Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Mark Turner - the Founder of UltraSwim 33.3km

Welcome to Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast In this episode, we dive into the world of adventure swimming with Mark Turner, the visionary behind the Ultra Swim 33.3 event. Did you know that the English Channel spans 33.3 kilometers as the crow flies? Mark used this fact as the ultimate challenge for swimmers during his 4-day adventure swims.

Mark takes us on an incredible journey, recounting the first instalment of the Ultra Swim 33.3 event in Montenegro. He shares the trials and triumphs of organising such a unique event, the safety measures implemented, and the powerful connections that are forged among participants.

But for Mark, adventure swimming is about more than just the physical act. It's about shattering personal boundaries, cultivating lifelong friendships, and creating a deep sense of belonging. In this episode, he delves into his profound vision for future races and what it means to be part of the adventure swimming community.

This episode will inspire you to challenge your limits and embrace the extraordinary bonds that can be formed through the power of swimming. Tune in now and prepare to be captivated!

All details about UltraSwim 33.3 here

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Torpedo Swimtalk is sponsored by AMANZI SWIMWEAR

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Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:05

Hello Swimmers and welcome to another episode of torpedo swim talk podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Spurling, and each week we chat to a master swimmer from around the world about their swimming journey. Did you know that to cross the English Channel as far as the crow flies is 33.3 kilometres? My guest is Mark Turner, who's taken that piece of information and created a really innovative open water swim adventure called Ultra Swim 33.3. He explains the whole idea and what it means in practical terms on the pod today. Let's hear from Mark now. Hi, Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Mark Turner: 0:53

Hi, good to meet you.

Danielle Spurling: 0:55

Yeah, lovely to meet you too. Where are you coming to us from today?

Mark Turner: 0:59

So I'm in Chamonix today looking out at Mont Blanc, so quite a long way from any salt water open water anyway but yeah, in Chamonix in France.

Danielle Spurling: 1:09

Are there any pools or water swimming up there, any lakes that you can swim in? Obviously not in winter.

Mark Turner: 1:15

Well, people do. I mean ice swimming is taking off big time, right, so there's actually quite a lot of people swimming in the winter, I've seen. I'm based most of the time in Lausanne in Switzerland, which is an hour away.

Mark Turner: 1:25

Obviously, we have Lake Geneva. You know 100, whatever it is 100 miles around it. So it's a big lake and people do swim all year, obviously less and less time, as the temperature drops to about five degrees in the lake in winter, but in the summer, literally a month, three weeks ago, it was still 22 degrees in the lake. So that's pretty good to me for, you know, four or five months, and we're really blessed in Lausanne in particular, we're really blessed with open air 50 meter pools. I mean, like Australia, you know a lot as well, but there are very few countries that have that. And I think within half an hour of where I live, near Lausanne, we have seven 50 meter outdoor pools, but they're only open for, you know, may, september, mid-may, mid-september. But we're, you know, it's fantastic. And unfortunately we've got a big new 50 meter indoor pool in Lausanne as well that opened last year.

Mark Turner: 2:14

Lausanne's the home of the Olympic Committee, right, so it should be well supported, but it wasn't until then, so I really spoiled to my list. Lots of you know great pools and the lakes are good for open water swimming as well. There's also some rivers and some smaller mountain lakes and, yeah, nowhere we're well served. And then in France, you know, next door it's not too bad Chamonix and Mijer we have good pools and incredible mountain lakes. For those who want to go and, you know, do more extreme, more extreme things, and more and more people are doing the cold water, the cold water thing, and not personally, it's not my thing, but I can see that's an interesting trend as well. That's this group.

Danielle Spurling: 2:55

Yeah, definitely. I think it really took off during COVID when people couldn't get into pools and I know here in Australia we it was the middle of winter when we're in COVID lockdown and we were swimming in Port Phillip Bay, which is, yeah, in sort of the bay that goes around Melbourne, and it was, yeah, 10, nine degrees.

Mark Turner: 3:12

I followed quite a few people on Strava that are swimming in Port Phillip Bay. So I think people, people that joined the you know ultraswim club, strava club that we've got, and then I've been following them so I can see people swimming in all sorts of different temperatures all over the world and also quite often I know the Port Phillip one, also about water quality. You know, people are alerting people and it's good and it's not, and stuff which is a bit sad in some ways, but at least it's good information. Now we're really, really spoilt here. I mean, I'm British and I grew up in the UK.

Mark Turner: 3:40

Someone asked me the other day would you ever go back to the live in the UK? I haven't lived there for really 20 years, but an official leave about 14. But I actually said you know, there's one reason I wouldn't go back. Just the swimming pools. I mean I just it's post COVID, it's got even crazy there because you have to book slots at most pools at 45 minutes, not actually the equipment, I mean it's all, and they're almost all just 25 minutes at all. So and I've got so used to it. So you say, oh, I'm saying, are you kidding me? Is that the only reason you wouldn't go back, because it's a pretty big one. To be honest, you know I need my, my, my, you know it's my meditative time. So my brain, brain food is a swim, not every day, but certainly three, four, five times a week. So so, yeah, that's a good reason not to go. There are plenty of other reasons but the weather and other things, but that was actually the top of my list.

Danielle Spurling: 4:28

Yeah, I hear you. I agree, I lived there for a year as well and yeah, there was. I very rarely found a pool and I could only go at night time and yeah, it was hard to get into. That was, yeah, along 30 years ago or something.

Mark Turner: 4:42

but despite that, though I mean it's, it's probably the most per head of population, the most vibrant swimming community. Maybe Australia is perhaps similar, but in the world, I think, because people do swim, they do swim outdoors, they do swim, they pick those Lido's that's open in, the water gets colder and they and they push themselves through the, these indoor pools, I mean they're crowded. So it's quite it's, and I know from you, know, from our new event, that the UK population is a very motivated open water swimming population of all kinds, from wild swimming to, you know, dip into the winter, through to doing events and everything else. It's an incredibly vibrant open water, the most vibrant open water community, I think, in the world per head of population.

Danielle Spurling: 5:25

Well, we need to start talking about the ultra swim. So what inspired you to create it and what is the ultra swim?

Mark Turner: 5:31

33.3 for those people out there who haven't heard of it, yeah, so the so the sporting aspect of it is it's 33.3 kilometers, which is the shortest theoretical distance across the English Channel. If you were to swim it in a perfectly straight line with no tide, which is quite tricky to do and but spread over four days in five, six, seven swims over four days. So you're doing that distance, but it's broken up and it's in a race. You know it's in a race format, in the sense it's a it's time, there is a cut off time, but very, very open and accessible to all levels. So we had swimmers from two kilometers an hour to near to five kilometers an hour, with Andy Donaldson swimming. So complete range. But yeah, it's a tough. It's quite a tough event. I mean the concept. For me, the core of the concept is this multi day In 2011, with my old company, we co-founded a cycling event called the Oat Root, which is a seven day Amateur Springer, pro, am or amateur cycling race, and at that time, cycling is just like swimming.

Mark Turner: 6:38

Right now, lots of one day events all over the world in cycling in 2011. And now one day secret sportage. You know amateurs come and they race, race. You put in motor commas, race, but you know they're racing different levels and there were lots of holidays at that time one week called a cycling holiday to cross the Alps, cross the Pyrenees, cross the different mountain ranges in particular, and swimming. And we created the Oat Root and we created the format that was across those mountains in a week but there was, for you know, in a race format and that you know that was been an amazing event, ironman. Ironman actually bought it from one of the shareholders of my old company a couple of years ago and it's a, you know, 10 or 12 years on. I mean absolutely amazing. And what I saw in that was the impact of multi-day where, yes, you know you arrive, you know, unlike a one day event where you arrive you might meet some people at hotel, you might see some people on the start line, you finish, most people disappear off quite quickly and you don't really know real community formed at the event. In multi-day kind of suffer a bit together, you get up early again the next morning, you suffer again, you meet more and more people as it goes on and you end, you pull each other, you know, to finish line. A tough finish line In multi-day is hard, very different physically and mentally to a one day event. You've got to pace yourself perhaps a bit, you've got to get up again, you've got to manage yourself, recovery, everything else, but all of that creates this incredible bond.

Mark Turner: 7:58

So I wanted to put that concept that we created and put in the old route cycling, into into swimming. I thought you know, I want to pull this. There's definitely a space there. There's definitely a, I think, a community of people that come from different, lots of different subgroups. So triathletes, swim runners, pure open water swimmers, pool swimmers looking to go into open water, someone wishing to do their first 10k. We include the marathon swimming on the day three, builds up to the day three marathon swim All sorts of different people, but primarily this multi-day side of things which transforms the experience.

Mark Turner: 8:33

The difficulty with that as an organizer is you then know just only three hours of the swim or the you know in terms of having to deliver. You really you've got the entire. You know like it's four days long weekend, which is the idea that it's a long weekend not necessarily a full week for those that are time short if you live, you know, nearby is to put the whole thing in a way that's easy to access, appeals to all these different communities in different ways but actually brings all those people together. So I've never written it as a community event, but everybody at the event. The first full event we did, we did a test event in 2022 for 25 swimmers. Then we had 120 swimmers a few weeks ago in Montenegro.

Mark Turner: 9:17

Everybody, the feedback is amazing on lots of different areas, but it's and there's plenty to improve, without a doubt. Always there, always is. But the main thing about was what you've got is a phenomenal community event. You just brought all these people together to the point where people opening up about I mean big life, traumas and things. Not not everybody has been incredible at the end, just people sharing on the what's up, the swimmer, what's up group, what it meant to them to have nailed this 33.3. At the time, it was tragedy and trauma and this is their comeback moment, what they promised the loved one that they'd lost, or I mean incredible emotion.

Mark Turner: 9:55

And that's the impact trying to create an event where it's uncomfortably. It's uncomfortable when you enter, for most people in that, yeah, I'm gonna have to get out of bed and train a bit for this three months ahead or six months ahead, so hard enough when you get there. Question mark if can you do it. Can you do four days in a row, because very few people have actually done that kind of event. And what? How am I gonna deal with it? Am I fast enough for one set of people, or can I stay with the fast guys for another set of people? Or just how am I gonna get through this? So it's uncomfortable, yet people take it on and the majority make it to the finish line. Some people don't make the finish every day for lots of different reasons, but they wanna come back and nail it next time. So there's a. I think we managed to pitch it right. So it's tough mentally and tough, definitely tough physically, whatever, whatever speed you're swimming at, whatever level you're trying to do that, but accessible. And that the diversity.

Mark Turner: 10:53

What came out in Montenegro? Diversity of people. It's just extraordinary people from 24 countries. That's one aspect. But we had all shapes and sizes. Where people with Andy, he's on both events now. Cerebral palsy I mean struggles to walk on land, but it's great in the water. We've got different people with mobility issues, people that are far slow, never done the open water, never swimming salt water, never swimming a pool for some people. I mean all sorts of different things and yet we're all in this big family and all helping each other across the finish line, at whatever level, and it was extraordinary. Extraordinary for that. Everything I hoped and a bit more.

Danielle Spurling: 11:32

That's great, and was it an equal split between sort of men and women, or did you have one more than the other?

Mark Turner: 11:40

Yeah, 42% women, I think. So I mean pretty well split to honest. And then we allowed, so we've got a wetsuit category and a skins category. We're not a believer. We have nothing against the tradition rules.

Mark Turner: 11:59

I did a rot nest but they took my watch off me on the start line because I hadn't read that bit in the rules and, you know, in your speedos or whatever.

Mark Turner: 12:08

I'm not a believer that that's necessary to be as part of the new open water swimming market, because I can see that people being in the swimming wetsuits, for example, is a big catalyst for growth and for getting people in. And then, like me, progressively, you know, I ended up swimming in the wetsuits until I did a rot nest and again three months before I realized you went in there to wear a wetsuit. And so that you know, for me I don't want to follow traditional rules but actually we're on to encompass all of those different people. So you know we have a skins and wetsuit category, which was in the end, I think, in terms of people who swam at least one day in a wetsuit, because I mean they ended up in the wetsuit category. It was about half-half, they finished, but more people wanted to start with skins, but we have warm water this year, I mean water was 23 degrees, which a bit warmer than it is normally.

Danielle Spurling: 12:56

Yeah, that's quite warm. Yeah, so I was going to ask about the break-up of the 33.3, so tell us sort of what the schedule was over the four days, like how many swims on each day and how far were they.

Mark Turner: 13:10

Yeah, I'll say it'll be different venue to venue. The core thing we're trying to do is, you know, calling it. We call it an adventure swim because we are trying to go point to point. So we hate laps. Everything to avoid laps doesn't mean we can avoid them completely. In the test event we had one day where we just couldn't do the route we planned because it was just too rough, too rough for the kayaks even so, follow so, and so we had to do three laps, three 2.5k laps around some marks, again a bit in the wild area, but nonetheless. So we tried to avoid that. So it's point to point.

Mark Turner: 13:38

The idea is to go around. In the case of Montenegro it's to go around something called Listeria Peninsula, and Croatia, next May, it's to go from a 12th century village called Starrigrad, go around an island, around one end of an island, a finishing bar town. So the idea is it's journey A to B, which adds also some logistical challenges but actually means you're on a bit of a journey and a bit like the Tour de France in the cycling. Sometimes you might have to do a bit of a transfer from A to B or you might start slightly differently from where you finished, but the concept is to try and go A to B. So that gives us a bit of a framework of what we're trying to do within the geography and the conditions in there, and then the idea is and we have worked very carefully on this the idea is to build up towards the three, the 10K, 10k plus day three.

Mark Turner: 14:26

So day three is always the idea of you nailing a marathon swim and we actually have that also possible to do under the, if you like, the traditional rules, so MSF rules, where you have nothing, no electronics, no, just a hat, goggles and things. So we did that this year with 20 of the swimmers did it under those rules. But that's day three. So to build up to that on the first day not everyone loves this, but on the first day we split eight or nine K into two swims, with a pause of anything from half an hour for the slowest swimmer, which is much tougher for on that day, up to perhaps an hour and a half or for the fastest swimmer, where they get a second breakfast. So we're starting super early every day sunrise start for the weather, for the boat traffic and also because we have a huge percentage of people and even more and even more next year bringing partners, non-suming partners, and we want them to. We want everything to finish after lunch, so there is actually still the rest of the day to either recover or enjoy with a non-suming partner. So that's part of the package that we really built in from the beginning. So the first day is two split swims, four or five this in Montenegro is a four K pause and a five K Second day. We tried to build up the single distance. So this year we did 7.8 K in Montenegro as the swim and that was a big coastal swim around under cliffs and things, and then we had lunch and then we followed it with an untimed swim around the island that we were having lunch on. So there's some elements untimed where you still got to do it to get to 33.3, but it's a bit of a swim down or it's a bit more relaxing where you're able to swim with your friends and you know there's a. You got to do it in certain time but there's no timing such, so it's a bit of a lower stress. So we did that on day two and then day three is a big one did 10.5 K.

Mark Turner: 16:10

This year in Montenegro is the marathon swim and then the final day in both events so far and build it as it's a lot easier. It is a lot easier than theoretically it's whatever we need to do to get to 33 as a minimum. So the minimum it could have been this year was like 3.8. In fact I think we did 4.3, but we also had a channel crossing country to country, croatia to Montenegro, which people love channel crossing country, country and channel crossing. So it's complicated to organize again.

Mark Turner: 16:38

But we added that in as the final swim and they ended up not in any way forecast. It should have been with the tide and no wind. It was against the tide and into the wind. So very tough 2K general crossing and then a really beautiful with current swim into the finish line. But it ended up tough for both years. Now. The last days ended up tougher than was planned, let's say, but actually it was a great way to finish. People have to push that a little bit harder and they even more sense the cheap on the finish line. So you can't plan all of those things. You can't plan the tide, I mean you can plan the tide, but Montenegro, for example, never does what it's meant to do anyway. So there's a certain element of having to live with it.

Mark Turner: 17:12

That's why we call it off-road a little bit. It's not seeking perfect conditions. You have to be ready for whatever's going to come at you, whether that's the sea state, the wind state. The direction of the sun can't always make it Avoiding the sun in your eyes. But then we're wrapping it with a huge set up of kayaks, boats, safety and everything else.

Mark Turner: 17:33

So the safety side is obviously super important. We're not one-to-one ratio, kayak to swimmer, but we have a four-to-one kayak ratio, kayak to number of swimmers ratio, plus 12 boats on the course. You see a plus we're trialling it's a company that I'm a small investor in and an advisor to called Insiders trialling tracking devices on all the swimmers. So we actually had live tracking of all of the assets, all of the kayaks, all of the boats, all of the swimmers, for all of the swims, with a way to use that from a managing distance from swimmers, from kayaks, alerts when there's a kayak, when there wasn't a kayak within 50 meters, for example. So that's a product I'm trying to develop and then hopefully takes the rest of the sport as a big safety enhancement.

Danielle Spurling: 18:20

So lots, lots lots, lots going on there.

Mark Turner: 18:21

But the whole idea of swimming is to build up, nail the marathon and then enjoy the final day. It's a bit of the concept of it.

Danielle Spurling: 18:29

And so when people go along on this trip, they all stay together at the same place and eat meals together. Is that the way you structure it?

Mark Turner: 18:37

They're eating in Montenegro. It'll be different in different places, because one of the big constraints is finding a place. That is, you're trying to do a long weekend format. Some people come for more time out of the side but we're trying to do it so you could leave work on a Thursday morning and be back at work If you're in Europe for a European, clearly, it's not the case. You're coming from the other side of the world and then be back at work on a Monday night or back home on a Monday night. So that means you can't just go anywhere you want. You can't go to the most extreme swimming destinations either, because you need a hotel base. In the case of Montenegro, everyone, at least next year, will be all in the same hotel. So we're living breakfast together and they're all having lunch together because that's the finish line. So we do like a refuel lunch at the finish line in a different destination each day. Dinner we leave people to do their own thing. We also want to help the local tourists and people go out to restaurants and go to different places. So that format will be consistent.

Mark Turner: 19:30

I'm trying to be really consistent between the events. In Croatia our next event there isn't one hotel, so there's a couple of three hotels all very close to each other, but people spend a lot of time together because we're going, you know, our restart. So where we finished the previous day, we're going by boat as much as we can, trying to avoid any kind of land transfer. So people are on the boats together. It's quite a moment. Sun's coming up. Most people it's been early, got up early, and they're, you know, they're just anxious. A lot of people are anxious thinking about the swim that's coming up. It's quite a moment, though, so people spend that time together, which is quite quality as well, and they spend the time after the swim and it's been lunch together, so they have plenty of time together, and that's what works. You know, it's just bonding between people.

Danielle Spurling: 20:13

We have a couple of levels.

Mark Turner: 20:14

You have three package levels actually, so we call them ultra, ultra plus and ultra plus plus and that does determine at least the hotel or the rooms and the hotel and a lot of the extras. I mean we're trying to make a premium product but making it accessible for those that don't have the budget to enter that level. So we are trying to create the product which is potentially more expensive I mean there's no comparison to ministry other than the Morocco event but we're trying to. We're not trying to do the cheapest event. To do this, we can't have thousands of swimmers. We know our limit this year will be 200. In 2024, we 200 per event. But we are trying to do it with lots of services. So we had, for example, ultra plus, which is our main package, includes post swim massage stroke clinic technique, one-to-one video in case of Montenegro, with Paul Newsom from Swim Smooth and Perth doing one-to-one videos.

Mark Turner: 21:09

We're trying to send swimmers, people, back as better swimmers with a better means to different people. We're, you know, the quality of the food, the quality of the deliverables. The ultra plus get private transfers from the airport, basically anyone that enters we take care of once they arrive at an airport. You know, depending on the events and differences, but that's we're trying to do the whole thing for them. The whole aim is that people concentrate on swimming and enjoying it and all the rest is as if they were a pro is looked after.

Mark Turner: 21:38

You know, we've got physio on site, we've got massage team on site, we've got mentors. We've got people that's experienced, we've got ambassadors. We're doing talks every evening with some of the people that have done record holders and Andy and other people. So we just try to wrap it in a premium wrapper. We're not staying in two-star hotels, we're staying in four or five-star hotels, but with an option to share and keep the cost down for those that need to keep the cost down. So that, in the essence, is it? We're trying to do a premium event, we want to track the premium end, we want to develop that side of it. We want to show it's worth paying a bit more for the really amazing experience but equally, as always, an accessible way in to keep it as open as we possibly can.

Danielle Spurling: 22:18

Yeah, it sounds great. I mean share with us some of the sort of highlight stories that you came across with the swimmers that came there, like what sort of things did they tell you that they discovered about themselves?

Mark Turner: 22:31

I mean there's a number of people who have suffered loss opposed to close personal loss and this event was hard enough for them to challenge them to sign on to you that, having nailed it is like the turning point. I mean, as a lady had lost her husband, lost her brother, and all those cases they promised to partner that they would take something on or do the swim. There's a lady she shared was ready to share her stories on the newsletters who just put out, called Davina, who drowned or nearly lost her life when she was a kid and for 30 years she was afraid to go in the water and she nailed this entire swim and it was a bit I've drawn the line. She said this is it, I've drawn the line. That's history. Now, what happened to me On the other side of that line? So I think that's that's. You know, it's just a swim race on the one hand, but it's so much more than a race like that and there are lots of people who don't have had, haven't had, those traumas.

Mark Turner: 23:31

I had a lovely email from a guy I called Ilanio, from South Africa yesterday. He said look, I'm not one, I'm not someone who's had any kind of big life trauma. I've been really lucky, but I'm really emotional writing this and listing a list of things that what it done and what it given to him, and just in terms of he pushed himself, who was out of his comfort zone, you managed to nail it, partly with the force of the group and people encouraging each other or drafting behind someone or taking that working with each other or taking and some of the people that never done that before as well, and get themselves to the finished line and that just so rewarding for people, people going back buzzing and on the personal front, that's what I've done my whole life. I've set myself nothing, nothing, nothing, anything particularly extreme or anything but set myself goals and I've always come back super confident in myself and that kind of has lasted for, you know, six months a year, kind of just in just in general life and where you approach general life, and I think that's so lots and lots of those different, lots of different stories, people with mobility issues that you know there aren't many events they can do and feel equal, and the fact that we're horizontal in the water, with gravity neutralized, is amazing Because it just levels.

Mark Turner: 24:47

It levels the plan for, of course, people right at the front racing, you know there's maybe 10, 15 people really really trying to win across the finish generally win across finish line, but they're and that's great and everyone admires what they're doing. But actually and the rest of it just got all this different mix of people in you, doesn't? You don't have to look. There's not one form, you know person that's swimming better. That's a great thing about swimming, through the lack of gravity and through the fact that technique is an important part of it and how you train and everything else. So so it's a and I love that about it and it's so diverse. And again, that's one of the comments that came back all the time is, you know, the diversity and inclusion and the mix of people, yeah, everybody's in the water you know, not equal in the sports, in sporting terms, also different levels, but they're but equal in terms of approach and equal in terms of importance.

Danielle Spurling: 25:36

So, and it's a hard balance to honest.

Mark Turner: 25:38

You know, had some criticism from from one guy not putting enough emphasis on the people that are winning. Yeah, I mean the winners still there, the people on the podium there's, but actually for me, the winners at the back as well. And winners. The last person across the line was a winner, the last person to cross the line on the first day. It's got called Moritz. He's actually. He's quite a well-known German composer. I think he composed the music of the 22,006 World Football World Cup Super guy.

Mark Turner: 26:05

Never done no more to swim ever. He's a trail runner, ultra distance runner, as well as being a music composer. And and he's hurt his ankle six months before the event, you know, earlier this year. And and his train train or physio said you know, you need to try swimming. And he did. And his first question you know he loves about it all of it now but his first question on the chat forum when he first entered, like five months ago, was what strokes do people swim in this, you know, do you do side strokes? Sometimes give yourself a break. Of course, you have to be people. So that was funny.

Mark Turner: 26:38

Some people said well, this guy surely shouldn't be doing the event. Just watch this guy. I knew his background and then you in terms of other sports and stuff. So he finished and he finished inside the club on the first day, last and each day, through either the coaching, through the mentors, through people helping him, through little tips, through, he progressed. I think there was 20 people behind him on the final day and we gave him the aggression you know award at the prize-grimming and the guy on the Super guy smiles and just you know loving the whole thing a ripped raw with rash because he, despite the advice we've given, despite the briefings we do, look, we do webinars in the months before we're trying to share our knowledge.

Mark Turner: 27:18

You know, we're really trying to be involved in the whole journey for the people that want it. Some people, of course, enter, don't want to hear from us absolutely fine, they're going to arrive, do their thing and that's great as well. But the people that want to really be on a journey for the months before we're doing webinars, we have a swimmer chat group. We have a broadcast chat group that we send out key information to. But there's a chat group that people share, you know, and it's probably about half. The swimmers jump in and dive in and you don't have to be there on it, but, um, and then webinars. We're trying to share this information more. It's the most.

Mark Turner: 27:49

Guy hadn't really gotten the thing about the friction and ration stuff that you know you can do that Our swimming it's not an issue, but doing our swim gets to be quite an issue because the next day you're back out there at the same point and it means ripped red, raw, I mean, you know, dangerously raw in some way. So, but he made it through it and and and loved it, loved every bit. So it's uh, and that that's just. It's just huge diversity. And he'll go on and he'll swim. You know it's a guy who's super fit. He'll. He'll end up in the mid, you know, halfway up the fleet. Next time he does, next time he does one. So, um, and I think most people will come back. Almost all of the test swimmers from 2022 came back in 20 already to this event in 2023 and, and um, there were all the entries for next year that most of them are signing up again. So that's, it's a good, a good sign.

Mark Turner: 28:35

My challenge for us will be not necessarily the things to all the things to improve the channel, be to keep, keep that feel and manage the logistics with the kind of Swiss timing that we tried to apply. This this time with more swimmers, because, still going from 120 swimmers we were in Montenegro recently you know we need to be near 160 to 200. So, and without losing, I don't think we'll lose the family feel and the connections, because I think that would just be just as good. But trying to keep the logistics sorted is will be a challenge, but we know what we're going to do. We're going to find the right solutions for that. Going beyond 200, I think it's probably pretty tricky, so, and we'll then potentially put in the risk the concept itself. But place by place, venue by venue, different, the constraints are different.

Danielle Spurling: 29:25

Do you help the people that have entered the event with any training schedule, workouts and things beforehand?

Mark Turner: 29:32

Absolutely. I mean interestingly, I think it's about a third of the people don't swim in a pool.

Mark Turner: 29:37

So it's pretty, quite strange for Australians, because you've got the ocean, you've got the pool and you've got nasty things in the ocean as well, so it's quite nice to swim in the pool sometimes there are lots of countries, lots of countries, where it's very difficult to get that pool time and there are people capable of doing the event that are not going and doing some kind of defined training plan in a pool. So that's an element. There's another third that already have a coach or a training plan or a club they swad, whatever. And then there's a third who don't have any of that but are willing to do whatever it takes to, you know, to have a chance of finishing the event. So for that third in, you know, for this year we had, we worked with Paul at SwimSmooth. He's got a great thing called SwimSmooth Guru, which is a great digital training plan which he tuned to focus in on the event and camp down towards the event and that's I mean, that's what I follow personally as a swimmer and my own training following is routines and it's very aimed at endurance, master's endurance swimming. You know it's not telling people to do a butterfly length or an IM or something else, so it's very, very good. I hope we hopefully will better continue with him on that going forward and, along with Paul and equally other coaches on webinars and other people, lots of experience, are sharing that experience. I mean there's a training plan which is in the water and in the pool and doing those things, but also, as we know, there's a lot more to the open water coaching, if you like, in terms of there's a lot of mental, a lot of mental side. Jay was amazing on that front actually. So I don't know if Jay was with Andy when he did the podcast with Andy, but you know he's a great, you know, mentor. He's really supported Andy on his record attempts and he's a great mentor and hoping to work with Jay going forward as well as a mentor.

Mark Turner: 31:21

A lot of people nervous in the countdown, actually made nervous by people recording their training sessions in the pool so well. I'm not sure if we have. I mean we had five people, so I think perhaps more over the whole period of six months, but so I'm hesitating. I should really come to the event. You know I'm a bit freaked by the times this guy's doing and publishing them on the chat in the pool. You know, 10 400s and swimming at twice the speed. I'm seeing it's really reassuring people. So we need to do be careful of the balance of that in terms of the information we put out anyway, and to show people that, as people saw when they got to the event, it's okay to be swimming to an hour and finish an hour behind the other. The swimmers at the front, that's fine as part of the event, it's not a problem, but that made quite a few people anxious. So there's a bit of a balance on there.

Mark Turner: 32:07

But the training plan is, you know, it's training plan, it's mentoring, its webinars, information, it's sharing the stories from the previous event, it's we have a whole, you know, a whole bunch of ambassador swimmers who new swimmers coming into it can you know, we connect them with and they can talk to them.

Mark Turner: 32:23

So, unlike you know Iron man or other things where you're kind of left on your own and, yeah, you'll find your community groups, you'll find one way you're thinking we really want to accompany people from the minute they enter to the, to the start and obviously even through to the finish. So training plans and all the other aspects of it. There's a lot of aspects there, so, and the partners we have will continue to try and grow to help us with that precision. You know it's a great nutrition partner because also they free consultation with them, so you can just do a zoom call with them and and they'll explain or talk to you about nutrition and everything else for free. It's part of the part of just you know, you don't even have to buy their product initially to get it. You know, you, just that's a very they're a very great brand. They're all out in Kona right now. I have been to last weekend, obviously, for Iron man, but, and so the partners, the partners can help us enhance that side of things as well and do you see the future?

Danielle Spurling: 33:17

I know you've got Croatia coming up, but do you see all the future events in and around Europe or are you looking to go worldwide?

Mark Turner: 33:26

No, I need to go worldwide because there's only you know the you can't really run a very few places. You could run an event in Europe in July and August because A there's no hotel that's that interested in having you. In fact, july, august, september now September has become kind of high season in most places for those that don't have kids and, uh, it's very hard to run any event anywhere in those two and potentially three months. So the months you can run events, you know May, may in the beginning of June and then the end of September and October. There's not enough space to do five events. Even so, coupled with you know you need a hotel that really wants you and you need and boat traffic. You know boat traffic in most these places is just unmanageable in. I mean, there's always boat traffic and it's always an issue to manage, but those some months are too hard. So we've got to. We need to go elsewhere and any case we want it to be.

Mark Turner: 34:17

You know we started in Europe, we're Europe based, but our clients are already from all over the world, in the Australians, new Zealand, the Singapore, brazilians, canadians, americans I mean this day in an event already in 120 centres. So equally, we want to be able to put events on other parts of the world that allow us to be in the European winter but equally mean that the you know, we're not always, people are not always travelling right across the world. Just from a equally from a carbon footprint point of view, we need to have a series of events where the percentage of people we're attracting are not coming from so far away. Yet the event is the same consistent package, albeit in different venues with different you know, different backdrops and different water temperatures and different challenges. But so now we definitely go worldwide. The next step is three events in Europe next year, so two we've announced, we will announce, if we, as long as we sell out these first two, which looks like we will quickly and then the year following year, perhaps the fourth one in Europe would be a cold water one, let's say so we're not trying to be in somewhere warm and sunny particularly, so a bit more extreme possibly. And then event five and six would be in the European winter somewhere, whether that's Central South America, asia Pacific, cabinia, so a bunch of things.

Mark Turner: 35:41

But obviously the further we go from here from us from an organisation point of view, starts to get more complicated and not looking to franchise it. So I know lots of. There's Ocean man, which is a great the only brand really in one day events that's going around the world and and Thurman's done a great job, the guy that's creating it and creating that brand one day, one day, some event all over the world. But it's a franchise and this event is too complex for me to believe that we could just franchise it and and deliver the quality safety experience. So for now, it's us organising it. So that's a bit of a constraint on how far, how many events along way from home do we put in place. But that's all about finding the right local partners and that point of view. So I'm quite likely to end up in venues, not always the venue we want to go to, but it's the venue where we found the right person we can trust and work with on the ground. You know this is important as anything else. So in Montenegro we have a fantastic lady called Hailey who is British originally but lived in Montenegro for 16 years, and you know it's local as far as local could be, and that that's key and fundamentally making this kind of an happen. You've got 100 problems to solve every day and a lot of local problems, so local base problems, so you need that. That person. That's quite a big dictator of where we could go.

Mark Turner: 36:58

I think New Zealand. I'd love to be one in New Zealand, actually spend a lot of time in New Zealand, so I'd love to do something down under Australia. I think it's plenty of options and plenty of amazing events there already and obviously the this, the in water challenges. There are one level up as well in terms of managing other risks that exist everywhere, but perhaps a bit more there. So I hadn't imagined trying to do one in Australia at this point, but I had some approaches on that front. But Pacific, for example, I know is a good you know, in Fiji and these places there's some great events going on already out there Could be an interesting destination for us that fits in terms of the calendar of the year. So it's open and you know we're taking. We've got cities approaching us actually starting to bid for it and want it. It's a great again.

Mark Turner: 37:44

The one day events are fantastic. The one day events bring in a lot of people for a short period of time. The multi day event bringing in quality people who are there for a period of time, super active people and for the profile. For example, in Croatia, the place we're going to have grown reputation is a bit of a young people's party town and it's absolutely trying to address that and slow and stop that it doesn't become an abeater or whatever and actually are active, older, active on average older active and we had from a 15 year old to a 71 year old at the event. I want to agree, but our average is nonetheless 40 to 50. Age, active, disposable income, wanting to enjoy the place, sporty.

Mark Turner: 38:33

you know, that that fits the target for many of these destinations. So we have venues that are coming to us already and swimming, from an imagery point of view Again, if you do almost almost all swimming events, 10ks go around the loops, right, don't see much. You see the same thing Because we're doing point to point. We're showing off the way the cycling does, for example, we're showing off the place 33 kilometers of different backdrop and different scenery and going to places that lots of people can't even get to as well, which is just in terms of showing the imagery of places. We have a TV production thing inside in place. We have some distribution. We're in 30 odd channels with a five minute mini documentary just starting it, but that's, you know, that will go out in the next few weeks. So we're trying to build a proper sports event but make it very much pro am or amateur event in very accessible, but we grow professional sporting event at the same time.

Danielle Spurling: 39:25

Yeah, that sounds amazing. Well, Mark, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's been lovely hearing all about the UltraSwim 33.3, and good luck with the next event coming up in Croatia, and we'll be following your progress, that's great.

Mark Turner: 39:39

Well, I hope you're going to come and do it right.

Danielle Spurling: 39:42

I don't know if I have that I never let go. It's a little bit far for me.

Mark Turner: 39:52

No, you know, one of my best friends, matt, did the test event and he did this year. He'd never swam more than three kilometers in a one go ever in his life before he did the event. So if you can get to a three K's psychology, you know three times multiple then the multi-day, multi-day bit is what it is. Everyone has to struggle, so we'll see you there.

Danielle Spurling: 40:10

We'll see you. You have your invitation anyway. Okay, thank you. I mean, I can make 10 K, but I just it's oh, you're al

Mark Turner: 40:20

You're all good. You're your wife, most of the people. I just start seeing you somewher

Mark Turner: 40:27

Okay, take care All right, take care Okay, thank you Bye.

Danielle Spurling: 40:34

I hope you enjoyed my chat with Mark today. We'll put a link in the show notes for Ultra Swim 33.3 so that, if that's something that you're interested in looking into further, the all the information will be there. We've got some great guests coming up over the next few weeks, so make sure you're following us on social media on Instagram under torpedo swim talk podcast or torpedo swim talk podcast. On our Facebook page, we've also got our website, wwwtorpedoswimtalkcom, and whenever a new pod goes live, we always make sure that there's notifications on all three of those platforms. Today's episode was brought to you by Ammanzi Swimware and the magic five goggles. Check out Ammanzi with the details in our show notes and get yourself a pair of magic five goggles 15% off at magic five. Check out with torpedo swim talk code till next time. Happy swimming and bye for now.