimming, you know, and our lake was. Was very popular, which saved us because the pools are still closed. Suddenly we were offering four swims a week and we. It was, it was very popular. So, you know that the press coverage, the Outdoor Swim Society, Outdoor Swimmer magazine, all of those people that promote good outdoor safe swimming were really working hard to spread the message and people were coming and actually getting some good swimming done and couldn't be happier that people were finally getting their mental health balance and restored and doing what they so loved.

It was fantastic. I mean, you're absolutely right. It needs to be done safely. And particularly when you're talking about sea swimming. You know, I remember somebody, somebody saying years ago, the sea is trying at every opportunity to kill you. So you do have to be careful in the sea if you don't know what you know. And speaking to lifeguards and things like that is a very sensible thing. But it was fantastic. One of the things that surprised me was, you know, and this is somebody that swims in Rutland water fairly regularly. But I have heard horror stories of people going swimming in different places in. In open water, in fresh water and picking up bugs and germs and all that sort of stuff. It amazed me that none of the guys that I swam with had, you know, we were sort of swimming two, three times a week in the river that none of us picked up any ailments or bugs or parasites or anything. Is that, you know, are those sorts of things usual or is it just an absolute minor? You obviously only hear about the bad situations, don't you?

I. Yeah, I think, I think there's that reporting thing that, you know, bad news sells and, you know, it is good to be mindful of, of what can happen occasionally. I mean, I've done, I've swam open water for years and I've had one upset stomach that was at the docks and I'm not sure I'd even blame that. Purely on. On the Docklands, I was getting ready for a Lake Geneva relay, which is a huge body of water. And so the London, so, you know, the Great north swim, they expanded to the Great east, the Great London. So what I had was a great opportunity at the docks to do a mile every hour for about four or five. So I swam a mile at 12 o', clock, then at 1 o'. Clock. And that replicated quite nicely in a small scale what I'd be doing an hour in the water in Lake Geneva, getting back on the boat a couple of hours later getting back in. So, you know, just making the training as swim specific as I could in a small environment at that time. And I think it was more to do with the fact that I got out between one of my swims. I probably didn't hand gel, I ate something and it just escalated from there. But, you know, in years of being rivers, lakes, sea, I've had one sort of serious incident and then obviously, you know, you need to be careful, like, you know, there's a good bit of evidence that you shouldn't swim immediately after a heavy downpour as obviously stuff, stuff goes in, finds its way into the river. Funny story, actually, I was going to do the River Jubilees 10k a few years ago and the night before, Sat Bradley. This is sort of an Upper Thames tributary out sort of towards Henley and the Oxford area, if I remember rightly. Forgive me if I had geographies off, but there was a heavy downpour and I thought, you know what I've got, I've got the Geneva swim coming and I really can't miss that. I won't, can't let my team down. I can do something else. So I binned it, went to my mum's for, for lunch to pop in and say hi to her. And so there I had been. I've missed the swim because I was nervous about getting ill and bless her, her eyesight's going a. And she said, oh, you, you like Italian, don't you? Would you like some melon and Parma ham, that popular Italian dish? And on my plate was raw bacon that I just about avoided. I was like, mom, thanks, but I think that she. Oh, I thought it was that proscetto. Sorry, mom, if you're watching, I didn't mean to share that with everyone.

It's funny, actually. So, yeah, after a heavy downpour, I did some swimming in Cornwall a few years ago ago and I got the worst tons lighters I've ever had. And I've always said, I'm sure it was that, that swim. I was really ill for a while, but. But the part of Cornwall I was swimming in is renowned for having runoff in. In the water, which I didn't. Wasn't aware of at the time, but. But yeah, no, I was just amazed that none of us did get anything. And so it's reassuring to hear with all of your sea swimming or all your. All your open water swimming, that you've only ever had one encounter. Sorry.

I think you need to be careful. Blue green algae is quite a worry. Vials disease, quite a worry. You know, check with, you know, if you can get a good rapport with the landowner and see if there's agriculture and runoff, you know, fertilizers coming into the water, things like that. Avoid the rain. I think you can, you can be quite confident. What I've stumbled into recently on Twitter, which is really upsetting, is the alerts when sort of the raw sewage is going into the Thames from the overflow, that the sewage plants have lost their capacity. And I stumbled into that and that's a real disappointing discovery. You know, these things happen, but it's like with every heavy downpour now, which obviously we do, you get, you know, here's this Twitter feed. I can't remember exactly who's. Who's doing it, but it's like, you know, untreated because of the overflow, it's like, oh, this is happening way too often for how we should be treating these, you know, these lifelines that run through the country is. It was very disappointing.

Well, down in Cornwall, there's a charity called Surfers Against Sewage that tries to bring awareness to this too. So it's. I know, I totally agree. One of the other things that became popular or kind of came into their own, I suppose, during lockdown was swim spas, even endless pools. You mentioned them briefly earlier. I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on a swim spa during lockdown and it was absolutely brilliant for me. And obviously a lot of the pro swimmers and pro triathletes did the same. The downside of swim spas and endless pools is that it is mind numbingly boring, or at least it Was to start with think I'm mastering it gradually. But have you got any advice for people that swim in endless pools and swim spas, both in terms of kind of getting over that mind numbing, you know, how can you make it more interesting? And also, you know, what are your thoughts on is it good for sort of improving technique and keeping your fitness and that sort of stuff?

I loved social media during the lockdown for that creative element of people trying to beat the fact they couldn't go to their traditional swimming pools, paddling pools with tethers, you know, those lucky enough with endless pools were very, we were very envious. Vasa and the swim bench couldn't sort of make them quick enough to try to help people replicate swimming. And it's funny, for years we had to, you know, as, as a swim coach, I had to advise like dry land swimming, stretch cord swimming, swim benches. You know, they won't, they're not a, they're not a, they're not a substitute for doing your real swimming. And then suddenly they were, weren't. They had to be. And we, we didn't have a choice. And suddenly I had to, you know, which is why we switched to vertical stretch cords so you could still rotate, get your rotation in, not crease at the back and have your body in that nice alignment. So it's, it generated a lot of thoughtful practice and people being creative, which was fantastic. I think the notion of an endless pool is great. We used to own one, we used to teach out of it. My background with the video meant underwater cameras and screens and recording was all very, very easy. I think learning to swim, it's like a wind tunnel. Learning to swim against a current that is that much denser, the water flowing around you can really punish you. So in terms of naturally teaching you swim technique, I think they're fantastic. You know, if you continually keep sweeping your arm across and expose this surface area and the water meets that, you get punished. You can get that feedback, which is what you probably wouldn't get unless you were very in tune with the water in a normal swimming pool. So just the fact that they're harder, it's harder to swim in the flow low. You should be able to make some progress even without any coaching because if you keep, kept experimenting, thinking right out here, I can feel that opening of the shoulder and I'm pulling and that's uncomfortable. I'm entering here equally. I'm kind of getting that pushed into my face. If I just entered nicely with my fingertips, wrist following, arm following and make that a nice extension and close down this surface area. I can swim at the similar heart rate with a faster flow around. Around me. That's got to be a good thing. So I think they're great, but as you say, mind numbingly boring. I mean, I tried music through headphones. The noise of the water kind of made that hard and I felt it was getting a little bit loud for my hearing, so I'd be a little bit apprehensive. But they did help. I think what you need to do is have a session, not just jump in and think, right, 30 minutes I'm to. Going, going to, you know, just swim for 30 minutes. You've got to create a session and, you know, work out your. Some of them have counters and the swim speed, it converts to a distance sort of meters, gives you an approximate 120, 130 per 100 meters or something. I mean, then it's a very loose equation. I wouldn't take too much notice of that. But learn to swim like two minutes at this pace, have a rest. Two minutes at this pace, have a rest. You know, change the pace or change the time. Create a session that will challenge you, that will get you thinking. You know, get your watch to beep on a certain number of repeats of two minutes and you know, a way of just mentally being stimulated so that you're not just watch. Excuse me, so you're just not watching the bottom trickle by. You know, I mean, even if you put the mirror. The endless pool is nice for teaching because you can put the mirror on the bottom and you can actually watch what's happening and where you're at. But it's a lot of data to analyze that you're trying to move your arm accurately, watching a reflection, make subtle adjustments all within one stroke. Not easy, but, you know, it can help. It can help.

Yeah. I found the mental side of it the most challenging bit to start with the technique. I definitely agree with what you're saying there. I've, I've definitely improved my technique on, on the back of using it from a mental point of view. The things I've kind of found to work, I, I went through several different types of underwater headphones and found that the head shocks, ones that sit on your jaw, work as well as any with some with, with earplugs in. But just I, and I tried listening to podcasts and things like that, and that wasn't working very well because you just, you're right, you, you lose a bit too much of the sound. But what I have Found is actually. And I've built some of these myself and a company called React Fitness very kindly designed some as well. Is creating the audio set as a file. As a file on the. On the headphones. So instead of kind of trying to look at your watch or having the buzzing of every two minutes, you've got. So I literally have sat there in front of my computer, like for an hour doing an hour set. And then I found that I could put music in the background of that. So I got music and the set all built into one. So that's actually been really good for me. But. And the. And these React Fitness ones kind of inspired me at the. To do that. But it's. Yeah, no, it is. It is really challenging. Now I'm looking at you in your shed and I can see there's books behind you. So I always ask people on this podcast now, what. What books do you find yourself recommending? What books did you find really valuable? You know, are there any books that you can recommend to our listeners if you.

Something inspirational. Swimming related. The. The Ian Thorpe book was excellent. I relate a lot to his. Well, not, not at his ability, but, you know, his, his journey, you know, swimming in the public, being irritated by bad swimmers, making splashing, too much splash and would irritate him. His attention to detail for swim technique was. Was second to none. I mean, it doesn't. Doesn't talk that much about his swim technique. It's not written from a coaching perspective, but it's quite inspirational. It's really nice.

Yeah, I haven't read that, so that's.

Yeah, no, that's really good. The Phelps book and all the. He. He was an absolute legend. Obviously I say that without, you know, understatement, but, you know, his book and all the work he did, I mean, he opened our eyes to swim training. Training. You know, five years without taking a day off because that meant he would get 50 extra days of training a year because historically we would take Sundays off. That was sort of the thing. But, you know, for him, he recovered quicker than anybody we knew. His ability to sort of absorb the training was. Was a remarkable. And I mean, I've listened to a lot of Bob Bauman lectures as a coach. Coach. I've not seen a book from him yet. I'd be surprised if he doesn't have one. But that was Michael's coach and he's sort of in. You know, he's done a lot of like, maybe not TED talks, but a lot of inspirational stuff. And as a coach, he's Phenomenal. To listen to him and Michael's journey and what they did. That was so. For a swim coach, that was quite eye opening really. You know, like, wow, that's the human body. Believe that's possible. Is it incredible?

Fantastic. They sound, they sound like that sounds like three great things to go out and for me to track down because I haven't, I haven't engaged in any of those three. Before we started the interview, we were talking briefly about and you mentioned swim camps. Now I like the idea of going away to learn and improve my swimming, particularly if it's not nice, crystal clear water. Tell me a bit about your swim camps and what you do there.

Well, we started at Club La Santa because I went there as a competitor in the early 90s to sort of get fit after, you know, the swim season would end in the summer Olympic trials, summer of 92, have a rest and then you'd kick start. And you knew arriving back in the US it would be horrendous if you went back unfit. You know, we would play water polo with running shoes, T shirts on as sort of a pre season get fit. And I wanted to get fit before I got back because the coach in the US was, was hard. He was, we were doing a lot of crazy stuff. So I found Club de Santa. Open air, 50 meter pool, sunshine. A couple of my swim teammates from the London Swim Club we went over. We're like, wow, outdoors. This is amazing. Amazing running track, weight room, what's not to love? So fast forward. One of my young idol, you know, growing up. Robin Brew was a few years older. He went off to the LA Olympics superstars, became an ironman, you know. I went on one of his camps in the late 90s when I was taking it quite seriously. Loved the idea. It was great to reconnect with him and his brother who were sort of at Kelly Collins College when, you know, when I was at Millfield School back in the Somerset, they were at the Devon private school, their father was coaching there. So this whole thing just meshed and came together and then fast forward to again 2008, this sort of pivot point for open water. Suddenly it wasn't just triathlon, it was club swimmers. Master swimmers that didn't fancy bike and run had this new outlet. They wanted to learn to swim faster in open water. Having had a year's experience in the pool, triathletes wanted to swim faster, they needed to come. So I presented to Club La Santa and said, you need an open water camp now. There's lots of People racing. But no one's really doing open water camps. I mean, it will be helpful for triathletes, it will be helpful for anyone just wanting to go in. And they have a lovely enclosed saltwater lagoon which is quite shallow. Shallow and very safe. So we, we. They've now got three 50 meter pools, which is remarkable. They've got the lagoon. We can pull the lane ropes out of one of the 50 meter pools. We put the small buoys in, we recreate everything you might stumble into. We put the lane ropes back in. We do pure technique, we have lectures, we do filming, we do fitness. Once people are a bit happier, we go into the lagoon and sort of take all that we've been learning and recreating in the pool and building on it there. And then midweek we go across to the Ironman course on the other side of the island and actually swim segments of the Ironman course. And it's a, you know, beautiful body of water, crystal clear. There's thousands of scuba schools there because they know it's. It's such a good part of the world for underwater swimming and viewing fish and whatever else they do down there. I've not been on one, but I mean, obviously that's the sales pitch as to why, you know, the open air, the sunshine. But honestly, swimming two to three times a day and you don't even have to do this on a. Somewhere exotic. If you could allocate, if you're struggling with your swimming, if you could allocate a week where you could swim twice a day, not huge amounts, but just every day, once or twice, Even just like 20, 30 minutes, you start to build and build and improve and there's less time. I'm fond of saying one swim per week is six days of unlearning. So if you could just for one week, take a swim, even one swim every day. So it builds and there's hardly any time for things to escape and fall away if you keep building, building, building. Some of the results. We've had over a week of pure swimming, swimming a lot, not allowing the technique to fade, ingraining things. So that where you learned, I mean, because I get a lot of this from people. Oh, I'm doing two hours a week, once a week. Well, that's great. Within two hours you can get to here. But then over the next six days it just falls away. And then you start literally where you left off. And I think another sad fact is if people aren't swimming at least three times a week, preferably four, it's hard to progress. It's very hard. There's more like a plateau effect. You know, you can, you can get to a level, you can hold it, you can hold it it with two sessions a week, but it's hard to make that breakthrough. So a training camp is good because you've got, you know, no distractions, nothing to lure you away. You're there, you've dedicated yourself to this potential to be in the water every day and there's some amazing gains. You won't, you know, if you test yourself on day one and compare to day six, you won't have given yourself enough time for the body to absorb all of that. You've got to count, you know, three, four weeks down the line when you've got back home. Not continued that amount, but at least continued. The technique ideas, the philosophies, what you've done, the changes you've made, some of the dry land that you might have learned, you know, you will improve significantly within a month. Having done that first week on a training camp.

Sounds fantastic.

We talk to people and the results are amazing because you can focus, you can listen, you can absorb. You've got other people there. There's a good camaraderie, there's a show, social side to it. People do bring their bikes and go off running. I try to restrict them from too much Zumba and all the other fun stuff because they are there to swim. But, you know, it's. It's a great environment wherever you are. I mean, you know, Italy in May is a tri camp, but you're there, you're focused, you're not distracted and you can get some great results.

Fantastic. It sounds wonderful. But I also think it's an interesting point that, you know, for example, you could say, I'm going on holiday and rather than just sitting by the pool, you might say, well, I'm going to swim two or three times a day, every day for the, for the duration. And you've got some technique improvements in that. So that's brilliant.

It's fun, it's fun. You know, we make it, you know, we appreciate. People have chosen that as their holiday, as their time away from family and work. You know, we make it fun, we enjoy ourselves, we take a trip over, over to the other side of the island. You know, people get away, it's. I love doing them. You know, when I say it's work, I'm not going to get much sympathy, am I? When I'm like, oh, you're away in Lans Roddy working for Two weeks. Are you on poolside?

Yeah. Tough, Tough life.

Yeah. My gran was very funny 20 years ago when we first started. She's like, you, you go on holiday a lot, don't you? I'm like, nan, it's, it's work. She's like, what, in Italy and Lanzarote?

Yeah, yeah, Honestly, that's it. If you can engineer your life so that you're doing the stuff that you love, then you know you can, you know, it's fantastic, isn't it? As I say, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. So that's amazing. And, and so for those people, just to wrap this up, for those people that want your help from, where's the best place to find out about you? And also if they want coaching just sort of on a week by week basis, where's the best place to track your. You down?

Swim for try.com swim4try.com from there you can find training plans. We've written training. I mean, I had to do the training plans because people were asking. It's not the best way of learning. I mean, there's nothing quite like being with someone on poolside giving you the feedback. But I think we've learned enough over the years and we've worked out specific drills and methods, methods that will help adults learn to swim faster. So, you know from training plans written, whether it's 1 mile, 5k, open water triathlon, we've got session in a bottle, a concept we developed a few years ago where, you know, you can buy these. They've got six main sets written around them in a column format, a warm up written so you don't have to get the soggy paper. Got technical. One is green, various distances. Pink is the long distance, orange is middle distance, silver is a general fitness one. We've created those. We're in London predominantly for one to one lessons for fitness. We've got a lake in Essex, we've got Lanzarote, three trips per year, hopefully all starts coming normal and we resume in January and the tri camp in May with Steve. So, you know, we're heavily into social media, giving people the sessions we do. If you, if you follow the hashtag, we swam like every other day, I'm writing the session we did. So even if you don't join us, you can still share in what we do. We're heavily on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and something new called Active Place where you can read articles and get all the swim tips we put out there and switch on Fantastic.

And I love the idea of the bottles. I've been wondering while looking at the, the pink, orange and yellow and, sorry, green bottles behind you. So, so what a great idea. I love that idea. I've not seen that before.

Yeah, I mean, we're very proud. I mean, it was, you know, it's been as a coach, it's been staring at me on poolside for years. You know, people, you know, sellotaping elastic banding songs of paper to their drinks, bottles. And one day I just thought, yeah, we can do that better.

Better, yeah.

And, and I coined this intelligent training. And I've got some other concepts coming with a new company, we've been developing paddles and some things for your fins and it'd be good to sort of share those with you as and when we launch quite soon because we've really taken to heart adults learning to swim, potentially not having a coach with them. And what needs to change, because a set of paddles will move, make any kind of pull faster, more effective, but it may not be the best. A set of fins will make any kind of kick faster, but it may not be the best. So we've taken all of these things that have been a problem in the past and we're trying to manipulate them and that's going to be a new avenue launched heavily next year.

Fantastic. Well, we'll have to get back on the show to, to hear. Hear more. Dan, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. There's loads of brilliant, brilliant advice in there and, and yeah, I look forward to meeting up with you on poolside at some point and let's do that next time.

Yeah, we'll get some footage and we can talk some specifics.

Fantastic. Dan, lovely to chat to you. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

I hope you got loads out of that interview with Dan. I know I did. I think there's some great tips in terms of improving our technique, whether that be using things like swim spas or our open water technique, particularly in those tricky conditions. And also at the start of a race, which is so intimidating for so many people. Some really good advice on how to deal with that time calmly, but also to put yourself in a really good position for the start of the race, giving yourself, you know, a way of getting space around you and also giving you, you know, a calmer start to that triathlon swim. Yeah, just so much great advice from Dan and I particularly love his idea of the. The swim set on a bottle. You know, you can, you can get a whole training plan as well as a water bottle all at the same time as saving yourself having sogg bits of paper stuck to things on the side of the pool. So I think that's a brilliant idea and I can't wait to see his paddles and fins and things like that that are going to come to the market in a, in some new innovative ways that he hasn't shared with us yet. So we'll definitely get him back on to find out more about, about that. So anyway, I hope you got loads out of that. Remember to go check out precision hydration.com at the discount code Tribathlon15 for a discount and if you want to find out more about dan, go to swim4tri.com I think it is and but I'll put this, put that in the show notes and maybe even check out his Tuesday evening swim session in London. I know for a fact I'm definitely going to go and do that at some point. So anyway, in the meantime, keep up the great work and keep on training. Dan mentioned his innovative training aid product which is the Swim4Try drink bottle. And that drink bottle is not just a normal drink bottle, it has a training set on it. So it has different warm ups at the top, it has different sets in the middle and then a warm down at the bottle bottom. And there's four of these bottles in a set. One for general fitness, one for middle distance, one for longer distance and one for more technique. I think this is a brilliant idea and I'm really looking forward to trying these in my swim spa. But anyway, to be in with a chance of winning a pack of four which is which are worth 40 pounds. If you want to go on to Instagram, find Tribeathlon app and if you want to share this podcast and make sure you tag us. So put Tribathlon app in your post then and if you can tell people how brilliant you think the podcast is, even better. But if you can do Tag Us on a share of Triathlon will put you into a competition to win a set of those four swimming bottles with a with your training sets already built onto them. If you want to see more about them, you can find them at swim4try.co.uk. If you've enjoyed this Tribathlon podcast please do go to Apple Podcasts and rate it and review it. It massively helps us to deliver a better podcast. It helps people find it as well. So yeah, go to Apple Podcasts, give us some feedback, give us a rating and a review and please share it with your friends because Ultimately, that's what allows us to keep delivering more and more of these podcasts. And don't forget to download the tribathlon app app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete, and to build your tribe.