Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Guy Farrow - Masters Swimming WR and University of Hawaii Alum

What does it feel like to be a successful and passionate masters swimmer, combining the thrill of racing through the water, with the discipline it takes to keep improving over the years?

Well, tune in to this episode of Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast as we take a deep dive into the swimming journey of Guy Farrow. This episode takes you through Guy's experiences swimming with a tight-knit swim community, his recent world record breaking swim and the secret to maintaining top form despite getting older. He shares valuable insights on the importance of consistency, preparation, and a firm belief that the best is yet to come.

From weekly training at saltwater Bondi Icebergs, to indoor chlorinated pools in Sydney, Guy fits these swims into his weekly schedule.  He reveals the nuances of training in these different environments and his strategies for relay competitions. Also, get a glimpse of Guy's masters swimming world records from 1990, his recent injury and ongoing rehab, and how he continues to push the boundaries of human endurance and spirit.

For those of you who love swimming stories, you'll be thrilled to hear about Guy's time with the University of Hawaii and the NCAA swimming competition. His vivid narration takes you right into the heart of team swimming and short course sprints. He talks about his transition to Masters Swimming and the vast differences he has experienced between US and Australian Masters Swimming. Also, get ready for an interesting perspective on the evolution of breaststroke technique.

Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation with a true master of the sport.

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Chapters

• 0:06 Master Swimmer's Journey and Achievements
• 7:18 Swimming Achievements and Training Differences
• 17:52 Inspiration, Hard Work, and College Swimming
• 24:31 US and Australia Masters Swimming Comparison

Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:06

Hello Swimmers, and welcome to another episode of Torpedo Swimt alk Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Spurling, and each week we chat to a master swimmer from around the world about their swimming journey. Today, we have a very special guest joining us on the show. His name is Guy Farrow, an individual with an unwavering passion for swimming. While he has an impressive collection of master's world records and a history of being a nationally ranked age group and open swimmer, what truly sets him apart is his unyielding love for swimming with friends, because, at its core, that's what master swimming is all about a shared journey of comradery and joy. So let's plunge into the depths of Guy's swimming journey as he takes us through the highs, the lows and the unforgettable memories that have shaped his relationship with the water. Hi Guy, welcome to the podcast. Really good to be here. Thanks very much, Danielle. Yeah, you're welcome. Where are you coming to us from today?

Guy Farrow: 1:13

I'm sitting in the office in Sydney, so in the middle of a work day or getting to the end of it, I got my swim in this morning, so it felt good for the day and I've been looking forward to having a chat.

Danielle Spurling: 1:25

Yeah, where did you get your swim in this morning?

Guy Farrow: 1:27

I went to Tattershalls Club, where it's a really good team. We've got a few familiar names like Chris Fydler and Daniel Kowalski and James Hickman at the moment, and we also have some great ocean swimmers like John Domester and Justin Hanby. So it doesn't matter if you're a pool swimmer, an ocean swimmer, a surf swimmer, it's just a great crew to be training with.

Danielle Spurling: 1:50

Sounds really good. Do you have a coach there, or are you self-coached?

Guy Farrow: 1:55

Well between Chris Fydler and James Hickman. Normally they kind of take over the writing of the workouts and the rest of us follow or don't follow in my case. But we play tunes and it's really good because whoever's got the meat coming up or the competition coming up, we sort of gear the training towards them. So there's a lot of support going towards John Domester. He's heading off to Worlds to do the 3000 in the long-distance swimming, so we're doing a few more 400s and 500s than usual just to get him ready.

Danielle Spurling: 2:36

And you raced on the weekend in the New South Wales Masters Relay meat. How did that go?

Guy Farrow: 2:40

It went well. Sort of dusting off the cobwebs, really. First couple of races for this year. I had an injury last year, so just coming back. But I love to race, I love being in the relays with teammates and good to get some exercise and try to sprint, and good to have a laffer and the pool and the blocks as well. But it was good. Yeah, yes fantastic.

Danielle Spurling: 3:03

Yeah, it looked like a good meet. Do you race under the Tattershalls banner?

Guy Farrow: 3:07

Yes, I do, and we've got enough swimmers that we can mix and match, so different relays and different strokes and, yeah, we normally had a good time in route there.

Danielle Spurling: 3:17

Yeah, is it an all guys team?

Guy Farrow: 3:21

No, we've had some mixed teams in the past, more than mixed in the guys then I'd say the dedicated women's team, but we have a few women in the team as well, yeah, sounds good, and what's a typical training week look like for you at the moment?

Danielle Spurling: 3:37

So I know you're busy with work and you've got young kids and family life. How do you fit it all in and what does it look like?

Guy Farrow: 3:44

Oh look, I think that's the beauty of master swimming is that there doesn't need to be a typical training week. You sort of go with it when you get the time, and other times you know it could be family or it could be work. They take you away from the pool. But you know the number one rule is keep showing up. You know you have weeks where you get in really good mileage and other weeks where you struggle to get there. But you know every day that you make it, there is a better day. So just keep showing up.

Guy Farrow: 4:12

And you know the value of being on a team is people often reach out to you in between the training sessions if they haven't seen you for a while and give you the right level of encouragement to get there. What do I try to aim for Like? Ideally I'd like to get three or four sessions in a week and typically there you know about three K. So you're probably doing 10 to 12 K On top of that. You know we're all doing a lot more, I'd say, of the pre-work before we get in the pool. So the band work, the stretching work, and you know, as I get a little bit older I recognise the importance of keeping strength up. So I try to hit the weight room as well, but you're probably getting two the gym slash, pool, I'd say, four times a week and a good week.

Danielle Spurling: 4:55

Yeah, and that sounds pretty typical of a lot of master swimmers and I wonder you're all swimming so fast?

Guy Farrow: 5:02

You try to keep swimming fast. You know. Part of that, I think, is the attitude and the silly belief at this age that somehow your best swim is still ahead of you. I don't know if it's your fastest swim, but it could be your best, depending how you measure it. But it kind of keeps you going. I think it's great for everybody, no matter what your level is or what your stroke or what you're aspiring to do, to have a little goal in there. It kind of keeps you honest on the journey and gives you something to aim for.

Danielle Spurling: 5:29

What's the next big goal on the horizon for you?

Guy Farrow: 5:32

Oh, I don't know if there's a big goal. If I look out far enough, it's probably 2025, when I move up an age group which sounds daunting, but I move into the 60s then. So you start to think about. I think worlds are in Singapore then. But there's a lot of mini goals between now and then, and I really like the ones which you're able to do with your teammates and try to pick a relay here or there where you think you can do something special, but otherwise just trying to get a little bit faster, and all those little things in terms of working on your starts and your streamlines and your breakout strokes, and it's all those little pieces, I think, when you're trying to sprint fast, that collectively add up and make a difference.

Danielle Spurling: 6:15

Absolutely, and I know you mentioned James Hickman and Chris Fidler and you had a third guy in your relay from last year, peter Teal. That broke the world record in the 4x50 freestyle relay. Tell us about that great experience, because that was really exciting, and what kind of training did you do leading up to that race?

Guy Farrow: 6:37

Yeah, it was great. We started sort of getting the idea for the meet, I'd say, or for the relay, probably in about March. So it was kind of a late relay team that came together and we started doing a few of the meets, like the New South Wales some stake champs relay meet that was on this weekend, and just sort of started making sure we had the right age, because you only move through these windows of opportunity in the master's relays but because the age groups are 40 years apart, you kind of need everything to line up nicely. And we were especially proud we did it with no ringings, we did it with the team that we work out with. We actually had one hit out at SOPAC in the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre. We missed it.

Guy Farrow: 7:25

And then the joy was we looked at the meat calendar and the next meat was up at Woi Woi in regional New South Wales. So we sort of packed up the caravan, we changed the order, we worked a lot on the changeovers and Chris had us doing some really high-quality sprint work just to get the edge back and it all came together beautifully. It was just a great swim and we thought we might just scrape under but we beat it by one and a half two seconds and, like all good relays, everybody did their bit.

Danielle Spurling: 8:01

What was the reasoning behind changing the order?

Guy Farrow: 8:04

We led off with James Hickman the first time round. I think there was a couple of reasons. One is James is much better with a flying start, and then Chris also. He turned 50 last year and thought he'd have a crack at the individual world record. So we moved him forward and he let us off in a blistering time and beat Rowdy Gaines a 50-meter world record. And then James at the back went just as fast and Peter and I were in the middle trying to hold it together.

Guy Farrow: 8:32

It was a lot of fun and the joy here is in achieving the goal, but doing it in the relay just makes it all that much more special and enjoyable.

Danielle Spurling: 8:40

Yeah, it's great to do it with mates and I think it does make it much more special, doesn't it, than an individual, although an individual is also fantastic, and you actually got one of those back in. Am I right in saying 1990 or something around there? You got a world record when you were 25, was it?

Guy Farrow: 9:00

I got two actually in that meet. I got the from memory, I got the 100 IM and that was about 57 seconds, and then I got the 50 breast, which I think I went about 28, which at the time was only about 1 tenth off the open record. So it was a fun meet and both records are still standing, which as Australian record, it's not as world record. So that's 33 years later, so I'm sure I get beaten at some point in time, but nice to see them still standing up.

Danielle Spurling: 9:37

Nice, yeah, nice that they're still standing. And you mentioned earlier you had an injury that you're recovering from. What happened and how's the rehab going with that.

Guy Farrow: 9:46

I think as you get older and if you've been doing it long enough, injuries are just part of sport. And of course I had an injury that was totally unrelated. I snapped my Achilles on an island three hours north of Cairns. I wish I was doing something miraculous, but I was just being a little bit silly and off it snapped. I knew it instantly and then I had to take the plane back to Cairns, the plane back to Sydney and wait till the end of the week and have surgery. So when I raced this week, where you notice it is not so much in the kick but just the transfer of weight on the starts, it's on my front foot, not my back foot. But as I start to push, still a little bit slower in getting the power, I think off the plucks, but good to be back. It is part of competition, part of sport. So you just roll with it, do the rehab and enjoy the journey.

Danielle Spurling: 10:44

What kind of rehab have they had you doing?

Guy Farrow: 10:46

Well, a lot of it's just basic stretching exercises, calf raises, all those sort of things. Two years before that I had a pretty complete reconstruction of the right shoulder, so that was harder, just a lot more work done, and it's really hard to get in the pool when you can't use one arm. So that was a much more difficult recovery. But it sort of taught me that if you go through the rehab and you follow the discipline of dedicating yourself to getting better, good things can happen. So it was only two years after that we broke the world record so carefully optimistic that we'll be back from the Achilles in another good 12 months as well.

Danielle Spurling: 11:31

Yeah, absolutely, I'm ready for Singapore.

Guy Farrow: 11:33

Ready for Singapore and whatever else is between now and then.

Danielle Spurling: 11:36

Absolutely. Have you ever been to any other Masters World Championships?

Guy Farrow: 11:40

I have never been to a Masters World Championships, ever, anyway. So just between you know, I think life work, the age group you're in, where it's located, whether or not you're in shape at the time, as I said, all of that becomes part of master swimming and how you juggle it and balance it, and you know. So I find you keep up this base level of training and the occasional competition, but you become a little bit more like a boxer. You know you almost need a campaign. You sort of have a goal that's in the more immediate horizon and then you get everything organised and you can push a few of those other things out of the way and reprioritise and get everything lined up and go for it and that's OK.

Danielle Spurling: 12:29

I love that. I love that perspective. I think that sounds great and I know you mentioned you swim at Tattersles in Sydney, but I know you're also a fond swimmer at Bondi Icebergs. How is the training different there in the outdoors, with saltwater pool, as opposed to Tattersles, which is a chlorinated pool? How do you find those two differences and fit that into your week?

Guy Farrow: 12:53

Yeah, I think, like you know the whole Bondi Icebergs thing. When I was living in Dallas, immediately before I moved to Sydney, I was training with Jim Montgomery's squad. I didn't know anyone in Sydney and he said well, if you don't know anyone, the one person you need to know is Neil Rogers. Neil, of course, is the coach at the Bondi Icebergs. So that's sort of how I fell into the icebergs and there's a couple of aspects to it. One is the training, and that is the joy of swimming in saltwater with waves crashing over the edge. So what becomes more important than the time or the pace clock there is really taking your turn at leading and you know the people you swim with.

Guy Farrow: 13:35

And it's a really diverse mix of people down there. Some great ocean swimmers, you know. You've got Simon Knothling who in the surf is just a beast. You've got Keith McDonald who does all the ocean swims. You've got Joel Mabry who's a living legend of the icebergs. So you've got the training there and the perfect way to finish a week is to go down there on a Saturday morning and you kind of forget about everything else that's happened that week and you jump in the squad and just have a really good session. It's always an hour, it's always sort of two and a half to three K and you rotate the lead and forget about everything that's happened.

Guy Farrow: 14:14

And then you've got the other aspect of it, which is the Bondi Icebergs on Sunday, where to be a member, you know you have to show up four out of five Sundays through winter for five years. So you've got to get your hundred swims in and there's no shortcut. You've just got to be there and that in itself is just a great thing. All the races are handicapped and scattered. Amongst that you still have all the age group championships, the 40 and 50 meter open champs and you know the national champs and some fun events like table relays etc that make it. You know it's an institution down there and I guess part of living in Sydney as much as it is part of the swimming community. So they're different but very complimentary. They're probably more focused at Tattersles and enjoying life more down at the Icebergs.

Danielle Spurling: 15:06

I think that's a pretty nice way to be, because it's such a beautiful pool to swim in fantastic outlook. So I think that's great to have that mixed in with your serious training as well.

Guy Farrow: 15:17

Oh, it is and there's. You know we've got other groups so sort of. There's a group at the Sydney football stadium and tend to show up there. I think what saved us during lockdown in Sydney was a group of us who all lived within five kilometers of Koojee, so we'd swim in the ocean every day. Most of us were no wetsuits but you know, kind of gave you something to do and something to look forward to. You know there's also a group of old swimming legends. You know Graham Brewer, matt Renshaw, andrew DeVries, and you know we get together, we call ourselves a monthly swimmer than the first Wednesday of every month we find a pool in Sydney and go and have a swim and head out and have a pub meal afterwards. So you know there's a lot of these swimming groups and all of them play an important role and they're all slightly different but they give you diversity in your workouts each week and just give you a rich and robust group of friends to enjoy the sport with.

Danielle Spurling: 16:11

Yeah, it sounds like a great tapestry of different people that you've got swimming with you, so it's no wonder you're so excited and passionate about it.

Guy Farrow: 16:21

You know, if you look back at certainly if I look back at my life, like all of my best friends and long standing friendships were basically through swimming, so you're sort of touching on those. Everywhere you go, be it Tattersles or the icebergs or the monthly swimmers, or you know, even when I'm down in Melbourne I'm traveling, I still come back to the Melbourne swimming pool. That's been my home club since I was six and, you know, still still see the same people.

Danielle Spurling: 16:49

Yes, yeah, it's a great, great pool to swim at, that's for sure. I mean, you just mentioned then, or alluded to it, that swimming has been such a big part of your life and you were a top level national age group or as a, as a kid, and then went to the Institute of Sport in Canberra in its one, I suppose, is its heyday, because it's sort of petered off a little bit now. What was that experience like, being at the Institute, and what's your sort of favourite memory from that time?

Guy Farrow: 17:15

Oh, it was sort of a mecca of Australian swimming at the time. It had only started in the early 80s and I went there in 84 and you had, you know, dennis Pursley as the head men's coach, and you know John Rogers, who's still training Olympic medalists, and so you know you had the best of the facilities, the best of the coaching, and then the squad was just amazing, and you think of Mark Stockwell, greg Fisaleck, ryan Brewer, ron McKinnon, rob Woodhouse, and it sort of went on and on. So you know, to be able to train in that elite company was just exceptional. And I think if there's a couple of things I learned from my time there, it was, you know, inspiration and hard work. And when you're looking at those names I just mentioned that you know they're all so inspiring, they're all reaching for the very top of the sport globally and the hard work that was put in. And Dennis was known for just how you know hard his workouts were.

Guy Farrow: 18:18

I think the busiest week and this was in the breaststroke lane. The busiest week we had was 110 kilometres. So you know you were certainly putting the miles in. You know 12, 400s breaststroke. I remember once 300, 1500s breaststroke kick oh, what a killer, and all of that was during Hell Week, but just, it was, as I said, inspiration and hard work.

Danielle Spurling: 18:38

What a time to be there. I think they're trying to build it up again now, but it definitely petered off in the last sort of, you know, last decade or so.

Guy Farrow: 18:48

Yeah, it did. You know, I'd say what's taken its place is sort of, you know, that focus in South East Queensland that swimming has and it's not one venue anymore, it's sort of multiple coaches and multiple pools. You know, that's probably the closest we've got at the moment.

Danielle Spurling: 19:05

Yeah, absolutely. And from there you got a scholarship to the University of Hawaii, a swimming scholarship. What was that experience like?

Guy Farrow: 19:14

It was great, you know it was life changing in so many ways. If I sort of look back, there was so many dimensions. You know, to start with, when I accepted the scholarship, I'd never been to America, so it was kind of, you know, a step into the great unknown. And back then there was no cheap flights, no Facebook, no WhatsApp, no mobile phones. So you're literally moving to a country where you didn't know anyone, without the ability to have this sort of regular interaction with your family and friends, and that in itself was a learning experience and a fantastic opportunity. You know fortunate that the way the US college system is set up, you can really combine your studies with your swimming, and that suited me really well. And you know I was able to get a degree from University of Hawaii and go on get a graduate degree from UCLA.

Guy Farrow: 20:06

I love the team nature of swimming that exists in college swimming, where you know, basically you'll be asked to swim any event in a dual meet or at a conference meet or at NCAAs, to help the team. So it was team first, individual second. And then I also loved the short course. You know, high sprint and everything that comes from that, including more work in the gym and you know you put all those together and the fantastic people that were on the swim team and it was just a very rich experience that I like to think changed me for the better, still in touch with all of my teammates from back then on a regular basis. I think it's 40 years next year since we won the conference championships and we're having a little reunion over there.

Danielle Spurling: 20:56

That'll be nice, nice to catch up with them all and with your time there when you were swimming the NCAA competitions. Did you have to go across to the mainland for those?

Guy Farrow: 21:08

Yeah, I mean we traveled probably to two main road trips a year, maybe the conference meet and the NCAA meet. And then Hawaii had a lot of teams come out over the Christmas season to have training camps in Hawaii. So there were dual meets set up there and they're Hawaiian, invitational as well. So you know you, whereas in Australia growing up you sort of had states and nationals Over, there you were racing, it seemed like, all the time, and the depth was such that you're always racing somebody who you've never heard of, who was just as likely to beat you.

Guy Farrow: 21:43

So you had to constantly get used to standing up, no matter how you felt or where you were in the training cycle, and just pushing yourself to go hard and to race fast, and that was always good experience. So I think it genuinely gave me the love of racing. Like I still just love getting up and seeing where you're at and testing yourself and, you know, somehow mentally trying to convince yourself that you've still got it, when the body might be failing or you haven't quite done the work that's needed. But you know, the mental side of racing is great.

Danielle Spurling: 22:15

I mean, I think that that whole idea of racing all the time, as you say, when maybe when you're not feeling so well or not at your peak is something that that college system really drives home, and it's something that I think we're missing a bit in Australia. We don't race as much as the Americans race.

Guy Farrow: 22:33

And even when we do, we're sort of racing against the same people. So you know how they race, you know what their best times are and there was just so many people who were racing at such a good level over there that, as I said, you were never safe and you know they could put the I am specialist in the breaststroke to try to win some points and you know that person's dropping big best time. So, yeah, you're always trying to race. It was really good.

Danielle Spurling: 23:01

Yeah, what a great experience. And how long after your time there did you move into master swimming? Did you have any any gap or did you go straight from uni into masters?

Guy Farrow: 23:12

Well, I sort of quit for a while. You know, I graduated in 88. So I had a final race, which I think was Olympic trials, in 88 back here and then just sort of did nothing for a while. And then, you know, I was back in Melbourne, I got back in the pool, actually had surgery on a deviated septum and then sort of got back in.

Guy Farrow: 23:33

That was the year I ended up winning nationals in the open, nationals in the 50, breast over in Adelaide, and then just sort of rolled into masters and then went back to UCLA for grad school to do my MBA and started as assistant coach at the men's team to the great coach, ron Sticks Ballator, you know. Then some of the guys there started to get him into master swimming. So my first master's meet was that meet where I set the two world records. And then my second master's meet was US nationals with some of the old UCLA swimmers and sort of stuck at it. And, as I said, it's not all the time, but you keep showing up, you stay constant, you keep a base level of fitness and then when the opportunity presents itself and the team comes together, you get into a bit of serious training and go for it. So you know I've been doing my coming for 30 odd years now. Hard to believe.

Danielle Spurling: 24:27

That's yeah. Well, you've got a love for it, so that's amazing. How long were you over in America for after you've done your graduate degree?

Guy Farrow: 24:35

I moved down to Dallas and so I lived there for about three years. So you know, all up I was in the States for about, you know, I think, around 11 years in Honolulu, LA and Dallas.

Danielle Spurling: 24:46

And what's the difference that you see between American or US masters swimming and Australian masters swimming?

Guy Farrow: 24:53

Probably. Yeah, you know they're more organized Also coached at Southern California or aquatic when I was over at UCLA. So I do, you know UCLA the day programs and then coach and swim in the evening with SCAC. But there's so more organized, they have so many more swimmers. You know, at times they take it a lot more seriously Because I think for us it's more of making it part of your lifestyle and, you know, making it overly competitive and onerous on the training and I think there's pros and cons of each. But I think we, you know, certainly in all those squads I mentioned, you know we genuinely enjoy our swimming but more importantly, we enjoy the people we're swimming with and I think that that's such a big part of masters swimming. Yeah, absolutely.

Danielle Spurling: 25:42

Do you still? I know your relay world record was 4x50 freestyle, but are you still swimming a lot of breaststroke individually?

Guy Farrow: 25:52

Well, I tried it last weekend, so you know it's sort of but been a while but I haven't really done a lot individually. It's sort of the relay that would get me back into it, that if somebody said we need you to do the breaststroke in the relay, then I'd end up doing the breaststroke individually. But I only did the 4x25 breaststroke I think I went about 15 flat. So it's kind of okay, without being outstanding and like all of these things, you've got to practice it a little bit more.

Danielle Spurling: 26:21

And a lot's changed.

Guy Farrow: 26:23

You forget that in 1990, when I set that record, the blocks were flat, not angled. There was no wedge at the back of the blocks. You weren't allowed to do a butterfly kick. It was only around 1980s that, I think, you stopped getting disqualified for putting your head underwater on each stroke. So before that you used to have to swim with your head above water the whole time. So when you talk about how do you get ready, now you've really got to adjust your stroke and teach yourself a new technique and make sure that all of that's working in your favour. But that's part of the journey and part of the fun. You get to do it all again, learning something new and practicing some new skills.

Danielle Spurling: 27:05

Yes, absolutely. Was there a time back then where you couldn't even bring your breaststroke recovery hands out of the water? They weren't allowed to break the surface.

Guy Farrow: 27:14

I've never put people putting hankies in their aiding caps to keep their head from going underwater and you couldn't even really. They were just starting to do the butterfly kick on the recovery. But now it's so different how you swim it that you really need to learn it again. So it was good to dust off the skills and do it. But the other great thing about racing is you're sort of 80% happy with the good things you've done and 20% unsatisfied with all the things you've still got to improve. But that's what makes it great to show up at the pool again after the weekend you've been racing. You're thinking that was good, but there's so much more to do.

Danielle Spurling: 27:57

I think that's why racing is so good, even though personally I never feel like I'm ready to race, as you mentioned. But I think when you do, you find out where you're at and you get more inspired as well, I think.

Guy Farrow: 28:12

I find you've got to trick yourself these days. You've got to go heavier on the belief. You've also got to make yourself nervous again. When you're young you're instantly nervous because it's time to race. And here you've got so many other things and suddenly you've carved out the weekend or the day to race. So for the half hour before you've got to get focused and make yourself nervous and then see what you're capable of. But you're sort of trying to trick the mind that you're ready to go when for so many other reasons you're not perfectly in shape or there's a niggle with the shoulder or the knee or something is happening at work. But that is what makes it fun. Yes.

Danielle Spurling: 28:57

I agree. I mean your little group of four. You probably could go for the Medley World Record as well. Medley Relay World Record.

Guy Farrow: 29:07

Yeah, james is five times world short course 200 butterfly champion, so his butterfly is exceptional, but he also set the national record in the backstroke. Chris Feidler people always think of him as a freestyler, but Chris is always reminding us he started life as a breaststroker, so we never quite hear the end of that from Chris. So you're always trying to figure out how do you reassemble the team to give yourself the best chance, and that's a combination of age and distance and stroke. That's no different to any other masters team around the country, though. You're trying to put all the pieces of the jigsaw together to give yourself the best chance at doing something.

Danielle Spurling: 29:51

Yes, absolutely. I would love to ask you a few questions. A little deep dive is a bit of a snapshot of your swimming and just a few favourites. So what is your favourite pool that you've ever swam at?

Guy Farrow: 30:05

I think, the Bondi Icebergs. It is hard to have a bad swim at the Bondi Icebergs. It doesn't matter what mood you showed up in, the people there are great. There's nothing like having Neil on deck and just the beauty of getting hit by a wave. As I said at the beginning, time and the pace clock is somewhat irrelevant. Sometimes you're a third of the way back and a big set comes over the edge of the pool and you have to bust out an eight-beat kick and you're still going nowhere. So I think that is a special place. And why so many people around the world? If you ask them their top 10 pools, the Bondi Icebergs is always there. So just a great place, great natural beauty, great people, good workouts, lots of fun.

Danielle Spurling: 30:58

Absolutely. It's been a popular answer to that question I've had quite a few people have said that's their favourite. So yeah, it's definitely up there. What about your favourite breaststroke training drill?

Guy Farrow: 31:12

Probably a few that come to mind. I like swimming breaststroke underwater not with the pull down, just with the proper arms and kick, because I find that keeps my arms towards the front of my body so that I don't get the elbows caught back. I like doing two strokes up and then one stroke down. I like doing a whole lap underwater and just working on the pull downs Particularly. You're talking about something that's certainly half a lap short course underwater. So just working on the quality of the pull downs and getting those right. And then I just like working at all the little skills, the starts and turns. So there's lots of little drills.

Guy Farrow: 31:57

Some are more your classic stroke drills and some of them, I think, are just the techniques. I mean. So much of any race right now is done underwater. So your starts and your turns and your underwater has just become crucially important. Some of the guys at Tats might say my favourite drill is never getting in or being in the sauna. I still train like a sprinter. I think More technique, work, higher quality, less distance and enjoy the ride.

Danielle Spurling: 32:27

Oh, I think it sounds pretty good. What about your favourite pre-race snack?

Guy Farrow: 32:33

Oh, what did I have this weekend? You know, I think if you're talking while you're at the pool, still like the snakes, still like the bananas, if I need a caffeine jolt, a can of Red Bull, if I just need to hydrate a bit of Gatorade, but I sort of put all of that together. I try to race light, so breakfast is always fairly light and something that isn't going to hang throughout the day. So that could be a banana, a piece of toast, a bit of honey, a pasta the night before, but when I'm at the pool, just all those sort of snacks that keep me affinated and sugared.

Danielle Spurling: 33:14

Yes, and how about your favourite swimming goggles? What's your pair that you use, that you always go back to?

Guy Farrow: 33:23

When I race I always use the Speedo goggles, but you know the Opal ones for training. And then I use their racing goggles when I race and occasionally when I'm training, if I go fast and concentrate on my technique, I take the goggles off. I actually find I, you know I just internalise the stroke a little bit more when I don't have the goggles on. So occasionally I do that. But you know, I think I'm a loyal Speedo man on the goggles, yeah good to know.

Danielle Spurling: 33:55

And how about your favourite training set for speed? I?

Guy Farrow: 33:59

like the, as I said, chris. Chris does a lot of our sprint sets. I kind of like the ones where you're you might be doing hundreds or fifties, but you're only doing sort of 12 and a half, and then you're doing a full 25, and then you're doing 37 and a half metres. When you're doing short course you might be doing those hundreds long rests. So you're never really doing more than 50 metres of each 100, and you know you only need five or 10, 100s like that. So you're really working on your short Chris speed work. So I like doing that a lot, yeah it's a good one.

Danielle Spurling: 34:35

Well, Guy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's been lovely connecting with you and hearing about your swim journey and wishing you every success heading forward to that big age group change in Singapore.

Guy Farrow: 34:47

There's always another age group, but now, look, it's been a pleasure speaking today and I enjoy listening to your podcast all the time, and nice and feel very honoured to be on the other side of it. So thanks very much, danielle.

Danielle Spurling: 34:59

You're welcome. Okay, take care.

Guy Farrow: 35:02

Bye now.

Danielle Spurling: 35:03

Bye.

Guy Farrow: 35:04

Take care Pa.

Danielle Spurling: 35:06

And that concludes another episode of Torpedo Swim Talk podcast. We hope you enjoyed diving into the world of swimming through Guy Farrow's eyes. Thanks to Guy for sharing his story and reminding us all of the power of camaraderie and the passion that we all feel in the pool. We hope that his experiences have resonated with you and inspired you to continue pursuing your own swimming dreams. Join us next time as we bring you more remarkable stories from master swimmers around the world. Until then, happy swimming and bye for now.

Danielle Spurling: 35:41

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