Kyodo and Welcome to Swim Chats, a podcast about swimming.
I'm Shona Riddell, a writer, former journalist and swimmer
from Wellington, Alciro and New Zealand.
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Show Nights. Hi, Laura.
Nice to see you and nice to meet you, and I really appreciate
your time. Thanks for coming on the
podcast. Yeah, lovely to meet you too and
thanks for being by. Cool.
So I don't normally open these interviews by talking about
people's ages, but I know in your case as as part of your,
your swim story and that you I read that you retired from
competitive swimming in your mid 20s and then 8:00 or so years
later, you found yourself returning to it and you were
faster and stronger than you had been before.
So would you like to talk a bit about how that came about?
Yeah, so I officially retired. I think I've almost got 2
chapters of swimming now. So my, I suppose you could call
it traditional competitive swimming finished in 2016.
I finished on a big high that year with my surf life saving.
I broke a world record. Our national team won the pole,
the beach and the overall trophy.
So that side was just awesome. But it was also an Olympic year
and I missed the Olympics, my third attempt of three different
games. And I think it was just a
natural. It felt there was no pressure
from anyone else. I just felt like I was ready to
move on, go into my career. A lot of my friends at that time
had finished their degrees and we're now actually in
established careers. So I was having that a little
bit of, I suppose it, it feels like it's done.
And then, yeah, I suppose 8 was eight years later, I jumped back
in for a master's event and just got a a big shock by how fast,
how much speed I've retained. And I attribute all of that to
strength work. And that's simply because I was
only swimming once a week in a triathlon squad, which is
absolutely not a Sprint program. And I think that just, it
reignited a love that I've always had.
I think one of the my favorite parts of swimming is it will be
in my life forever. I just love swimming in all its
forms. And it just kind of gave me an
opportunity to do it my way. And not that I had any.
I loved my journey with all my different coaches.
And I think they, you know, they helped to unleash a certain
athlete in me. And I don't think I could have
done better at that stage. But this I suppose 2nd chapter,
I've just had so much autonomy and it's a really, really fun
experience. Yeah, cool.
And I, I read that as, as you're saying, you've had coaches in
the past that you you really valued, but now you're mostly
coaching yourself. Is that quite unusual?
Very unusual in the competitive swimming scene.
So my biggest shock of the 2025 was making it back to the
national team. So I competed at my very first
World Aquatics Championships and the 50 butterfly and the 50
freestyle. So that was 2014 was my last New
Zealand swim team. So you know that that was quite
an unreal experience. And I think I'm the first New
Zealand swimmer to be self coached potentially.
I don't know of any others. So yes, it is unusual and it's,
it makes the whole experience a lot more exciting because
everything I kind of and is on me or lose is on me.
But I do have to always say that it's definitely not a solo
mission. Like, yes, I tend to write the
macro plans and I've got the vision of what I want my
training to look like, but I've had so much support.
So there's no way I think I could have done this without
very supportive people and very knowledgeable people.
Yeah, yeah, differently. And so when you're coaching
yourself, I imagine it's a combination of positive self
talk to motivate yourself and, you know, champion your own
abilities, but also give yourself constructive criticism.
So how do you sort of balance those two?
I've learned not to trust everything my body's trying to
tell me. So I think it's been a really
interesting journey where I've got say the set plan, but
because I'm older and I'm working particularly around
shift work where there's a lot of stress and potentially
disruption and sleep patterns. If I'm really fatigued, I rather
than say, oh, I do need more rest because that's important as
you get older, particularly for recovery and trying to come back
stronger, I would just go to the gym or I'd go to the pool and
I'd do the warm up and begin the main set or the main lift.
And if I more often than not, I actually felt great.
So I would continue with the session and have like pretty
good results. So I think one of the most
surprising parts of the self coaching journey had been
curiosity and not trusting that you're really tired all the time
or really starting to challenge these notions of what your your
capacities really are. Because sometimes I really did
need that risk, but other times just been a bit been a bit
tougher. I think I've got no
expectations. And that was one very big
fronting full pattern to get over at the start was that I
started to build all these ideas of what if I don't achieve this?
What if I don't do that? And it was quite liberating to
be like, who cares? Like I'm 33, I'm doing this for
a bit of fun. If I fail, like, yeah, it'll
suck, but I'm not going to be devastated by that news.
And I think that's been a really positive side of my second life
in swimming is that I'm much more balanced.
So like I see a lot of friends and family, I go to events, it's
not swimming is life. And for me and I think my
personality that works really well when I'm hyper focused.
I think it's it can be a lot and it works for some and it doesn't
for others. That sounds like a very healthy
approach, yeah. And so you're writing your own
swim programs, I imagine, each week.
And are you writing your own strength programs in the gym as
well? I am.
So I did a personal training certificate about five years ago
and didn't use it until recently.
So that that's been really fun. I definitely pick the brains of
my fiance who's a physiotherapist who's very
knowledgeable and trying to balance my programs because I
would often have, maybe it was biased to one side of the body
or I didn't have enough say rotational or anti rotational
core movements embedded in those programs.
So he's been really good at just the finesse of the sessions that
I'd built and he's really helped me to develop like my own
sessions, but also my coaching capacities because I've got a
few online clients that it's, it's helped them as well.
So it's been, yes, I do write my own programs, but it's been
pretty cool picking the brains of other people that have been
in the sector for longer. Yeah.
And I'm curious to none apparently differs week on week,
but what what sort of percentage of your training is swimming
based and what percentage is strength based if it makes
sense? Yeah, absolutely.
So this year with the world's build up, I did slightly more
swimming because I was focused on my technique a lot more.
Swimming is so unique in the environment that we work in,
right? So the water moves so
differently. You can't just get your
technique better on dry land. So I think I was swimming
anywhere between 3:00 and very rarely about 6 * a week.
And then gym would always be a consistent 4.
So it did kind of vary throughout the season.
So I would start, I started with less swimming and then built it
up and it kind of almost did a mountain peak in terms of
building up the volume of swimming and skill based
acquisition and then tape it a little bit.
My first year back I kind of wanted to challenge the
narrative. So I swam little like I think I
was in the gym 5 or 6 * a week and only swimming two or three
and I was still smashing my lifetime beasts.
And so that was a very, I didn't expect that outcome with such
little swimming. Yeah.
And whereabouts do you do your training?
Like you don't have to say the exact pool, but you're in
Auckland, is that right? So are you training in indoor
pools or a mix of places? It's.
A mix so I would mainly swim at one of our premier indoor pools,
but it's actually quite fun. So there's a the big competition
50m pool and I used to train there a decade ago, but there's
actually a small and a warm learn to swim pool that's like
33°. I actually did a lot of my
training in this learn to swim pool because it was warm.
And I the training sets that I do are hyper focused on the 50m.
So I would swim sets of 15 or 20 meters and have two or three
minutes rest. So in that big pool that I'm so
used to, I would get cold and I don't know, it was actually
quite fun being in this little kiddie pool just absolutely
ripping Max effort 50m fives. And then and then I'd do swim in
an outdoor pool, which is really close to me.
That's actually where I've just been and it, it brings, again,
like what I was talking about with balance.
I think so many outdoors are such a unique experience,
particularly doing backstroke. I do tend to hit the land rope a
little bit more often, but it just, I don't know, you feel
more in the environment, more grounded.
It's similar to a Bush walk or you know, when you get your feet
on the grass or the sand, it feels great to swim outdoors.
Yeah, cool. And I know you've you do a bit
of open water swimming as well. Is that more as a coach or do
you do it sort of for your own personal swimming as well?
I'm personal swimming yeah, I just enjoy my partner and I do a
lot of. We go to the beach in the
morning and do 20 strokes one way and then 20 strokes the
other and go get a coffee. So not big volume training.
I will definitely get back into the ocean more often when my,
what do you call it, Sprint career is done.
So I love the open water, but it's not conducive to top end
speed. Yeah.
Fair enough. And I know that your special
Taser, if that's the right word of freestyle and butterfly,
right, like you, that's what you've qualified for in the
past, the 50m sprints. And so I'm very much a freestyle
swimmer. I'm pretty confident with my
freestyle now. Butterfly I tend to avoid like
the plague because I've never really learned to do it and any
time I attempt it I feel like I'm dislocating my shoulders.
Do you do you have any tips for someone like me who is curious
about butterfly? But a little bit he's attempt to
to give it a go. We're thin, but first of all, my
sight always if you're not someone, if you haven't learned
butterfly, I use tools all the time with my beginner and
intermediate athletes. So big soft fins and then it is
all about rhythm so you can break it down.
Get used to the undulation of the butterfly kick first.
So doing a range of the side butterfly kick, trying to get
that even kick forward and back with the hamstring activation
butterfly kick on the back. You should feel your core doing
that a lot. And then also butterfly kick
with the arms by the side, just on the stomach because I think
without a strong butterfly kick it can be quite challenging with
the arms. There's a few different drills
to start to get the rhythm, but it is such an interesting stroke
because it does, it weaves strength and rhythm perfectly
together. So if you've got both of those
things, it feels awesome and you love it.
But it does take a long time. But I think as long as you can
safely build up to it without getting shoulder pain, it's
definitely worth it because it is such a cool stroke.
And I actually, when I came back two years ago, I wasn't, I was
only swimming the butterfly for fun and I've always loved it.
And the reason I did it, a lot of my training was just for
strength actually, because it's so hard and it just randomly
paid off in the event. That's awesome.
And so related related to that you, you spend a lot of time
coaching other people I know and you have your own business where
you also do virtual coaching, which is, you know, I assume
it's where people send you videos of their swimming and
also you provide online content that other people can watch and
subscribe to. When did you decide to set up
your business? It came off the back of my
social media. So I started my page or a move I
can't a few years ago now. And it was just my way of
sharing knowledge about swimming and it honestly just resonated
with people and kept growing and that kept fueling my interest.
And I'm, I found it so fascinating to try and put my
kid or my, you know, think about what it would be like to be a
beginner, like an adult on set learner, or whether it was like
a former elite summer getting back into masters.
So I was kind of crafting content for all these different
people. And from that I thought, well,
if, if people are resonating with free content and I love it,
like it would be a dream come true basically to, to make a
side hustle from my passion. So it's grown from there.
And it's definitely taken a long time and I tend to get excited
and go one way and in the other. And it's, it's been a bit of a
journey, but it's going really well now.
And the group, the online guys are awesome.
So it's a lot of it's primarily like a squad essentially.
So it's a lot of programs on sets.
We've got an online forum, you know, chat and connect in there
with some challenges and the strength, the strength side, I
think is one of my passion points as well.
So that's been growing and I think that's been quite a cool
opportunity because you've got capacity to really push or
regress people depending on what they're capable of.
Yeah, interesting. And we should say that on your
Instagram, you've got almost 70,000 followers, which is
massive. And I'll link to it in the show
notes so people can go and find it.
And like you say, you're posting a lot of content.
It's sort of how to how to content and it's usually videos
of your swimming and you're giving people advice.
And I like, I don't want to gush too much, but your swimming is
amazing. Like obviously you're very
accomplished, but just to watch it is such a pleasure because
you're just moving with such grace and ease through the
water. You know, there are people who
are fast swimmers, but they're creating a lot of, you know, it
just looks like they're working so hard, they're splashing so
much. But to watch you, it's like
watching it's it's almost like a work of art, if that's not
overstating it. But yeah, I definitely recommend
that people go and and check it out.
Oh, thank. You that's that's so.
Common. Yeah, It's very inspiring.
And I know that recently you coached your dad as well.
Would you like to talk a bit about that?
Because that's really cool. Absolutely.
That was probably one of the coolest experiences.
So my dad turned 65 last year and he just kind of mentioned
offhand about maybe doing the masters.
And bearing in mind like my dad has never done a swimming event
in his entire life. Like he literally learned to
swim out on the farm in a river. Like his brother taught him to
put his arms over and kick like anything.
So it was, it was just so much fun because he was so motivated
and so adherent with the sessions.
But the sessions I was writing him started at 400 meters and I
think our longest session was about 900.
So trying to keep them purposeful, but you know, I
suppose at his level was was really fun as a coach and to
actually see him change because he seen me through a few videos
of his dive and his sprinting and a few technical changes when
you have never swum competitively, the changes
happened so quickly. And I tell you what, I was so
nervous at the actual nationals. So he was at the at the masters
nationals, just one event, the 50 freestyle.
And I was just like, please don't break.
Like don't fall into the water early.
Don't you know? And he swam 15 seconds faster
than this this time trial. But I'll be like, yeah, that's
partly. Hopefully it's somewhat of the
coaching I'm. Sure it is.
That's huge. That's a huge change in time.
So I'm. Trying to now convince mom and
my brother to do a full quilter relay at the next Masters.
But then I think what makes it particularly special was it
Dad's just changed so much. He almost passed away last year
in a freak medical accident. And so for him to take on
something like this and actually, like, do it, he was.
Yeah. It was the coolest 40 seconds of
my life. I think 39, four or something in
the 53, Yeah. And, like, all the more special
that it's your dad, right? Like family, yeah.
Like before the race, I'm trying to put his cap on, so I'm
holding it on his forehead and I'm like, you know, make sure
that your goggles don't have the cap underneath, otherwise
they'll leak. And we did a couple of practices
because to reposition the goggles because that's quite a
personal thing. You don't want them to come off.
It was, it was so much fun because he's been like my
biggest supporter. He was like the starter in
Gisborne for my brother and I like came to every competition,
loved to watch us train, but there was no pressure on us
either. And I think if I could speak to
any swimming parents and a lot of my friends who did really
well, we've had supportive parents, but not overbearing.
So it was always an expectation that if I didn't train, mom and
dad would stop paying the fees. But they didn't really care
whether I swam or not. And I think they gave us the
freedom, my brother and I, to really explore our, like,
athletic capacities without the stress of needing to win because
I wasn't particularly good until I was, you know, early teenager.
I just love the process of training.
I think having supportive parents that weren't forcing us
to achieve was such a cool experience.
Yeah, that's awesome. And Speaking of sort of the
older generation, like people I swim with range and age, I think
from their 30s to their 80s here in Wellington, and I'm in my
late 40s now. So it's really cool to see older
people, not necessarily old people, but you know, older
people swimming and continuing to swim.
Like it's the kind of sport that you can keep doing, right?
And that's really cool to see. I think that's one of the my
favorite parts about swimming. So it's just so kind on your
body. Like, yeah, you get some
overview stuff through your shoulders.
But you know, the Masters world champs, I think they have like
octogenarians there, right? Like the over 100 year olds.
And I think that's you're so right.
It is so special. I read somewhere that your
favorite quote is the water doesn't know how old you are and
I really like that that's. From Dara Torres.
So she that book is phenomenal, phenomenal if anyone wants a
swimming range. So she was an American athlete
and she actually was overshadowed of course because
Michael Phelps won 8 golds and rightly so.
But she was 42 years old at that Olympics and she won silver in
the 53 and she lost the gold by .01 like 42 years old.
Well, I don't people even know that happened.
And she had a 2 year old in the stands watching her like her,
her child, she's an incredible athlete.
Like no normal 42 year old will do that.
She had been to five previous Olympics, her first on debut at
like 15 years old. But when you read a book, you
understand it's an insight into a really elite mindset.
Wow. I no, I hadn't heard of her.
And do you know what the books called?
I can look it up. Age.
Is just a number, yeah. Nice.
Yeah, cool. And I know another thing you've
been sort of curious about is ice swimming.
And I read that you're a a current world record holder and
ice swimming now. So if you want to talk a bit
about that. That, that was another really
fun thing. I'm quite a curious person now
work as a nurse. So physiologically and
scientifically, I was quite interested in your response to
cold exposure. And I just saw it on social
media, to be honest. Ice swimming, I was like, well,
like I find swimming 100 meters very easy.
There's not much challenge to it.
But if you put me into two degrees, I don't know like what
would happen. And it was actually quite fun
because my build up, obviously I'm based in Auckland and I did
all my training basically in a ice bar.
So I started off just with acclimatization sitting in this
ice bath and then I gradually worked up to putting my face in.
And the craziest part of that training was the face in was
actually tolerable when I started practicing blowing
bubbles. And so I'm like in the size bar,
blowing bubbles, pretending to roll to breathe, the bubbles
hitting my forehead, it was like being punched.
Like the pain of that cold was actually really surprising.
And when I was rolling to breathe, like even getting used
to trying to relax and breathe because you get like things
called like jaw retractions and all your carotids get quite
cold. And so, so that was quite an
experience. And then the actual community
down there when I got there, they're just so supportive.
Like you've got people you've never met cheering for you and
you can hear everything because there's no tumble turns you have
to touch and go. So you hear everyone calling
your name, but I think that was quite funny.
I'd only entered the hundreds and when I got down there, the
vibe I, I got a bit competitive and wanted to enter the 500.
Got through there and said to one of the more experienced
ladies and Susan Sherwood, who's awesome, said do you think based
on the 500 I would finish AK? And she said yes.
So I was like, send it, let's do it.
So 1000 meters and 2.1°. And I think for me, one of the
strangest experiences is I swim with a lot of feels.
So I like to swim with my eyes closed a lot of the time because
you can focus on whether you're cause engaged, whether you're
symmetrical, your kick timing. But I'd be watching my hand
assuming this K and I couldn't feel anything.
And even if you're for a few strokes, I was going like
finger, like little finger down, thumb down, nothing.
I was so cold that you just had to hope you were swimming well.
And the other thing I got so cold I was having to rotate like
to 90° just to I suppose get my arm over in the recovery.
And then the actual recovery after I finished was unlike
anything I've ever experienced in my life.
So for people that have never heard of ice swimming, there's a
thing called after drop. So actually quite dangerous the
hopefully I'm doing it justice and trying to explain, but
essentially when the body gets cold, all your blood vessels
construct so that they keeps the the warm blood around your
centre. So this is what I think happens
the hypothesis anyway. So as the body starts to warm
and those extremities, the little arterioles and the
vessels and your fingers start to open, all that cold blood
goes back into the centre. And it can actually suddenly
just that actually 'cause, you know, some people have had
pretty poor outcomes from that. But it was the most intense
experience where I had to just accept my body just to, I had to
allow my body to save me essentially.
Like the shaking was so uncontrollable, I can't even
describe it. You can't drink anything because
you've just got, it's called thermogenesis.
So it's just shivering, right? But it's just shivering on a
whole different scale. And that took a couple of hours,
I think, to fully recover. But that was an experience, and
I would actually recommend it. Like, I know that sounds awful,
but that was 1000 meters. And I love a good challenge for
anyone that's, you know, a competent summer, doing 100
meters is such a thrill because you get out, you're cold, but
you're just so energized. And it was awesome.
Yeah, it's, it seems to be a growing thing in New Zealand.
Like I know more and more people going down to, to participate in
it. I'm sorry.
I, I don't know if I will personally I'm, I'm very
interested to hear about it though.
Like how do you, how do you sort of psych yourself up to get into
that very cold water in the 1st place?
Like, do you have sort of a mental process that you go
through? It was mainly focused on
breathing because you get a cold shock response, so you tend to
inhale quite quickly. So you get in the water because
there's no diving. The first thing I'd do was do a
long exhale and put my face in the water.
And that was kind of just to get used to the cold because as
you're holding onto the edge, there's literally ice, like
sheets of ice on the side of the pool.
So for me, there wasn't much of a mental game, much more in
competitive swimming. Like I've got keywords that I
use to stay in the moment and not too nervous For ice
swimming, it was very much physiological because that was
my biggest challenge. So it was more on breath
control. And if I could control my
breathing before the start gun went off, I knew I'd be fine.
Would you be willing to share some of the keyword to use or is
that more of a personal thing? No.
Absolutely. So for so for dive, I have
keywords for training and for racing.
So at the world chance I used cool, which was just I knew that
I'd be quite nervous. So trying to relax and just call
me that like I was cool headed or, you know, just call on the
start. And then lock was another good
one that I used to use a lot in training because in sprinting
you really want to lock the core on.
So really focusing on drawing like navel to spine and locking
the core on left was one for my dive.
So when I dive, I tend to just flock a little bit.
So left meant to try get my sternum up to try get a little
bit more flight time. And yeah, so a few different
ones, but it's quite fun as long as it's a short, sharp word.
Because one of the most challenging things for is is
paralysis by analysis. And you just get 100 different
thoughts because you've gone onto aura move and you've seen
10 different ideas. You go onto if it was swimming,
you've seen 10 different ideas and you're thinking about them
all just swimming. It's just too much.
So when I like when I catch my guys, I just I've got quite a
rhythmical process we go through, but it's about
isolating one key technical point and then one limb as well.
So if you're working on your catch, just your left arm and
really trying to feel the sensation and playing with
extremes, right, we we get less creative as as we get older.
So what does it feel like if you just almost like touch your
shoulder on the way through on your catch versus going to did
straight up and then something in between.
So there's gone a bit off track, but yeah, keywords I like.
I like that paralysis by analysis.
I can relate to that, yeah. And as a coach, you can actually
see it when someone is thinking a lot that it's there's so much
stiffer, they hold their body and there's a little bit of
hesitation and yeah. Oh and one one thing I was going
to ask is I've recently bought my first smart watch and I'm
enjoying the the data analysis side of fun.
So how do you track your own data when you're swimming?
I don't I press go when I get in the water and then I press stop
at the end. So it's quite funny because I
coach a lot of triathletes who are constantly Start Stop doing
their laps. But I grew up old school, you
know, the big clock that spins round.
So I'd. Face clock, yeah.
Face clock, I just used that for leave cycles, but then that's
another really unique part about my journey is I basically
trained blind. So when you're in a squad,
you've got the benefit of timed set.
So you know on the stopwatch the coach has given you, you know,
exact seconds and split seconds if you're doing Sprint training.
I literally just went on field and a little bit of video.
So I had someone kind of fill me.
I'd have a look and be like, oh, something's not quite, quite
right. Near the end of the season,
particularly when I made the national team, I did have access
to some coaching, like some timing.
But yeah, in terms of data, that the primary data metrics that I
track are steps because I like to make sure that my daily, my
daily is a acronym for it. TDA, your total daily
expenditure, I think as long as I'm around that 10,000 I think
that's quite good. I track my sleep and my HRV and
that's about it I read. That you or you mentioned
earlier that you've represented New Zealand in the Life Saving
World Championships and that you're a black fan.
So what is a black fan? Is the name for a national team
member so if you make the New Zealand some team, you're an
Aqua black. If you make the New Zealand Surf
Life Saving team, you're a black fan.
So I was on the Black Fins team from 2012 to 2016 and I think it
was such a cool experience because in 2014 I was on the
Commonwealth Games team and on the Surf life saving team.
And you know, both elite level. Obviously swimming is a lot more
popular global sport versus Surf life saving a little bit less
global. But the team dynamics are just
so different. And I feel like I learned and
grew so much from taking aspects of both cultures, the
professionalism and things inside the swimming and the
structure around training and when you're eating and
recovering versus the Surf life saving because you just got to
adapt, particularly the guys on the beach because you can't swim
perfectly when there's a six foot swell or something.
Like they were the the beach athletes brought so much fun and
lightness to sport and they were still so good.
And I think that helped me to have a little bit more joy in my
swimming because yes, you do do definitely need structure and to
be taking things seriously. But taking things seriously
doesn't mean you can't have fun. And I think that was one of my
biggest, the challenges going into the world champs, was
trying to maintain the joy that I've had from swimming and not
get, I suppose like beat down by personal expectation.
Like once you're on a national team, obviously a lot of people
want to be where you are. So there's there's definitely
pressure to perform. And I think sitting another
personal best over there in the freestyle like that felt like
I'd done my job and I felt like I'd done what I'd trained for.
And that was a very proud moment for me, yeah.
That's really cool. And Speaking of swells, I, I
watched a video recently on your Instagram where you talked about
helping somebody build their confidence in the open water.
And that was really lovely. You know, helping somebody
achieve something like that, that must be rewarding.
That was. Definitely my peak of last week.
So Mon or Monica is my flatmate's partner and she
seriously almost drowned when she was in high school.
So a lot of people that almost drowned, they have like a little
bit of a scare, but she like was with a high school group and it
made the newspapers like there was a group of them in the sea
for a few hours. So she's got quite a quite a
history with swimming. And so we've been swimming
together once a leak at the pole and then that was our first, her
first ever ocean swim. And like I gave her the option.
We kind of said, you know, I don't care if we go in there and
go out and don't even take a stroke, like it's fine.
So we started quite shallow and just said let's go 5 minutes,
see how you feel. And she was amazing.
So I said to her, do you want to swim out to that pink boy?
And I'm not great at estimating distances.
I think it was probably about 200 meters offshore, like a
decent way. And you could don't see the fear
in her eyes. But then she she was like, yeah,
we can do this. And I said, even if we get
halfway, we can turn around. But yeah, she made it all the
way around that boy and back in and it was it was so awesome.
And I think that's, you know, that was the best part of my
entire week. But also random skills when you
go into the open water because I forget how much I learned from
surf life saving. So I grew up at Wynoi Beach.
Dion, the legend, He was my coach, but he taught me to
respect the ocean, but how to work with it.
So why not? We get a lot of big surf.
So we were taught from nippers from five years old to go under
to hold on to the sand until we felt the wave go past and then
come up. Take a breath, watch where the
next wave is under hold on, push off the ground.
And you know, Mon didn't even know about that and take a porn
ahead waves for the first time in like ever.
So it was quite fun to teach her like the waves, even if you're 9
foot tall or maybe 6 foot tall, you go under as long as you can
hold on to the sand, you're going to be absolutely fine.
It's not going to RIP you off the bottom.
And so it was quite fun teaching her some surf skills as well as
the confidence to swim out to that boy.
That's a. Really interesting tip.
I didn't know that one about holding on to the sand.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Because it's, you get used to the rhythm of it as well,
because you want to go under with time, but you'll feel the
pole, you'll feel the wave go past and then you go up after
that. If you go and come up too early,
it drags you back as well. But yeah, hands in the sand,
hands on the sand. Easy to remember.
And earlier we were talking a bit about strength training and
a few weeks ago I sprained my back not too badly, but I was
learning how to do flip turns for the first time in my life
and the pole and probably not doing them particularly well.
And so I've been seeing a physio and he said that, you know, my
back muscles are very stiff, which is very common for
swimmers. And so I've been doing the old
foam roller and all that sort of stuff and strengthening
exercises. So for your for your own
strength building, are there particular exercises that you
think swimmers tend to neglect that they should focus on?
That's a very broad question, but.
I think as long as you do, the key movements are your push,
pull, hinge and squat lunge. So hinge particularly is quite
good for the posterior chain. So dead lifting, but dead
lifting comes with a lot of risk if you don't have the form down.
And so you can kind of modify that in different ways to reduce
the risk. But in terms of back immobility,
I think a lot of thoracic range of motion is really important.
So I actually sometimes do more dry land than swimming for my
sessions. So I think that's something
that's very, very different about my process.
Now in that competitive world we did do pre poll but it was we do
some mid ball work which was awesome and some poor work.
Actually there was 1 squad that was very good.
The others it was kind of lift up to yourself and unless you
were very motivated, you kind of just do a hamstring stretch and
get in. Now I'm very structured with my
pre pool workout so I do anywhere from 10 minutes to 40
minutes before I get in the water and I structure that with
some active dynamic stretching and move more into strength and
stability based exercises and then finish with hits.
So like explosive push ups and jumps and then when I get in the
water, I feel so much better. But I think with swimmers, a lot
of that thoracic rotation work is really, really beneficial.
Doing things like thread the needle.
Even cat cows get extension and flexion through the spine.
But a lot of it as well is because we breathe shallow a lot
of the time and swimming often it's actually breathing
mechanics. And globally there's actually a
huge amount of people that have got breathing pattern disorders.
So we tend to over breathe. So we breathe more frequently
than we should and we tend to breathe up high into the chest
rather than diaphragmatically. When you swim, it's that's one
thing I've changed my perception of.
Obviously if you can breathe diaphragmatically quickly,
that's awesome, but it's a short sip of air when you swim
freestyle so often. I actually I'm an advocate for
shallow breathing because it means that you minimize your
time to neutral how often like how much time it takes you to
breathe. But as long as you revert to
belly breathing, diaphragmatic and day-to-day living, that's
quite important. And swimmers tend to or will I
do preferentially breathe through the mouth because I'm so
used to training and I had a history of asthma that breathing
through my nose is not necessarily natural.
And so learning to breathe properly, surprisingly is, is
very beneficial. And I'll try to keep the story
short, but I had some neck problems a few years ago when I
still swimming competitively. And the physio that I saw
addressed it through teaching me to breathe better.
And my like track pain went away because it turns out that I was
stressed, I had a lot going on. I was breathing really shallow
and everything kind of bound up. So it's kind of crazy to think
that I had attributed it to my picnic when in fact I just had
poor breathing mechanics. They're saying breath work is so
important for swimmers, isn't it?
Because if you haven't got the breath right, then nothing else
will work either. Absolutely.
You mentioned earlier that you're you're very competitive,
which isn't surprising because you're a competitive swimmer.
But I was curious to know with the ice swimming, for example,
like you've you, you gave it a go and you did phenomenally well
in that. So is that something now where
you would feel like, OK, I've I've done that, now move on to
the next challenge? Or will you continue to return
to ice swimming each year? That's such a hard one because I
actually really don't like the cold.
So the competitive that was part of the challenge, the
competitive side of me for the ice swimming was intra
competitive. So I'm very competitive with
myself. I'm actually not very inter
competitive. So if you get up on the blocks,
you're like, all right, I'm going to crush that person next
to me. They've got nothing on me.
It's not actually that great. Like when I focus on trying to
beat myself, like that's when I sell.
So the the competitive side of the ice swimming was can I swim
OK? It wasn't necessarily can I try
and beat the person next to me or whatever.
So in terms of like when I return, I think that my event
selection is based off what brings me the most joy at this
stage because I've been so lucky.
I had, you know, 20 years of competitive athleticism.
I was a full time athlete for like, you know, six or seven
years. And that's a pretty unique
experience to get to do that. And I'm so appreciative of that.
And so I know what it takes to be really focused.
So I'm very aware of getting too serious again because I've got a
whole, I've got a lot more going on right now.
Like I'm, I'm getting married in April, we've got our first
house. That there's a lot of things
that I don't want to miss out on anymore that I would have been
more than happy to miss out on in my first swimming career,
which I also think is important. So if you want to be an Olympic
champion, I think there's no way around it.
You have to give up a lot and I think that's normal, but I'm a
bit older now. So in terms of event selection,
it's what do I feel like doing? I'm doing a high rocks in a 10K
run early next year and I've, I think I actually might go back
to competitive swimming. Like literally I did an
interview two weeks ago and said no.
So who knows? Who knows that's.
Cool. And with the, with, with the ice
swimming, you mentioned, you know, you, you had an ice bath
and you were acclimatizing, you know, getting your body used to
those colder temperatures. And I was just thinking about
that because I was in Auckland, like I'm not an ice swimmer, but
I was in Auckland last week and I had a swim at Takapuna Beach.
Actually. It's really beautiful.
But I'm thinking, oh, this, this water isn't as cold as I'm used
to because I, I swam in Wellington, the water just the
temperatures a bit lower here. And, and so when you did you
find that when you were training for your ice swim that you
became less tolerant of the warmer water?
Like, how did that, How did your body sort of change as you
adapted it? Yeah, I don't I didn't notice a
change in the warmer water. Like Full disclosure, I think I
did 2 ocean swims in my build up.
Like I I trained in the swimming pool in 27° and in the ice bath
to get used to the cold because I figured if I train
specifically for 100 metre freestyle, but my body
understands what it feels like to be in that.
I had no option to swim in anything close to sub five in
the North Island or maybe in Tampa or somewhere.
But also like it feels quite weird to go to a lake and do
like a Sprint. So a lot of those ice swimmers
that do the longer of it longer events, it's specific to be able
to go and swim 1315 minutes. For me, my event that I was
focusing on was hopefully going to be a minute.
Like I would have loved to have been the first ice swimmer in
the sub minute for the woman in the freestyle.
I think it went like a one-on-one, so maybe I don't
need to do another one. So how many have you done so
far? Is it 2 or just one?
Swimming championships? I've only.
Done 1 ice swimming championships.
Yeah, yeah. And that was was that the one
that was in the pole? Because I remember seeing
pictures, yeah. It was alternate.
Don't they? Between pole and Yeah, yeah.
Much more. Much more attracted to the pool.
Fair enough. It's your happy place.
Cool. Well, I think that that's some
of my questions. I've really enjoyed talking to
you. I've learned a lot.
Is there anything you want to mention that I haven't already
asked you about? Off the top of my head, not
really. I can't, I can't think of
anything. I just say, yeah.
I think to almost recall what you said earlier, swimming is
one of those activities you can do essentially until you die.
Like I will be swimming as late as possible.
So I think it doesn't matter. Maybe if you're even a bit
older, trying to learn it is something that can bring so much
joy and also a bit of fun. So like trying to do something
different in Ocean Storm, a Masters swimming event, an
awesome event, you get to make some pretty amazing people and
go to some amazing places around the world if you choose to do
those different ocean swims or Masters events.
So I'm just really grateful that swimming is something that I've
got in my life and we'll have for the rest of my life.
Did you, when you had your eight years of non competitive
swimming, did you miss it at that time or did you feel like
you'd put it behind you and you're focused on other things?
Yeah, I I didn't miss the competitive side at all.
I still swam a lot with the triathlon squad, but it was
definitely the right call. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, cool. All right, Well, thank you so
much for your time, Laura and all the best with your training
and your your upcoming wedding too.
Congratulations. Thank.
You it was so nice to chat. Thanks for listening to this
episode of Swim Chats. Please remember to follow or
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