Speaker 1: I get a groo because it's fatty Harps, it's Craig Anthey, Harper,
Speaker 1: it's the you project. It's oh bloody hell, I'm excited
Speaker 1: about today. Every now and then I just wheel out
Speaker 1: an old friend from my historical kind of cupboard. I
Speaker 1: just knock on the door. I dust off the cobwebs
Speaker 1: off both the cupboard and the person. And I've dusted
Speaker 1: the cobwebs off. Tammy van Wissa, Who we go? Oh
Speaker 1: my god? So far back?
Speaker 2: Hi dam Hello, Craig. It's so good to see you.
Speaker 2: We did go really really far back. In fact, I
Speaker 2: don't even know whether we should mention how far back.
Speaker 2: It's just the years of ticking on, aren't they.
Speaker 1: When did we meet? What do you reckon? What year
Speaker 1: was that? Was it? Maybe early like ninety ninety ninety?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say early nineties, I reckon
Speaker 2: that'd be pretty close to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, back in the day, I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out this thing, and the world was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out this thing called personal training, and people like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing, Harps, that's not a thing. It's
Speaker 1: never going to take off its bullshit. It's not an industry.
Speaker 1: It's not a profession. There's no course, there's no accreditation,
Speaker 1: there's no insurance. And I'm like, I think it's going
Speaker 1: to work. And you were an early adopter of it
Speaker 1: wasn't so much it was kind of pet slash coaching,
Speaker 1: slash talking bullshit with me for an hour. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: there was a long time ago.
Speaker 2: Right, It was a long time ago, but it was
Speaker 2: fantastic for me. It was like a breath of fresh
Speaker 2: air because as a pool summer, you know, with your
Speaker 2: head down looking at a black line all day. You know,
Speaker 2: you work hard doing that, but it's good to diversify.
Speaker 2: And it was so good to actually, you know, still
Speaker 2: be building muscle and working on different things, helping with
Speaker 2: prevent injuries and just build different strength that I couldn't
Speaker 2: do in the pool. So and the chatter, the chat
Speaker 2: was just incredible. So you've got the mental health, the
Speaker 2: physical health, you have. It kicked every box.
Speaker 1: Well, do you know what was funny is like, honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean when I met you, I hadn't even gone
Speaker 1: to UNI yet, although obviously and you had to train people.
Speaker 1: I've been working in gyms my whole adult life, and
Speaker 1: I owned a gym and all of that, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: You know, I look back and I think not that
Speaker 1: I was the high watermark or harp As was the
Speaker 1: high watermark. But we did okay, right, and in a
Speaker 1: time when people didn't even understand what the fuck a
Speaker 1: personal training studio was. We can't say that on s
Speaker 1: and can we tam We can't say fuck no. We
Speaker 1: used to do bit of radio together everyone. And but
Speaker 1: I realize now like I was kind of lucky before
Speaker 1: because you and I, both of our default setting is friendly, chatty.
Speaker 1: You know, both of us are a bit outgoing. And
Speaker 1: I think that the whole thing worked largely not because
Speaker 1: the exercise programming was mind blowing, although it was okay,
Speaker 1: but I think because it was just a good experience,
Speaker 1: Like it was fun like for me too, you know,
Speaker 1: to go somewhere and hang out with someone that you
Speaker 1: like and by the way, let's do some training exactly.
Speaker 2: And this isn't that essentially what life's all about though,
Speaker 2: Like in everything that we do, we try and make
Speaker 2: our work life fun. And when it's fun, you get
Speaker 2: things done. But it's just the you know, you enjoy it,
Speaker 2: you look forward to it, and you know, speaking of
Speaker 2: being on, you know, a journey that you didn't know
Speaker 2: where you were going to go. I mean I was
Speaker 2: kind of in the same boat with marathon swimming at
Speaker 2: the time because you know, there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 2: benchmarks to sort of work off, so it was new
Speaker 2: territory for me too. There weren't a lot of marathon
Speaker 2: simmers doing you know, strength training programs at that time,
Speaker 2: so I guess, you know, you got to push the envelope,
Speaker 2: don't you know. It's good to have new experiences and
Speaker 2: see what works and what doesn't, and you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: you hit the jackpot and you go, yeah, this is
Speaker 2: really good, and then everybody follows you after that. Yeah
Speaker 2: I knew that was going to be good, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden they're on board. But yeah, so it
Speaker 2: was a fabulous journey, and obviously the friendships is just
Speaker 2: the main thing that I think back like now, it
Speaker 2: was just an incredible time and just beautiful people wak
Speaker 2: to happens. All the trainers were fabulous, So yeah, they.
Speaker 1: Were good times. And also, I mean, you were a
Speaker 1: pioneer in that there are a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of athletes who they would pretty much only
Speaker 1: do whatever it is. If they are a runner, they'd run.
Speaker 1: They're a swimmer, they'd swim. If they're a netballer, they'd
Speaker 1: play netball. The idea of I mean, and now it's
Speaker 1: proliferated and of course it's commonplace, but the idea of
Speaker 1: cross training, as the kids call it, it wasn't really
Speaker 1: much of a thing back then. You're like you doing
Speaker 1: strength training, you running, you doing flexibility, balance, coordination, you know,
Speaker 1: high reps, low reps, muscular endurance, strength power. I know
Speaker 1: that it was done, but really that was just kind
Speaker 1: of that you know, where there is Obviously now swimmers
Speaker 1: do a lot of conditioning work and diverse kind of work,
Speaker 1: but back in the day, it was not that common, right.
Speaker 2: No, Look, the only thing we had from memory was
Speaker 2: like these rubber stretch cords and that about all we did.
Speaker 2: That was our dry land program was to do a
Speaker 2: bit of stretch forward work. So that was, you know,
Speaker 2: really you know all we did. So, yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a real pioneering time and the benefits are huge now
Speaker 2: and obviously, as you said that, it's well known, but
Speaker 2: back then it was kind of like new ground and yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was exciting to be in those times and
Speaker 2: trying new things, and I think you know, to diversify
Speaker 2: as the key with everything though, isn't it? As we
Speaker 2: keep If you try new things and you have different
Speaker 2: things in your life, it keeps it interesting, always learning
Speaker 2: new stuff. You know some stuff, it doesn't work, you
Speaker 2: fail at no big deal, You learn a lesson, you
Speaker 2: move forward. So essentially it was really great times from
Speaker 2: that perspective. And I think you know there are simple
Speaker 2: life recipes in amongst all of that too.
Speaker 1: Would you my audience who don't know who you are?
Speaker 1: Because we go into ninety countries, so there are going
Speaker 1: to be people going cool. I mean they would have
Speaker 1: read the intro probably, but give give people a little
Speaker 1: bit of a snapshot of your background, a kind of
Speaker 1: a bio without me reading anything out if you would.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I going right back to the very beginning.
Speaker 2: I wasn't very sporty or adventurous at school, so I
Speaker 2: was like the fatter scale in the class got picked on.
Speaker 2: And I so wish I'd kept this award. But this
Speaker 2: was back in the politically you know, where it wasn't
Speaker 2: politically correctness. I got an award for the person least
Speaker 2: likely to succeed at sport.
Speaker 1: Really hang on, hang on? Who Wow, Well you and
Speaker 1: I come from the same area. You're five years younger.
Speaker 1: But well I was called Jumbo at school, right, so
Speaker 1: it's same era. What who gave you that?
Speaker 2: I think that was in grade five from memory, and
Speaker 2: it was like it was something that was done through
Speaker 2: the class and the teachers, you know, at that point
Speaker 2: in time, because everybody got different things. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I just remember I wish I so wish I kept it.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't that be awesome to go what it is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to interrupt your story. But how
Speaker 1: did they not think that that was hurtful?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I said, maybe reverse psychology that was.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it just was different, just so
Speaker 2: different times. And yeah, so anyway, look, it turned out
Speaker 2: to be a really good thing because it actually did
Speaker 2: spare me on a lot as I progressed, because then
Speaker 2: my parents put me into swimming, and I didn't want
Speaker 2: to go kicking and screaming, but you know, they were
Speaker 2: intent on making sure that I was safe in the water.
Speaker 2: So there was you know, I think they persevered through
Speaker 2: some pretty difficult times. I put up a pretty good fight,
Speaker 2: but eventually, you know, realized I wasn't going to get
Speaker 2: out of it, and I guess a bit of a
Speaker 2: change in mindset there. Started to like it, enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Had a great teacher. You know, as happens in life,
Speaker 2: you click with someone who you know they're on the
Speaker 2: same level, you resonate with, then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: progress And so I then got asked to join the
Speaker 2: swimming squad, which I did. That was like one of
Speaker 2: the greatest moments of my life, like you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: and did pool competitions for a number of years. I
Speaker 2: did States and nationals and didn't look did quite well
Speaker 2: at one States and stuff that, you know, didn't really
Speaker 2: hit the top level in the pool all. It just
Speaker 2: I discovered that I had a natural talent for insurance,
Speaker 2: like for doing things for a long period of time
Speaker 2: and being in the in the paining cave so to speak.
Speaker 2: That was sort of plucked by foretapes and in training
Speaker 2: that was really evident. So so I got a bit
Speaker 2: jaded with the pool swimming. My parents put me into
Speaker 2: life saving and that's where I kind of had the
Speaker 2: introduction into open water. I really loved life saving because
Speaker 2: there was a big social component of it as well,
Speaker 2: and it was just different, challenging, you know, being out
Speaker 2: in open water. I love the fact that, you know,
Speaker 2: it was different every time you went out there. And
Speaker 2: so then through the Life Saving Club, one day I
Speaker 2: saw like an ad for a race that was on
Speaker 2: from Bomorris to Frankston, a twenty kilometer swim in Port
Speaker 2: Philip Bay and Victoria. I thought I'd have a crack.
Speaker 2: One of my training mates were supposed to do it
Speaker 2: with me, and they pulled out at the last minute.
Speaker 2: So I was left there petrified, thinking, probably crack, How
Speaker 2: am I going to make twenty kilometers? Like, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the furthest I've done in the pool was
Speaker 2: ten so it was kind of like doubling what I'd
Speaker 2: ever done before. So jumped in and so the biggest
Speaker 2: thing that frightened me was just basically sharks, you know,
Speaker 2: that was all I think. And I watched you know,
Speaker 2: and stupid me had watched Jaws the night before as
Speaker 2: a bit of like pre race prep, so you know,
Speaker 2: really really just was off the mark there. But anyway,
Speaker 2: my whole race plan was to stay in the middle
Speaker 2: of the pack because I figured that if a shark
Speaker 2: pame it and hopefully take somebody else and I could
Speaker 2: use my sprinting ability to get back in quickly, good time.
Speaker 2: Good plan, which fell apart sort of about halfway into
Speaker 2: the race because the conditions got really hairy, and so
Speaker 2: people started to sort of separate and I lost track
Speaker 2: of people, didn't see any feet in front of me anymore. Also,
Speaker 2: it's on my own all of a sudden, and you know,
Speaker 2: had the massive panic attack. I thought I'd seen a
Speaker 2: shadow in the peripheral of the goggles, and of course
Speaker 2: the Jaws music starts playing in the head, and I'm
Speaker 2: just fight off like my off, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: it's just so fascinating to me how the body can
Speaker 2: just you know, act on a thought and it's not
Speaker 2: a true thought, like obviously my mic, it was all
Speaker 2: just made up, just and there. I was frightened and
Speaker 2: thinking I was going to get eating any segments, realized
Speaker 2: didn't happen, so kept going. Managed to get to the
Speaker 2: finish line first, go home, third overall, and I was
Speaker 2: approached by the Australian Marathon Swimming team coach. I didn't
Speaker 2: even know there was an Australian Marathon Swimming team back
Speaker 2: in those days. Wow, And he said, this is a
Speaker 2: sport and you're really good at it and would you
Speaker 2: like to explore you know that a bit fair. So
Speaker 2: that's sort of how it started. And then I sort
Speaker 2: of started setting my sights on things like English channels
Speaker 2: and races around Europe because there was a big circuit
Speaker 2: you could do around Europe. Was huge in Europe, and
Speaker 2: even in the States there was quite a few races
Speaker 2: you could do. So kind of jumped on board with
Speaker 2: that and did okay, you know, and then started to
Speaker 2: do a few individual challenges as well. So I've swum
Speaker 2: the length of the Mai River here in Australia, which
Speaker 2: is two four hundred and thirty eight kilometers, and that
Speaker 2: took me three and a half.
Speaker 1: That's hang on, hang on all right, just pause. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're going to go two and a half out, well,
Speaker 1: two four hundred and thirty eight kilometers. Hang on. I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I'm just there's so many questions right
Speaker 1: Cape bar away before we go to the Murray. Right,
Speaker 1: So your first you've never swum more than ten k's
Speaker 1: in a pool. Now, swimming in a pool is from
Speaker 1: the environment, very controlled wins not an issue. Currents are
Speaker 1: not an issue. Sharks are not a fucking issue, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's you know, it's the safest of swimming
Speaker 1: environments and the most controlled and the most predictable. So
Speaker 1: you've gone from that to doubling it in an uncontrolled,
Speaker 1: unpredictable environment. Probably not going to get eaten by a shark,
Speaker 1: but it's happened. How would and I know it depends
Speaker 1: a lot on weather encurrents and particular beaches, but how
Speaker 1: would you compare twenty kilometers in that particular open water
Speaker 1: versus twenty kilometers in a pool.
Speaker 2: Oh, difference between day and night. As you said, like,
Speaker 2: you know, you're in a lane. You've got you know,
Speaker 2: anti wave lane ropes, You've got a black line to follow,
Speaker 2: so you know, you know your distance, your water temperatures controlled.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a nice twenty sort of eight and
Speaker 2: a half degrees. You've got a coach standing at the end,
Speaker 2: sort of telling you what to do and giving you encouragement.
Speaker 2: You've got your teammates around as well. The water is
Speaker 2: generally quite flat, you know, unless everybody's doing butterfly. That
Speaker 2: makes a bit wavy. But you know, other than that,
Speaker 2: it's all it's all very predictable, and so you know,
Speaker 2: you don't have a lot of fear, so to speak,
Speaker 2: you don't.
Speaker 1: Know twenty I know this is dumb, right, and there's
Speaker 1: really this is bro science. But is twenty kilometers in
Speaker 1: the ocean twice as hard as twenty kilometers in a
Speaker 1: pool or it's impossible to make that kind of judgment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really hard to make that judgment. I think
Speaker 2: there's the monotony in the pool that's a killer for me,
Speaker 2: is that you know there's a set distance, so you
Speaker 2: know in your mind you're already calculating how many lapse
Speaker 2: it is, whereas you know out in the open water,
Speaker 2: you know you've got the just the horizon and so
Speaker 2: it's kind of like it's a long goal, but you're
Speaker 2: seeing yourself make progress, like in increments there as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so it's very very hard to compare. But
Speaker 2: I would say that it is more difficult doing it
Speaker 2: in the open water, just because of the challenge of
Speaker 2: dealing with the known, the uncertainty and being being prepared
Speaker 2: for it. You know, as we know, like if you
Speaker 2: plan for it, then that's great. If you train in
Speaker 2: those conditions, you know what to expect or what I
Speaker 2: like to think. It's always planned for worst case scenarios.
Speaker 2: And that became my thing, is when everybody did a
Speaker 2: swim or my training involved okay, in the planning stages,
Speaker 2: what could possibly go wrong, and let's train for it.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you're going to be swimming at nighttime,
Speaker 2: let's do some nighttime swimming training. If it's going to
Speaker 2: be huge waves, let's practice when you know it's really
Speaker 2: rough out there, just get out there and do it
Speaker 2: in those conditions. Or if it's going to be cold,
Speaker 2: a lot of cold water acclimatization. So yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: a matter of preparing because it's all the mind, you know,
Speaker 2: the thoughts.
Speaker 1: We think about, like running twenty kilometers, Like if you've
Speaker 1: I've done a few halves, right, and that's twenty one
Speaker 1: point one right, yeah, And I mean not that that
Speaker 1: in any way compares, but running twenty is not an
Speaker 1: easy feat. I mean, especially when you've you've literally done
Speaker 1: double like the furthest you've swum as ten, then you're
Speaker 1: doubling it. How did you firstly, how did your body
Speaker 1: pull up? If you can remember how long we saw
Speaker 1: and how much fucking food did you eat when you
Speaker 1: finally felt okay.
Speaker 2: I was absolutely exhausted when I got to the end,
Speaker 2: like I was literally you know, I think I ran
Speaker 2: up the beach and then literally collapsed in a chair
Speaker 2: that they had there. And yeah, I was my stomach
Speaker 2: was tuning, so I wasn't super hungry just at that time.
Speaker 2: But later on that night, I ate and a friend
Speaker 2: actually offered for me to come around to sit in
Speaker 2: their hot sparks. I was so cold, so I did.
Speaker 2: I went and sat in a hot spa. So I
Speaker 2: went straight pack in the water, but in warm water,
Speaker 2: just to kind of listen up the muscles a little bit.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because you know, I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: that was it, that I was going to rest for
Speaker 2: weeks after that. But my dad actually said to me,
Speaker 2: this was a So there was the twenty k race
Speaker 2: on the Saturday, and on a Sunday there was a
Speaker 2: one point six k swim and it was part of
Speaker 2: a series. And he said, why don't you go back
Speaker 2: tomorrow and do the one point six And I went, nah,
Speaker 2: I can't do it. I'm just I'm too tired. And
Speaker 2: he was like and coming from so a bit of background.
Speaker 2: Dad grew up through tail end of the Second World War.
Speaker 2: You know, I used to had to train, you know,
Speaker 2: in the Dutch Army and they walked with packs, and
Speaker 2: he used to tell us, you know, how lucky we
Speaker 2: are and how much you can push yourself so much
Speaker 2: further than what you thought. And told us stories about
Speaker 2: you know, family of six and you know, his father
Speaker 2: walking eighty kilometers to get them a loaf of bread
Speaker 2: so they could eat. So I really, you know, really
Speaker 2: sort of used to I guess work on my mental
Speaker 2: state in the background, said long story shot. I went
Speaker 2: back the next day and I churned up, and everyone
Speaker 2: thought I'd come to watch, you know, and I said, no,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about entering. And anyway, one of my competitors
Speaker 2: from the pool was there and we had like a
Speaker 2: bit of a rivalry, and she said to me, you're
Speaker 2: not going to do this age because i'd you anyway
Speaker 2: if you came here, because you will be exhausted from
Speaker 2: the twenty k yesterday. Well that kind of light, that
Speaker 2: kind of like was a defining moment for me. And
Speaker 2: I went, she thinks I'm tired, I'm bloody going to
Speaker 2: go in there and I'm going to show it so
Speaker 2: inted winning and I won the one point six the
Speaker 2: next day. So yeah, bloody endurance jeans, I tell you what.
Speaker 2: So But again, you know, it's funny how things sort
Speaker 2: of happen and you just start to realize the more
Speaker 2: you stretch yourself and try.
Speaker 1: I bet that girl was pissed off. Imagine if you
Speaker 1: did you go hey, Imagine if I was fresh ah
Speaker 1: well ah well did you go oh well you had
Speaker 1: to go? Good on you? Yeah, it's good, it's good seconds. Okay,
Speaker 1: Sure I didn't quite.
Speaker 2: Say that, but I did have a very big grin
Speaker 2: on my face when I crossed the finish line and
Speaker 2: when the trophy presentations were happening, because they had like
Speaker 2: a podium and there was there was a little bit
Speaker 2: of prize money back in the day, you know really
Speaker 2: brain now one like one hundred bucks or something, and
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, life changing because never won
Speaker 2: anything in my whole life. So yeah, so that was
Speaker 2: a big turning point for me too, Like you know, again,
Speaker 2: just the psychology behind it all of like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: thought I was stuffed. Heroes go back, and I found
Speaker 2: this extra tank worth of fuel in there and my
Speaker 2: body responded, so, yeah, so that was sort of like
Speaker 2: I guess the beginnings of the thinking around, Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is so interesting, the whole mind and body, and how
Speaker 2: much more we've got still in the tank.
Speaker 1: How much of and we'll get to the Murray River
Speaker 1: in a moment. Twenty four hundred and thirty our kilometers.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. By the way, it's somebody's birthday tomorrow, I heard.
Speaker 1: How do you know that I know everything? How much
Speaker 1: of being an ultra endurance athlete, be it running or swimming.
Speaker 1: You're obviously a swimmer, but how much of that is
Speaker 1: about being able to manage pain?
Speaker 2: Ninety five percent of it because you know, ultimately, you know,
Speaker 2: the mind drives the body. Body just listens to what
Speaker 2: the mind says. So really it's about how you control
Speaker 2: the mind and what things you feed it and sort
Speaker 2: of what attitudes and beliefs you have sure, and that's look.
Speaker 2: Part of that process is why you do the training,
Speaker 2: because part of that is putting yourselves in situations where
Speaker 2: you know you're going to reach this wall. And so
Speaker 2: in training, your goal is to constantly push past the
Speaker 2: wall and working out strategies for how you're going to
Speaker 2: deal with that. And everybody's different, you know, every athlete's different,
Speaker 2: every person's different. So essentially that you know, one might
Speaker 2: listen to, I don't know, classical music, another might listen
Speaker 2: to rock music. We're all motivated by different things and
Speaker 2: have different triggers that keep us going. And it's sort
Speaker 2: of life about kind of finding what works best for you.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, it's all about
Speaker 2: what's being fed. In between the world between your ears
Speaker 2: is where it all happens.
Speaker 1: It's so true, so true, and I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: I know there were of course, psychologists have been around
Speaker 1: for a long time, but we're talking thirty odd years ago,
Speaker 1: so sports psych was really kind of in its infancy,
Speaker 1: if not at all, right.
Speaker 2: Correct, I never saw a sports psychologist at all. It
Speaker 2: was Yeah, it was really basic back then. So as
Speaker 2: you said, what was real pioneering sort of an era
Speaker 2: where nutrition, you know, training methods. It was all you know,
Speaker 2: like I said, we were learning. I was working with
Speaker 2: my coach even to work out what kind of training
Speaker 2: to do for a marathon, because we was essentially taking
Speaker 2: you know, distance pool swimming training and then just extending
Speaker 2: upon it and trying to you know, work out what
Speaker 2: we did. I mean I trained with a bucket toed
Speaker 2: behind me and all sorts of silly things we did.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was all brand new stuff back then,
Speaker 2: so it was kind of a bit exciting. Has it Beenmark?
Speaker 1: Has it been interesting for you as an excellad athlete
Speaker 1: but also somebody who I guess is a sports fan
Speaker 1: but also so understands to a level the science of
Speaker 1: competition and training and recovery. And has it been interesting
Speaker 1: for you to watch the evolution of sports science over
Speaker 1: the last few decades. Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, I think, Look, it's fantastic. I think in
Speaker 2: many ways it's been wonderful for the athletes now because
Speaker 2: you know, really the mental processes weren't thought about, and
Speaker 2: I guess the identity of an athlete too when they
Speaker 2: retire has been a really big thing because you know,
Speaker 2: you see yourself, you value yourself as the person who competes,
Speaker 2: as the athlete, the competitor. You base your whole world
Speaker 2: on that because it has been your whole world. Whereas
Speaker 2: now you know, there's a lot more there's a lot
Speaker 2: more support, there's a lot more work done on outside
Speaker 2: of the pool on what do you want to do
Speaker 2: as a career and how you can further, you know,
Speaker 2: advance yourself and use all the skills that you got
Speaker 2: from you know, working hard and knowing the value of
Speaker 2: hard work and sitting in discomfort and taking that into
Speaker 2: a work situation outside of the pool. So I really
Speaker 2: do think in those situations it's been fascinating and really
Speaker 2: really good. And the sports science of course, one of
Speaker 2: the people that fascinates me is Cam McAvoy at the
Speaker 2: moment because he's still pioneering right now. He's just made
Speaker 2: to come back and you know, his land based program
Speaker 2: is so different. He's not doing massive swimming. I think
Speaker 2: he swims three times a week and he's just made
Speaker 2: to come back and won of the world championships and
Speaker 2: he's obviously qualified for this round team. So it is
Speaker 2: I love. I love seeing how people go about things
Speaker 2: in different ways and sitting new benchmarks. It's just great.
Speaker 1: How old is he?
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, good question, I'd say. I'd say be in
Speaker 2: his late twenties.
Speaker 1: Get a guess what about I'm just looking at I
Speaker 1: follow this guy on Insta? Do you have Insta? Grandma?
Speaker 1: Are you on it? Are you on the Instagram? Grandma.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, I've had I've had to go into that
Speaker 2: side of things. It's not my forte but I'm learning.
Speaker 1: Now. Have you seen that, I'm sure you've seen Ross.
Speaker 2: Edgeley Yes, rosientially, yes, absolutely, yes, Hey everyone.
Speaker 1: If you want to see a fucking freak, so just
Speaker 1: Ross r O W S E D G L E
Speaker 1: Y on Instagram. He is like he's his body.
Speaker 3: I mean he's short and he's chunky, and yes, I
Speaker 3: mean he looks like at times if you didn't know,
Speaker 3: like depending on what side cycle or phase cycle there's
Speaker 3: a bad word, but phase of his trained cycle maybe,
Speaker 3: but he can look like a bodybuilder.
Speaker 1: Like I've never seen a swimmer so jacked, Like swimmers
Speaker 1: are generally in really good shape, but not too many
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 2: I mean he's reprinters yeah, yes, for sprinting, but not
Speaker 2: yet not to be ripped like you were saying, like
Speaker 2: he does.
Speaker 1: And that's the contradiction, is he's ripped off his head
Speaker 1: and he's an endurance swimmer.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, although he did change his body composition
Speaker 2: before he did his swim round Great Britain, so he does.
Speaker 2: I think he's got a sports psychology background as well,
Speaker 2: and physiology, so he's very attuned to trying new things
Speaker 2: as well. So I think he did go on about
Speaker 2: a different diet when he was doing his longestwim. So
Speaker 2: when he prepares, he kind of changes things around so
Speaker 2: that he knows he's going to need extra body fat,
Speaker 2: you know, to cope with certain conditions and for flotation.
Speaker 2: And yes, he is working against it though he's not
Speaker 2: your typical it's not your typical long distance summar sort
Speaker 2: of makeup.
Speaker 1: Basis completely fucking mad, but also he's fucking mad but awesome.
Speaker 1: It's a nice combo. Yeah, I remember him, he was
Speaker 1: on I think he was recently on. I didn't watch it,
Speaker 1: but everyone's like, hey, Craig, did you watch did you
Speaker 1: watch a Thing with Chris Hemsworth which was about living longer?
Speaker 1: And did you watch that? Tim? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I loved it. It was a great series, fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he was on that, right, Yes he was. He was,
Speaker 2: and he helped Chris because Chris went I'm trying. I
Speaker 2: think where they went they went somewhere very cold where
Speaker 2: there was you know, freezing water, and he trained Chris
Speaker 2: to swim in the cold basically, just you know, like
Speaker 2: the whim Hoff method, you know, trying to control your breathing.
Speaker 2: And he made him, you know, and we didn't make him,
Speaker 2: but Chris Hamsworth swim out to a boy and back
Speaker 2: again and it was very cold. Was it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, two degrees one degree is sort of type things.
Speaker 2: So and he did it. Yeah, and it was really
Speaker 2: fascinating to watch. And he's a great character. Ross is
Speaker 2: a great character. So I've got his book Resilience as well,
Speaker 2: which I read and that was that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: You know what. Also digressing momentarily, I like Chris Emsworth because, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a good look and he's fucking six foot fifteen
Speaker 1: and he's rich, he's a Hollywood But he has a crack,
Speaker 1: doesn't he He does like he really has for a
Speaker 1: guy who he doesn't need too. He's fucking rich and famous,
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to do all that horrible shit, but
Speaker 1: he dives in that makes me respect him. What Like,
Speaker 1: of course he's an awesome actor and all that he's famous, good,
Speaker 1: you know, that's cool. But the shit that I love
Speaker 1: is that he really seems to be any way down
Speaker 1: to earth and has a real crack at some horrible shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, that series is fabulous. I can't think of
Speaker 2: the name of it, but I highly recommend it because
Speaker 2: there's also a part where he tries out like fasting,
Speaker 2: and he fasts for like I think it's over twenty
Speaker 2: I think it does a twenty four hour fast, maybe
Speaker 2: even longer. And all his mates, you know, said that
Speaker 2: they join him, and of course he's absolutely dying because
Speaker 2: he's exercising and doing things as well. And they go
Speaker 2: away and get pizza and he can smell it, and
Speaker 2: it's just hilarious the reaction. Like he really is. He
Speaker 2: really is a great, down to earth guy. He seems
Speaker 2: like the kind of guy that you know you'd be
Speaker 2: mates with. He's really down to earth and humbled.
Speaker 1: I think so it was it was called Limitless, So
Speaker 1: Limitless I'm producing and hosting now all at the same time.
Speaker 2: It's called Multi Talented as usual.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you can watch it also on Disney,
Speaker 1: so if you have Disney, everybody you can. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of people speaking of being jacked and
Speaker 1: ripped and do you know what, this could literally be
Speaker 1: a fucking three hour podcast. I've just looked down at
Speaker 1: half an hour in I haven't even got through the intro,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about I've always wondered about
Speaker 1: and I know this is not an exact science, but
Speaker 1: you know, Ross Edgeley is an anomaly because he does
Speaker 1: ultra endurance and he's ripped, which means he's less buoyant
Speaker 1: because he's got less fat, which means correct me if
Speaker 1: I fuck any of this up. But he needs to
Speaker 1: expend more energy energy to stay high in the water
Speaker 1: because muscles, muscle basically sinks. He's like a fucking swimming rock. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's more dense. What about how did you like when
Speaker 1: you did you know, the English channel multiple times you
Speaker 1: did lock Nest? You did? I think you did Locknest
Speaker 1: in New Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And what was that other one where you broke the
Speaker 1: New York City to Sandy Hook which was thirty five miles? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you when you're going in to do these ultra
Speaker 1: long events, even the Murray River, like, do you do
Speaker 1: you have to say, well, my body fat needs to
Speaker 1: be twenty five percent before or is it not done
Speaker 1: like that? How does it work?
Speaker 2: Well? Again, we were just winging it, so you know,
Speaker 2: there was no one you know, Look, I did have
Speaker 2: at my squad I had a lovely girl by the
Speaker 2: name of Julie Toldberg who was into sports science, and
Speaker 2: she would do my and she get the calipers out
Speaker 2: and do my body fat and we did. We were
Speaker 2: trying to increase it. I didn't have I worked out targets.
Speaker 2: I just plucked targets from the air, basically because we
Speaker 2: weren't sure. I mean, look the really I kind of
Speaker 2: didn't really take putting on weight too seriously at the beginning,
Speaker 2: but I went over to the English Channel with my
Speaker 2: brother in ninety three, my brother John and I. I
Speaker 2: was serious about putting on weight. So I put on
Speaker 2: ten kilos because everybody that is one swim where there's
Speaker 2: quite a bit of benchmarking. You know, lots of people
Speaker 2: as from the channel, so there's a lot of information,
Speaker 2: so we knew we'd have to put on weight. My
Speaker 2: brother thought it would be fun. His perspective was to
Speaker 2: be the skinniest and the fastest man across the channel,
Speaker 2: and he was quite muscular. But it didn't work out
Speaker 2: that way. He got hypothermia four kilometers away from the
Speaker 2: coast of France, actually disappeared under the boat. And Dawn
Speaker 2: Fraser has been a mentor and coach for us for
Speaker 2: a long time, very huge support. And she was actually
Speaker 2: on my brother's boat and jumped in and pulled him
Speaker 2: back on board the boat, gave him mouth's mouth resuscitation. Wow,
Speaker 2: she broke. I think she broke three ribs in the
Speaker 2: process of dragging him back on board the boat.
Speaker 3: So scary know that I did not know that.
Speaker 1: And Dawn wouldn't have been twenty five years old either
Speaker 1: at the time. She would have been what fifty on
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say she would have been about fifty, so,
Speaker 2: but she's just amazing she and it happened so quickly,
Speaker 2: Like I remember she because I had my own boats,
Speaker 2: I was assuming separate to John, and we went close
Speaker 2: close to each other in terms of physical distance. But
Speaker 2: she apparently had spoken to him not very long before
Speaker 2: and said to him, how are you going? Because she
Speaker 2: was getting a bit worried, And I'd actually flued her
Speaker 2: in and said, listen, keep an eye on John because
Speaker 2: I'm worried about him with the cold. And so she'd
Speaker 2: spoken to him, said you know, you're feeling ok, and
Speaker 2: He's gone, yeah, yeah, fine, And then like about five
Speaker 2: minutes later, Hyperthermi, you're set in, so it kind of
Speaker 2: really was a big shock and a wake up call
Speaker 2: to you know, the reality of how scary hypothermia is.
Speaker 2: And so from that point on we kind of worked
Speaker 2: out some protocols as well. So now we know that
Speaker 2: when you're in a hypothermic state, you can answer very
Speaker 2: simple questions, but if you're asked to give your date
Speaker 2: of birth, or you know, answer anything in detail, then
Speaker 2: your cognitive thinking is just not there. So that helped
Speaker 2: us formulate plans. So that became the benchmark for the
Speaker 2: rest of the swims I did that were in cold water,
Speaker 2: and I knew that if I couldn't answer Dawn, she
Speaker 2: pulled me out. So that was good book. So John look,
Speaker 2: I managed to get him back to England and she
Speaker 2: went into hospital and he recovered and he actually wanted
Speaker 2: to go back the following year and try again, and
Speaker 2: this time he put on weight. In fact, he put
Speaker 2: on twenty two kilos.
Speaker 1: Ye. Talk about talk about one extreme to the other.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 1: He he did just put a bed at McDonald's or something,
Speaker 1: did he pretty much?
Speaker 2: I think I think part of it. I think Dawn
Speaker 2: might have said to him that drinking stout and lemonade
Speaker 2: was a really good diet plan, so you know, hey,
Speaker 2: so he was like the it was like the michelin Man,
Speaker 2: you know, the blink, ready to simm across. So we
Speaker 2: went back the following year in ninety four, and yeah,
Speaker 2: we became first brother and sisters in the channel together.
Speaker 2: So he made it cost no worries at all, So
Speaker 2: huge leaning experience. And yeah, so hypothemia definitely. And the floatation,
Speaker 2: like the body fat just makes you like sit on
Speaker 2: top of the water. It's such a big difference, Like honestly,
Speaker 2: you literally pop onto all the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean imagine with an extra twenty two
Speaker 1: kilos and probably twenty of that was fat. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be like a little fucking cork with
Speaker 1: arms and legs.
Speaker 2: Well you are, you are. But there is obviously also
Speaker 2: a trade off, as you would know, because you have
Speaker 2: to pull it. You still have to you know, you
Speaker 2: just have to drag that amount of weight through the water.
Speaker 2: So there's you know, there's a compromise with everything. But again,
Speaker 2: you train for that, you get used to that, so
Speaker 2: you've got to do that to actually make it. So
Speaker 2: that's the price you pay.
Speaker 1: What was the most you ever lost on a I
Speaker 1: mean not say the Murray River because that was over months,
Speaker 1: but on a you know, like an event.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I lost. I've lost ten kilos multiple times,
Speaker 2: like summing the channel across baths straight. I lost eleven
Speaker 2: kilos in seventeen hour. I was in forty six minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah on, hang on, just just soak that up. Everyone
Speaker 2: you lost? Did you say eleven or ten eleven? You
Speaker 2: lost eleven kilos in seventeen hours? Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should start running programs. You're going to get
Speaker 1: a million people signing up for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They'll get their toads in the freezing order and go
Speaker 2: for half an hour and decide that's it.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: That's the problem, isn't it. Like you've got to be
Speaker 2: willing to do the hard yards. I think that's you know.
Speaker 1: So where did you swim that? For that? Where did
Speaker 1: you Did you tip off at Wilson's prom or.
Speaker 2: No, I went the other way. I started in Tazi,
Speaker 2: So I started at King Island and I swam to
Speaker 2: Apollo Bay. That was I did a lot of research,
Speaker 2: and so obviously logistically I was looking for a finishing
Speaker 2: point near civilization as well that if something happened, I
Speaker 2: could be taken to a hospital. So that's why we
Speaker 2: chose King Island again obviously with some resources there and
Speaker 2: finished at a holiday.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, like, honestly, it's it's not a
Speaker 1: sport that you do because you want to be rich
Speaker 1: and famous.
Speaker 2: Right hardly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean if I was, if you were
Speaker 1: my kid, I would have said, throw those fucking goggles away,
Speaker 1: here's a tennis racket, get out there.
Speaker 2: Exactly I do. And it was funny because I did
Speaker 2: use Obviously, when you go out to sports nights and things,
Speaker 2: you do get to mingle with other sports people, and
Speaker 2: you know, the tennis players would all be complaining about
Speaker 2: the couple of hours training that they had to do
Speaker 2: in the middle of the day. You know, I should
Speaker 2: have been a tennis play the same amount of work
Speaker 2: and training into tennis. If I had just any bit
Speaker 2: of talent, surely I would have done better. But no, look,
Speaker 2: there was you purely do it for the challenge, you
Speaker 2: really do. It's a personal I guess experience. It's a
Speaker 2: wanting to test yourself, push your limits to the ultimate extreme,
Speaker 2: and it's addictive. I think once you start doing that,
Speaker 2: you want to do more of it. And with so
Speaker 2: many endurance sports, I think you're right on the edge,
Speaker 2: you know, you right on the edge of discovering what
Speaker 2: your body can can't do and her mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the it's one of the one
Speaker 1: of these sports in the world or events in the world,
Speaker 1: sports in the world where the gap between the male
Speaker 1: and the female bodies not that big, is it? Because
Speaker 1: you know, and there have been I think more than
Speaker 1: a few times where and we see that there's another
Speaker 1: lady who's fucking amazing. What is her name to me?
Speaker 1: But she's no not a swimmer, a runner. Now this this,
Speaker 1: this incredible woman is winning ultra endurance runs, beating all
Speaker 1: the chicks and the blokes. She's not winning the women's bit,
Speaker 1: she's winning the overall events and blokes. A big I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, I think, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: Oh it is it is? It really is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There comes a point where there's the.
Speaker 1: Courtney de Walter. I think that's her name, something like that.
Speaker 2: I was going to say that I have read about
Speaker 2: her and I couldn't quite think of her name as well,
Speaker 2: But you're right, Courtney to Walter. I saw something about
Speaker 2: her the other week and just went wow it is
Speaker 2: and sitting benchmarks. The thing is is that once one
Speaker 2: woman does it, then belief the power of her being
Speaker 2: a role model and instilled in that belief insie. I
Speaker 2: bet you'll start to see more women now coming through
Speaker 2: because they just need that one person to do it.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, it's like the floodgates
Speaker 2: have been open, like hey, a woman can do it.
Speaker 2: So it's really it's such a powerful thing when one
Speaker 2: person does it.
Speaker 1: Amazing. All right, let's talk about the Murray River, which
Speaker 1: you did over three and a half months, two four
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty eight kilometers. Now for my international listeners,
Speaker 1: of which we have quite a few, the Murray River
Speaker 1: is a river that essentially separates to Australia in States,
Speaker 1: which is Victoria and New South Wales, yes, go on.
Speaker 2: And then flows into South Australia. Basically yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's a life club for Australia too because there's
Speaker 2: a lot of our food is grown in the Murray
Speaker 2: daleing basin region, so it's a very important river on
Speaker 2: so many levels.
Speaker 1: But tell me about that, tell me about prepping for
Speaker 1: that doing that. Did you swim one hour a day,
Speaker 1: ten hours a day, did you have days? Like? What
Speaker 1: was that about?
Speaker 2: So again, I'd done a lot of planning. I'd actually,
Speaker 2: you know, traveled a lot of the river prior to
Speaker 2: the swim because the logistical side of things was really
Speaker 2: challenging because I had to have obviously a crew with me.
Speaker 2: I had to have a support crew in the water. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had to have a support crew on land as well,
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, you know, when
Speaker 2: you finish something, you need a camp to go to,
Speaker 2: you need food, you need all the resources to keep
Speaker 2: you going. So and then you know, we had caravans,
Speaker 2: two caravans basically traveling the first part because some parts
Speaker 2: you're remote, other times you're in caravan parks. But again,
Speaker 2: it's all difficult to plan because everybody when you book
Speaker 2: into a caravan park or accommodation along the way, what
Speaker 2: data you riving? Well, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Like I had a rough plan. I broke the river
Speaker 2: into four pieces, so you know, I set sections, segmented
Speaker 2: the river and had goals in my mind where I
Speaker 2: wanted to be and what I wanted to swim each day.
Speaker 2: But like life, things don't work to plan, and some
Speaker 2: days you're tired. Some days you run into a snake,
Speaker 2: some days you run into a log. You know, there
Speaker 2: are things that happen. The water is freezing, so you
Speaker 2: don't get as far as you thought you would you're tired.
Speaker 2: So for me, I was trying to break a record
Speaker 2: that was set by a gentleman by the name of
Speaker 2: Graham Middleton. And he was actually the first person to
Speaker 2: the length of the Murray and so he had set
Speaker 2: the benchmark at one hundred and thirty eight days. That
Speaker 2: was the goal to try and break his records. I
Speaker 2: kind of had planned my swim to try and you know,
Speaker 2: just get in sneak in before that. So you know,
Speaker 2: the problem that I found was I actually announced really
Speaker 2: what my goals were, so a lot of the media
Speaker 2: knew I was aiming to be like say, let's say
Speaker 2: at one of the towns, at a Chuka buy a
Speaker 2: certain period of time. So then when I didn't get
Speaker 2: there by those times, of course the media be negative like, oh,
Speaker 2: she's behind her goal, she's not going to make it lower.
Speaker 2: So again, you know, if I go back and do
Speaker 2: my time again, I'd approached it in a different way,
Speaker 2: But it was just it literally became about doing it
Speaker 2: day by day. That's what I focused on. Had to
Speaker 2: really just concentrate on one day at a time, and
Speaker 2: I had a plan to swim sort of between six
Speaker 2: and eight hours a day. That was the goal. And
Speaker 2: sometimes i'd break that up and do three or four
Speaker 2: hours in the morning, you know, have lunch, and then
Speaker 2: go back in and do another sort of three hours
Speaker 2: in the late afternoon. But again that all changed with
Speaker 2: the conditions because when I started it was early November.
Speaker 2: I was simming in the snow melt coming down from Cosiasco,
Speaker 2: so it was like a crisp sort of seven degrees
Speaker 2: in the water.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then gradually as I headed towards South Australia, which
Speaker 2: was about two thousand kilometers. By the time I got
Speaker 2: to South Australia, we had a hotter summer on record
Speaker 2: and it was fifty six degrees in the shade, so
Speaker 2: like I couldn't swim in the heat of the day
Speaker 2: because it just get burnt to a crisp. I mean,
Speaker 2: the Murray River was twenty nine degrees.
Speaker 1: It was that hot, fifty six degrees.
Speaker 2: Yes, in the shade. When we went through border clips
Speaker 2: like it was just it was unbelievable, off the charts,
Speaker 2: like seriously, it was incredible. And that was, like I said,
Speaker 2: when we went through, they had the thermometer outside, so
Speaker 2: that's how we knew what temperature it was.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just converting that so to our international listeners,
Speaker 1: fifty six degrees celsius. Fucking hell, it's like one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty three degrees.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. It was insane.
Speaker 1: How did you not melt well?
Speaker 2: So then we had to come up with a different plan.
Speaker 2: So you have to be, you know, willing to change
Speaker 2: your plans, and so we diverse five. We thought, okay,
Speaker 2: the best way to approach this was to start really
Speaker 2: early in the morning, so first light, as soon as
Speaker 2: the sunrise came up and it was safe for me
Speaker 2: to swim, they could see me in the water I
Speaker 2: was in, and I'd just do as much as I could, say,
Speaker 2: you know, I might start at five thirty sort of
Speaker 2: thing and swim till eight thirty nine o'clock, and then
Speaker 2: we'd and then we'd rest through the heat of the
Speaker 2: day and then i'd go back in again, like you know,
Speaker 2: six o'clock sort of thing and swim till nine o'clock,
Speaker 2: so we had to just make use of whatever daylight
Speaker 2: hours we could at the beginning and end of the day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to try and make progress and just thinking outside the box.
Speaker 2: I didn't plan on that, Like, I didn't expect it.
Speaker 1: So I know there weren't I know, there's lots of planning,
Speaker 1: but the science back then is not the science now.
Speaker 1: But did you have did you have a nutritionness? Did
Speaker 1: you have any idea of calories in and out and
Speaker 1: like was your goal to maintain weight and that levels
Speaker 1: through the swim or it wasn't in depth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it wasn't very in depth. I didn't have
Speaker 2: a nutritionness. I didn't have really anybody like you advising me. Again,
Speaker 2: it was all fled by the seat of your pads.
Speaker 2: I had a set of scales, you know, which I
Speaker 2: stood on every now and then because we were camping,
Speaker 2: so like, you know, until we got to halfway. Then
Speaker 2: we were on a house boat and that was really awesome.
Speaker 2: But you know, you can be on the side of
Speaker 2: a riverbed, you know, so it kind of it's pretty basic.
Speaker 2: It's pretty basic. So you're just trying to eat enough
Speaker 2: to keep your weight up and just you know, have
Speaker 2: the energy to keep going.
Speaker 1: Really you must have had I mean like still logistically
Speaker 1: and practically you must have had quite a few. But
Speaker 1: you know, you think about the caravans, think about who's
Speaker 1: going to beare food, who's going to give you a rub,
Speaker 1: who's got you know, like you must have had some
Speaker 1: kind of medical contingency plan. There must have been a
Speaker 1: few people involved.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there was a lot of people. I had
Speaker 2: a support crew of twelve to fifteen people traveling with
Speaker 2: me along the way.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So with roles, you know, like my mum did a
Speaker 2: lot of the cookies, so when I said didn't have
Speaker 2: a nutritions, I had my mum there, so she knew
Speaker 2: what I liked and didn't like and was really good.
Speaker 2: So and you know a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: really great friends obviously that worked with me before. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so for me, the resources that I tapped into was
Speaker 2: the Royal Life Saving Society. So because I've done so
Speaker 2: much life saving, lots of friends. So the boating squad,
Speaker 2: you know, they had their IRBs and they're all trained obviously,
Speaker 2: you know for rescue situations and for medical situations. We
Speaker 2: had back in the tape which I with with the
Speaker 2: SAT phone, which was like this huge clunky thing and
Speaker 2: a suitcase because you know, we had we had Sea
Speaker 2: THEMA phones at the time because you didn't have coverage everywhere.
Speaker 1: So we had to I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: What is c DMA.
Speaker 2: Country something something. I don't know. They were the ones
Speaker 2: that you used in the in the country areas. So
Speaker 2: I'm showing my dinosaur age.
Speaker 1: That's all right.
Speaker 2: But basically the mobile phones didn't didn't have great service,
Speaker 2: so it was really difficult and of course if something happened,
Speaker 2: like you know, again, tiger and brown snakes quite prevalent
Speaker 2: in the river. Two are the most venomous.
Speaker 1: In the river.
Speaker 2: In the river, in the road, they swim.
Speaker 1: They swim fucking the hell.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I know that's brightening, that's not that's more than frightening.
Speaker 1: So the brown snakes and tiger snakes, as you said,
Speaker 1: both venomous and both like kind of.
Speaker 2: Deadly, very deadly, like in the top I think they're
Speaker 2: both in the top ten dead list in the world.
Speaker 2: Like that. You know, they buy you. You've got to
Speaker 2: get the anti vierneine.
Speaker 1: So what was the the contingency with that? Did you
Speaker 1: did you like, what do you do if you see
Speaker 1: a snake?
Speaker 2: So so again there was a bit of learning, because
Speaker 2: you know, I'd spoken to a lot of local people
Speaker 2: and tried to get some advice on what to do.
Speaker 2: And of course, not a lot of people get in
Speaker 2: the water. Some people say, just you know, just let
Speaker 2: them cross and stay out of their way and they'll
Speaker 2: go and do what they want to do, which is
Speaker 2: fair enough, but when you're in a situation. So when
Speaker 2: I started my swim, I actually had to delay the
Speaker 2: start because the river had been in drought for five
Speaker 2: years and I actually thought that I might be walking
Speaker 2: parts of it. There was barely any water. But a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks before I was due to start, we
Speaker 2: had a tremendous downpour and the river was in flood.
Speaker 2: It was out of the banks. It was too dangerous.
Speaker 2: The sees advised me that this emergency services advised me
Speaker 2: not to start my swim because it was too dangerous.
Speaker 2: So once the river subsided and it went back into
Speaker 2: its banks, I started my swim, but it was flowing.
Speaker 2: It was flowing at five kilometers an hour, so I
Speaker 2: swim sort of roughly four to five as well. I
Speaker 2: was traveling like not in ten k's an hour down
Speaker 2: this river like wow wow. Scary on a number of
Speaker 2: levels because there's a lot of trees that have fallen
Speaker 2: into the river banks. So you know, one of the
Speaker 2: scary things is getting caught on snags and branches because
Speaker 2: obviously the clarity of it is not great. It's better
Speaker 2: at the top end, but it you know, just integrates
Speaker 2: as you head into South Australia. It's a it's a
Speaker 2: muddy river essentially, so you can't see your hand underneath you.
Speaker 2: So but at the beginning, you know, Actually, I think
Speaker 2: it was the second or the third day, I actually
Speaker 2: got trapped on a submerged branch and it caught me.
Speaker 2: I got snagged on it. I was wearing a wet
Speaker 2: suit and I got snagged on it and it ripped
Speaker 2: to my wet suit. And the worst thing is that
Speaker 2: I had like a little inflatable boat beside me and
Speaker 2: IRB we call them, and it actually I was feeding.
Speaker 2: I was, you know, having my sustenance in the water
Speaker 2: as you do, and as I'm floating down, I got
Speaker 2: caught on this snag and then the boat came on
Speaker 2: top of me. Literally got pushed down Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It happened so quickly, and I actually thought it was
Speaker 2: all over because I literally went under and the boat
Speaker 2: reversed and they managed to pull me off the branch.
Speaker 2: But I had brize back. I was I was the
Speaker 2: mess because it was like day two, day two, and
Speaker 2: then said a snake yet, But you know that was
Speaker 2: that was a good introduction of what can happen. So
Speaker 2: you're in this very volatile environment and you just have
Speaker 2: to be so aware and prepared. So lucky I had
Speaker 2: a great crew, as I said, you know, Royal Life
Speaker 2: Saving crew. They were on top of it really fast,
Speaker 2: and you know, managed to get me out of the river.
Speaker 2: But you know, things happened. So yeah, scary situations. But
Speaker 2: I don't even remember the original question you asked me.
Speaker 1: Now that's right, No, no, no, okay, So three and
Speaker 1: a half months out of your life. So did you
Speaker 1: beat the record? I'm thinking, yeah, you did the beat
Speaker 1: the record, right, I did.
Speaker 2: I broke it by thirty five days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's amazing. Yeah, And I know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm usually you don't do it for the money, or
Speaker 1: you didn't do it for the money, But did that
Speaker 1: get any sponsors? Did that get any did you get
Speaker 1: any dough through that or did you just kind of
Speaker 1: break even or or worse?
Speaker 2: No, I did manage to break even, which was a
Speaker 2: success because most of the swims didn't even get enough
Speaker 2: to cover you know, the actual basic cost of it all.
Speaker 2: And that's with everybody volunteering their time, so you know,
Speaker 2: it's all run on a shoe string. So basically, you know,
Speaker 2: like I had people like Jaco donated the caravans to
Speaker 2: use for the swim, like miss and donated a couple
Speaker 2: of cars sort of thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So with all of that, I broke even at the
Speaker 2: end and no real huge, you know, life changing sponsorships
Speaker 2: at the end of it. But I guess really was
Speaker 2: that the speaking side that I went into. You know,
Speaker 2: people wanted me to come and speak, so that sort of,
Speaker 2: I guess opened up opened up an avenue to earn revenue,
Speaker 2: and that's where I moved into more than you know
Speaker 2: as a result of them, which again I didn't anticipate
Speaker 2: or really see coming, but it's something I really enjoy
Speaker 2: and still do today. So yeah, so that's fairly lovely.
Speaker 1: Am I imagining this? Or did you and I once
Speaker 1: do what's called a speaker's showcase for Saxton's speakers about
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2: No, I'm pretty sure we did. I'm pretty sure we did.
Speaker 1: I think. So what this is everyone is So this
Speaker 1: was this was fucking terrifying. Like my speaking career was
Speaker 1: just kind of stepping off. I was already doing bits
Speaker 1: and pieces of lecturing and little bits, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be honest, I wasn't fucking great. Some would argue
Speaker 1: I'm still not, but but I remember I did actually
Speaker 1: okay on the day. I wasn't amazing, but I did okay.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if you remember this bit, Tam.
Speaker 1: But so this is what it was. Everyone. It's called
Speaker 1: a speaker's showcase. And was it icmi L Saxton's.
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. Yeah, anyway, it was a speaking agency
Speaker 1: that we both were doing some workforce. So what they
Speaker 1: do is they get out, like event planners and people
Speaker 1: who put together conferences, conference organizers, a whole lot of
Speaker 1: people in a room and they sit them down and
Speaker 1: then they wheel us out like fucking international runway models,
Speaker 1: except I'm not wearing a frock. I've just got to
Speaker 1: come out and I've got to do. I think it
Speaker 1: was like a fifteen to twenty minute presentation, might have
Speaker 1: been twenty yep, so a little bit of a snapshot
Speaker 1: of a keynote. Yes, like half a keynote. And so
Speaker 1: your job is literally and that by the way, they're
Speaker 1: not here. They're not there because they've heard of you,
Speaker 1: or they're interested in personal or professional development. Their reason
Speaker 1: for being there is solely to see if you're shit
Speaker 1: or good and whether or not they might want to
Speaker 1: book you for an event. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember this bit, but everyone in the audience, and there
Speaker 1: was more than a few. There was quite a few
Speaker 1: people in the audience, and I think it was you
Speaker 1: and me and maybe four other speakers. There might have
Speaker 1: been six speakers on the day. Ye, but I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure you did well. I'm not just saying that, but
Speaker 1: I remember. So what they did was everyone had this
Speaker 1: kind of a remote control thing that they would push
Speaker 1: in our score and it would be stage presence, content,
Speaker 1: fucking you know, confidence, audience connection, whatever, like all these
Speaker 1: criteria that I can't remember, but essentially, you're standing on stage.
Speaker 1: I remember standing there talking and people in the audience
Speaker 1: looking at this what looked like a remote control pressing
Speaker 1: these buttons and they're scoring you in real time.
Speaker 2: Crazy. If it's not terrifying enough just being up there
Speaker 2: on the stage, but seeing people disconnect from engaging with
Speaker 2: you and there's anything.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm like, can you fuck can do that at
Speaker 1: the end? Could you just wait? Exactly? And yeah? That
Speaker 1: was that was That was terrifying. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: what you do when you're trying to get get some traction.
Speaker 2: Huh, exactly the things we do. We can look back
Speaker 2: and laugh about it now.
Speaker 1: But my last question about the Murray River before we
Speaker 1: step on to a more recent challenge of yours, is,
Speaker 1: as you said, it's not that it's a dirty river
Speaker 1: per se, but it's a muddy river, right because at
Speaker 1: the bottom of it's all mud, and depending on rainfall
Speaker 1: and stuff, it gets churned up and blah blah blah bah.
Speaker 1: How much of like, surely there's a fair chance that
Speaker 1: you get an infection or you get sick or you
Speaker 1: you know, because you're swimming in you know, muddy water
Speaker 1: for fuck and three and a half months. How did
Speaker 1: you deal with that when you went looking out for
Speaker 1: logs and snakes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was very challenging as well, because there were
Speaker 2: a couple of times that I was very sick, like
Speaker 2: as in like vomiting diarrhea sick and trying to trying
Speaker 2: to get yourself motivated because part of the record was
Speaker 2: I had to swim a minimum of two hours every.
Speaker 1: Day, right, all right, so no days off.
Speaker 2: No days off.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, consecutive swimming days. So that was part of the
Speaker 2: deal when you swim. So yeah, So there were some
Speaker 2: challenging times, and I did get a look. I got
Speaker 2: multiple ear infections. I had an eye infection. At one
Speaker 2: point I was in mil Durer, I remember, because my
Speaker 2: crew drove me. We were a bit we were past
Speaker 2: my Durer, but they came. We had I had some
Speaker 2: friends in mill Drawer. They came and met us at
Speaker 2: a point on the river and drove me back to
Speaker 2: see a specialist to have a look at my eye
Speaker 2: and to clean out my ears. You know, they did
Speaker 2: the water syringe in my ears, and you should have
Speaker 2: seen what came out. Oh my god, really yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just so full of so anyway, but I
Speaker 2: could hear again after that, which was really good. I
Speaker 2: was because it's very It's very hard because you kind
Speaker 2: of weigh up should I put earplugs in? But then
Speaker 2: it takes away one of your senses. So like the
Speaker 2: balance here is like, so I'm attuned to the crew
Speaker 2: because I'm petrified that there could be a snake up ahead,
Speaker 2: which is what we've had. We had a couple of times,
Speaker 2: so I want to hear, you know, them yell out
Speaker 2: to mistake or you know, blow the whistle or whatever.
Speaker 2: And if you take that away, it's you know, already
Speaker 2: you've lost all your senses because you're looking down into
Speaker 2: like this is brown water, so you can't say anything
Speaker 2: when you turn your head. So yeah, so it was
Speaker 2: that I wore earplugs sometimes but most times not because
Speaker 2: of that. I just wanted to know what was going on.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, so you had to just deal with that.
Speaker 2: That was just part of the part of the journey.
Speaker 2: It was trying to find strength to keep going and yeah,
Speaker 2: and obviously, yeah, just deal with the situation at hand.
Speaker 2: It wasn't wasn't fun, it wasn't pretty. And yeah, my
Speaker 2: crew without my crew, like they literally you know, got
Speaker 2: me through.
Speaker 1: Who's the Who's the goat of endurance swimming? Like who's
Speaker 1: the male or female, Like who's the who's that person
Speaker 1: that who's the flow jo of or the Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: of endurance swimming.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd have to say Shelley Taylor Smith, like she
Speaker 2: was a pioneer as well. There's a few, so I
Speaker 2: would say Shelley because again she she very early on,
Speaker 2: she went in and beat a lot of men in
Speaker 2: the races on the circuit in Europe. Just was the
Speaker 2: first woman to do that. Like she's just incredible, like
Speaker 2: the force of nature. And one of my personal heroes
Speaker 2: is Gertrude Italy and she was the first woman to
Speaker 2: swim the Channel. So she you know, she actually smashed
Speaker 2: the men's record by over two hours, and it was
Speaker 2: it was in the early nineteen hundreds that she did it,
Speaker 2: and basically, you know, women were considered like almost like
Speaker 2: second citizens. It was like, you know, the newspapers were
Speaker 2: writing headlines like no woman can swim the Channel, It's
Speaker 2: not possible.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So she was up against it like massively. She couldn't
Speaker 2: get finances to get over there, and so what she
Speaker 2: did was such a huge achievement just for setting a
Speaker 2: benchmark for women to get involved in sports. So once
Speaker 2: she crossed the channel. So she was from New York
Speaker 2: and she she was a native of New Jersey actually,
Speaker 2: and so they did a ticker tape parade for her
Speaker 2: and it was massive worldwide, front page news, and apparently
Speaker 2: the influx of women that learn how to swim, that
Speaker 2: signed up for swimming lessons after that just was off
Speaker 2: the charts. Yeah. Yeah, And I was very fortunate because look,
Speaker 2: I really I didn't get a chance to meet her.
Speaker 2: She passed away before I got over to New York.
Speaker 2: But I actually met her family. And she set a
Speaker 2: record for swimming from New York to New Jersey and
Speaker 2: it had been in the marathon swiming history books for
Speaker 2: like eighty years, this record that she'd set. And she
Speaker 2: did this prior and it was just before she went
Speaker 2: over to the Channel. She used this room as a
Speaker 2: bit of a woman. So I really wanted to go
Speaker 2: over and sort of emulate Gertrude do her swim and
Speaker 2: do it as a tribute to her. And so I
Speaker 2: met with all her nieces and nephews. We had a
Speaker 2: big dinner together. They were all on my support boat,
Speaker 2: which is awesome. So I swam from New York to
Speaker 2: Sandy hooked in New Jersey and I broke her record.
Speaker 2: And then as I came up the beach, actually the
Speaker 2: mayor of Monmouth County in New Jersey came up with
Speaker 2: this certificate and said, I now proclaim July twenty first,
Speaker 2: from this day forward to be Tammy van Wis a
Speaker 2: day in Monmouth County, and all the schools will learn
Speaker 2: about your achievements in honor of this swim and Gertrue. Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, So yesterday.
Speaker 2: Was Tammy van Wis the day in Monmouth County.
Speaker 1: In New York. That's bloody amazing. How good is that?
Speaker 2: I know, it's pretty cool her. I never thought I'd
Speaker 2: have a day named after me.
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, I want to day. I'm jealous.
Speaker 2: But that was, you know, like I said, and that
Speaker 2: was all just I just think that, you know, what
Speaker 2: Gertrude did was just absolutely incredible. Honestly, you know, you
Speaker 2: just can't putting yourself back in those times. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, we can talk about it, but you know,
Speaker 2: living in those times when you're you know, up again
Speaker 2: so much adversity just to get to the start line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what we're going to do, everyone is we're
Speaker 1: going to pause here I'm going to call this the
Speaker 1: end of part one with Tam, and we're going to
Speaker 1: come back tomorrow and we're going to conclude the story
Speaker 1: because there's a lot more than swimming that's gone on,
Speaker 1: especially in recent times. We're going to unpack that. But
Speaker 1: for the moment, we'll call this the end of Part one.
Speaker 1: Love you, guts see tomorrow. Thanks Tam, thank you.