Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Julie Boxsell - on the Thrill of Open Water Marathon Swimming

Townsville marathon swimmer Julie Boxsell joins us on this episode of Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast to share her deep-seated love for open water swimming and the community it fosters. Julie gives us an insider's look at her disciplined training regimen, including arduous double sessions, all building up to her next swim challenge in Tasmania's Derwent River. She doesn't just swim through stinger-infested waters; Julie swims through life's uncertainties, drawing strength from her unwavering support crew and the connections she's made that transcend the competition itself.

Julie recounts her Manhattan 20 Bridges marathon – a swim she had to complete twice, back to back, because lightning stopped the first one at the eleventh hour.  We discussed the need for mental fortitude and the agility to adapt when something like this happens.

As we celebrate the vibrant open water events and the camaraderie that defines the swimming community, Julie reflects on the profound reasons that compel swimmers to confront monumental challenges such as the English Channel. Our dialogue journeys through the logistical maze of planning international swims, the strategy of seizing the best time slots, and the dream of creating new swim events on Australian shores.

Join us to feel the thrill and passion that fuel marathon swimmers like Julie Boxsell.

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Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:04

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. We love bringing you interesting swimmer stories and today's guest is no exception. Julie Box is a marathon swimmer from Townsville in Australia and among her many accomplishments is a completed Australian triple crown, as well as completing Catalina and Manhattan. Getting the crowns is lovely, but that's not what inspires Julie. It is the training journey along the way and the wonderful people she meets in the open water swimming community that are her motivation. As soon as we finished speaking, Julie was jetting off to another swim in Tasmania's Derwent River. Let's hear from Julie now. Julie is a marathon swimmer from Townsville in Australia and she's completed the Australian triple crown as well as Catalina and Manhattan swims. Hi, julie, welcome and thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Julie Box: 1:18

No problem, Danielle, I'm very nervous. This is my first podcast ever.

Danielle Spurling: 1:23

Fantastic, we'll aim to get you not nervous and you can tell us all about your swimming. When did you get your last swim in?

Julie Box: 1:32

Yesterday morning I went to a little squad that runs and I then took a break. I was supposed to swim yesterday as well, but I was a little bit sore in the bicep so decided I wouldn't swim and I'll go this afternoon.

Danielle Spurling: 1:48

Okay, which pool do you base yourself out? Of?

Julie Box: 1:50

There's a few in Townsville. I mostly probably frequent Longtown because I mostly swim by myself, but I also have swam with a squad at Cathedral and they're just currently using an Aikenbell pool and I'll go anywhere.

Danielle Spurling: 2:04

Okay, well, it sounds like a good swimming scene up there and I know obviously you're an open water marathon swimmer and at times during the year you probably can't swim by open water in Townsville.

Julie Box: 2:15

Yeah, yeah, right now it's not a great time for swimming. So we live on the coast and there's a wonderful ocean out there, but for six months of the year there's box jellyfish and ira kanji. So they put up the Stinger Nets and that's great, but it gives you like a little 100 metre rectangle that you can swim in and it's not very pleasant. I feel like a mermaid in a net, basically. So the only other option is the river, and the river is very warm. At the moment it's about 32, and there's blue-green algae warnings and there's a lot of weed with the heat as well, and I also am a bit scared of swimming in the river in the heat because I got a parasite in my eye some time ago, probably from there, and yeah, I don't want to take that risk again.

Danielle Spurling: 3:09

No, that sounds fair enough. It must be excruciating living that close to such a beautiful coastline and not being able to go in and swim.

Julie Box: 3:17

Yeah, it's funny, though, because everyone thinks, oh, tropical North Queensland, beautiful water, and look, it looks fantastic. But even in winter when you go for a swim, it is, you know, it's algae and mud. It's still warm. You come out and you've got a mustache from the algae and a beard. It just sticks to the little facial hairs on women, so it's not great. You can't see your fingers in front of your face, whereas if you get off the coast it's fantastic.

Danielle Spurling: 3:45

But yeah, right, where I swim, it's not that great, so obviously you probably do most of your training in the pool. How many times I know you went yesterday, but how many times do you generally get there during the week?

Julie Box: 3:59

Yeah, well, when I'm earnestly training, which I am at the moment, it's usually it's probably twice a day, most days, and that's about fitting in around work and so on. Like I only have pool access from 5.30 to 7. Got to be out for work. You're trying to build around what's available to you, so you know, sometimes the squads in the afternoon take over. So if I could finish work early, then I'll go and do another session. Then I don't know, it's pretty hard to say. I would probably suggest I do a good 10 sessions in the pool, but hard to know.

Danielle Spurling: 4:36

Yeah, so what are you getting prepared for right now?

Julie Box: 4:41

I'm going to Hobart tomorrow and I'm doing a 15k event on the Dowent River with about 40 other people and then I'm if the weather gods are okay, then I'm hoping to do a longer swim as well. We'll just have to wait and see how that pans out.

Danielle Spurling: 5:00

Having that sort of yes or no, you're going to do it, you're not going to do it, depending on the weather. So how do you organise a support crew to be sort of on standby?

Julie Box: 5:08

Well, this one's easy, and this is the thing with marathon swimming If you go through pilots or whatever on established things, it's pretty easy. You pay the money, you turn up and we go quick and go. Support wise, my person on the boat will probably be two people, one of which is a woman named Tara from Western Australia, so we're camping down there together and another guy, myron, who has been my support person in Catalina and he also went to New York with me. He came over for Kepel Island, not for me, he was helping out the guy that was running at Val, but he will probably be on that boat as well.

Danielle Spurling: 5:51

So Well, that's good that you've got someone going with you that knows a little bit about your swimming and sort of the way that you do it, because I know everyone approaches it slightly differently. Let's have a talk about the Manhattan swim, because I know that was one that you did recently and it's a big swim, a huge swim, and there's a lot of challenges and highlights along the way. Yeah, how did you approach with your mindset? How did you approach the actual swim on the day?

Julie Box: 6:18

Look, honestly, there was no problem with the Manhattan swim. With my mindset, because this is the swim that has been the top of my bucket list forever Since I heard about it, since I started sort of exploring this whole thing and looking at what I wanted to do, manhattan was the top of my tree. So, mindset, I was just ecstatic. There was never going to be a problem there. I had an absolute ball, unfortunately, like I did one of the night swims. So the island of Manhattan we started in the evening, went three quarters of the way around and there was only one other swimmer on that night and that's Ed Horn. He started a similar time to me. He and I were in the water having a ball.

Julie Box: 7:06

When we got to the end of the Harlem River and a big storm came in. It whipped up the poor old kayak. It was just being blasted back I don't know how he was keeping up or even staying in. And just before the big George Washington Bridge there'd been lightning. But this lightning struck so close that my entire body, here, everything, was standing on end. It had lit up the water underneath me and the crew pulled us out. So we were 19 bridges into the 20 bridge swim and we were pulled out and Manhattan sounds like it's completely inhabited, like a massive city, but up the end where we were, there's really not a lot.

Julie Box: 7:49

So it was a quick dash over to the only place which we could get to and we sat there and kind of rode out the storm which actually, ironically, of course, got better immediately after and then made our way home. We were basically, you know, the boats did their thing. We were like, okay, we walk out here, and it was like walking into a movie set with the highway above us and this little cul-de-sac with broken down cars and fires in those 20-gallon drums and people like drinking from their paper bags, and it was hilarious. So we all went home and Ed was just like, oh well, I'll do it again later. And I was like, hey, guys, I've got to leave in 36 hours, but if you can give me another go. And they pulled out all stops. It was fantastic. They managed to get me another team set up for that next night. So we started again the next evening and did the whole thing again.

Danielle Spurling: 8:53

Wow, you did it. You backed up. I mean, I can't believe that you must have been exhausted.

Julie Box: 8:59

Oh yeah, I was. But I also was like, oh man, I cannot afford to come back here. You know, flights, all that. This is not an A, this is a very expensive sport that I've found myself doing. I bet and I just thought I want to. I want to do the whole thing. So the difficulties there were that I drunk most of my feeds going around the first time. We weren't sure whether we're going or not, so we made these mad dashes to an American supermarket where it just grabs stuff off the shelves and threw that in and have that for feeds, most of which work. Some came up and fed the fishes, but less and less.

Danielle Spurling: 9:38

Wow, it sounds fantastic. Is the second one? You at night time as well, were you? Yes?

Julie Box: 9:44

yes.

Danielle Spurling: 9:44

And how long did it take you to complete the whole thing?

Julie Box: 9:46

It took me about nine and a half hours, but I'm more than happy with that. There's there's a bit of a tidal assistance for most of it. There's also tied against you for a big chunk the first night. You know there's an hour and a half of basically looking at the same set of bricks. I think I worked out my stroke weight was about 10 strokes per meter for a good while. So you know it's it's like every swim. It's a long swim, it's a challenging swim. People say it's easy, but I think that's because they've already weedled out people when they go through their applications. So they're really getting people that have sort of shown that they can do a long time in the water already, whereas most other swims you know they'll take anybody that pays, basically.

Danielle Spurling: 10:31

Right, and talking about nutrition and hydration during the swim, what do you? What did you do the first time, which was what you actually wanted to do?

Julie Box: 10:42

Oh, I feed every half an hour. I'm very basic. I don't do anything expensive. Actually I was making up feeds today. I pretty much have what's that that's sarscorial and I've mixed in a gel in that just for extra and some baby Pannadol and ibuprofen. So that's my three and a half hour feed. I've got Powerade. I do Staminade. I've got cake that's lemon cake there. Every hour and a half I like a little bit of lemon cake. Yeah, I'm pretty basic. I have chocolate milk sometimes. I just I switch things around every time and get through it. I'm pretty much been doing it long enough now that I know that most things are going to go down. Okay, just nothing too rich. The thing that got me was a Dairy Queen coffee in Manhattan. I thought that that would be good for a bit of caffeine cake, but it was, I don't know, made on corn syrup or something disgusting and rich.

Danielle Spurling: 11:43

And does it sound like the right thing to have you know for next time? And how many K? How much sort of K were you putting in your training before Manhattan each week?

Julie Box: 11:51

I was probably the last few years, so until until 23. I was for the three years before that I was probably averaging about 35 K a week for all sorts of reasons. Predominantly is I love it, so it's easy to do. The last year, after I had the parasite in my eye, things sort of slowed down. I had a couple of illnesses. I sort of cut back a bit. I sort of worked it up again for Manhattan and then the last few months I really haven't done much at all until this month. So I was probably only doing 15 to 20 a week and now I'm more like at the 30 for the last month.

Danielle Spurling: 12:32

And when you say you do a lot of training by yourself, do you write your own programs or do you have someone that oversees that?

Julie Box: 12:39

No, I don't really have anyone that oversees it. My friend Val, who works out of Rocky, knows that I was really struggling to work myself hard in the pool when I was by myself. So every now and again he throws me a set and that's fantastic because they're really varied typesets. But most of the time I go in and I have to take in the temperature of the water and what else is going on. So at the moment it's really hot, 32, 33 degrees in the water. So I'm doing a lot of slow concentrating drills, that sort of stuff and very short, intermittent, harder stuff because it's just physically zapping me.

Danielle Spurling: 13:17

Yes, and at the same time it's still 32 or 33 at 530 in the morning.

Julie Box: 13:23

Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, so it depends on the day. It's been down to 30 on a couple of occasions, but that's if we've had rain and overcast and whatever. But even post cyclone I got in, I went 32.

Danielle Spurling: 13:36

Yeah, that's hot, that's really hot. I know I was suing this morning at our heated outdoor pool that we have and it was 28, and that was boiling Bless. Oh my God, I'll swap you, it was really hot. I found it hot this morning.

Julie Box: 13:53

And that to me just sounds so wonderful, because even the winter up here there's a townspeople. They just don't do cold, so they heat the pools here to 30 degrees all year round, and then in summer of course they're not heating it. But they just said, the ocean's hot, the river is hot, everything is hot.

Danielle Spurling: 14:15

Yeah, well, that's the joy of Far North Queensland.

Julie Box: 14:19

Yeah, makes it interesting when you've gone to Hobart tomorrow.

Danielle Spurling: 14:24

Yes, yeah, that'll be quite cool, definitely, and so you've completed both Manhattan and Catalina. What's sort of the notable differences for you between the two?

Julie Box: 14:36

Look, every swim is different and how can you even like my swimming in Catalina is so different to somebody else's swimming in Catalina? My swimming in Manhattan? I managed to support and observe other swimmers in Manhattan on boats. One of them was Christine Capola, who you interviewed, and she, like that was fantastic, but every one of those trips around the island was so different for the swimmer. Catalina, of course, is at open water. I had a really rough night but I loved it, Whereas I've had other Australians tell me, oh, they hated it, that they got sick from the stars and the bioluminescence and it was just all disconcerting, Whereas I loved every second.

Danielle Spurling: 15:23

That sounds beautiful. What time of the day did you start the Catalina swim?

Julie Box: 15:28

About 10 o'clock, 9.30, 10 o'clock at night. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you'd just swim across. It's a big long swim. It was rough as guts. I loved it. I think it was about 13 and 1 half hours. And then, once I got to the shore, we couldn't even land where we wanted to land. We were being swept up the coast or down the coast, I don't know. I then I just swim out through this really rough ocean. The poor old kayak it was just being tossed around. It took me another 20 minutes to get back to the boat because they were like being crabbed sideways. It was just hilarious.

Danielle Spurling: 16:11

Both of those swims you started, or you started and finished Manhattan in the dark. How do you prepare for that, because you're doing most of your swimming in the daytime in the light.

Julie Box: 16:22

Yeah, that's true. Look, I don't know. Number one I'm not scared of it, so it doesn't really make that much of a difference. Number two before all of this I had many, you know, when COVID came along and they closed the pools and I was swimming in the river then and to get to work it was the middle of the year so we didn't have much daylight and to get to work after a swim I had to start in the dark. So I would often start at 4.30 or 5 o'clock in the morning in pitch black, sometimes with other people, sometimes by myself, and I would just hop in and swim towards, you know, the we are, which is a couple of K down the track, and I just got used to it. Like there's freshwater crocs and stuff in there, there's weed, there's all that sort of stuff, and doing that at night, I don't know. I just got pretty comfortable with it. So I didn't think it was going to be an issue and it wasn't so.

Danielle Spurling: 17:21

Yeah, well, you're very brave, because there's no way I would get in the dark and do that. Fresh, freshwater crocs.

Julie Box: 17:29

Yeah Well, they're only freshies. So it you know. What are they going to do? Only.

Danielle Spurling: 17:35

How big? How big can they get Freshwater crocs?

Julie Box: 17:38

Oh they, yeah, the, the weir that I normally swim in in the mountains, where there's one in there that is so big and so fat. It looks like a salty and it's always being reported as a salty, but it's not.

Danielle Spurling: 17:50

That's good to know. Yes, well, if I ever come to Townsville, I'll watch from the bank rather than actually enter the water.

Julie Box: 17:58

I'm far more afraid of a parasite in my eye.

Danielle Spurling: 18:05

Hey, don't forget our competition running till the 10th of February. You can win a pair of Form goggles, which have smart goggles which give you instant tech feedback in your goggle screen as you swim. To enter, all you need to do is follow us on Instagram at torpedo swim talk podcast comment and tag three friends under the form Instagram post and leave us an Apple podcast review Really easy and quick. The winner will be announced on February, the 11th. Good luck. So tell us a little bit about the Australian triple crowns for people that are listening that may not know. So what makes them up and where are they situated in Australia?

Julie Box: 18:50

This is one of those things that I just happened to do accidentally. So there are three swims Port to Pub, which is a 25 kilometer swim, over in Perth, which is a Rotna swim, but with a twist Derwent River and Palm to Shelley.

Danielle Spurling: 19:08

And what year did you do those three?

Julie Box: 19:10

I know that I finished it two years ago, so it must have been in the year or two preceding that. Yeah, things kind of escalated quickly for me. So I've gone from nothing to like doing these ridiculous long swims. And accidentally, because it's like my friends wanted to do it I met this woman, sharon Yell, from Melbourne, and we were doing Rotnest the first time and she was amazing. This girl had dreams. She decided after doing Rotnest that she was going to do the English Channel, she was gonna do the Triple Crown or this or something. And they're going wow, this is incredible. And I kind of got swept along with that a little bit.

Julie Box: 19:51

Yeah, it was fantastic because I'd never really met other people that had these plans, that were kind of like me, so not necessarily age, what do you call it? Lifelong swimmers that had a little elite background or whatever. But these people that just set these amazing goals and not only that, like I remember when her and Sue, the morning after Rotnest, announced at breakfast to the coaches that were there Peter and Charlie and they said, right, that's it, we wanna do the English Channel and they were just like, yeah, right, oh, let's get on it. And I just went oh, my gosh, I came in before they did and they think that they can do the English Channel. Like it was just a fantastic thing to meet these people and yeah, I've got swept away with it a little bit because I just love their company. I love that. The whole community is fantastic.

Danielle Spurling: 20:50

Yeah, it's a lovely community.

Julie Box: 20:52

Or if I'm a tangent, I go.

Julie Box: 20:54

No, that's fine how did she first get involved in swimming With my kids? If you want to go all the way back as a child, I think somewhere around the seven or eight year old mark my mother took me to the pool for five days in a school holiday, one hour a day for swimming lessons, and so I learned to swim and then, apart from that, we did school swimming, you know, in primary school. I don't know if you did it, but we once a week in term one and term four we tried to cross from grade three to grade eight or grade seven, tried to cross to the pool and we would do PE in the pool. Later on, you know, it really wasn't until my kids were training at a tiny little club and I wanted to get fit, lose weight, that sort of a thing, and be part of it that I really properly started thinking about swimming and realizing how much I enjoyed it.

Danielle Spurling: 21:50

And how long ago was that?

Julie Box: 21:52

So I think I joined them about 2015 in the pool and then a couple of years later, I said to my coach, tony at the time, like I'd seen I didn't know about the Maggie Island swim, but I'd seen that there was an advert for a 2K swim along the strand and I said, do you think I could do that? And she's like yeah, so I did it. Oh my gosh, did I fall in love? Holy cow, just fantastic, loved it, loved it. Things just escalated.

Danielle Spurling: 22:23

Yeah, and took off from there. What is if someone was coming to Queensland? What are some of the swims that you've done throughout Queensland that people could look up and be attracted to?

Julie Box: 22:34

It's not easy because they don't all run all the time and I've only really done the longer ones. I know down south the Gold Coast runs things like a 10K one and there's I don't know Malula Bar and places down there, but I've not done them because it's such a long way to travel for me, so I tend to spend my budget on the longer stuff. Towser, the Townsville Open Water Swimming Association. They've run a series of five open water events ranging from about 1K up to the 8K island swim. What else? Lake Bahrain the masters have put on a 10K swim up there for a few years. That didn't run last year, so I'm hoping that gets up again. Mackay has a 5K river swim, which is fantastic. The sinkers down there do a great job. That's about oh, there's the Great Keppel Swim. So swimming around Great Keppel Island yep, yeah, how far is that right around? That's about 20 kilometers, yeah.

Julie Box: 23:35

And it's a fantastic swim because that is an island off the coast and, like one of my other favorite swims, everyone's captive on the island, so it's not like you can swim and everyone buggers off home or whatever you swim, and you can get together with everybody and have a drink and a party, and I love that.

Danielle Spurling: 23:56

Fantastic. No, yeah, some guys in my squad have done that Great Keppel Swim yeah, sounds like a nice one.

Julie Box: 24:03

Look, lake Argyle. Lake Argyle is similar in that and it's another one that I love with such a passion because it is such a party Everyone's captive. Out at Lake Argyle we swim, we party. Dj Scotty gets on at the night. I mean, I've had the same support people that are locals over there for the last four years and they're supporting me again this year Fantastic yeah, and so do you have any plans to do the English Channel?

Julie Box: 24:30

Yes, I do. It's taken me a long time. So, yeah, I think that's on the cards. I had to find my why.

Julie Box: 24:39

One of the women that I followed early on went by Sarah Swims the Channel, I think, and at some point this is Sarah Wobbling is her name. Oh yes, she's a friend of mine. Oh yeah, okay. Well, she posted that she had decided not to swim it and she was so close to going over and she posted that she wasn't gonna do it. And it meant such a lot to me because I was like there's all these people that talk about this stuff but like why do it if it's not what you wanna do?

Julie Box: 25:13

Why do it? Just because it's the English Channel? You know people say it's the Everest. There is no Everest in swimming. You know I've had some swims in Queensland that I would rate one particular as the toughest swim ever. A bad day anywhere is a bad day. There are just different challenges and different swings. Anyway, she decided she wasn't gonna do it. She's miserable in the cold. Why put yourself through that? And I think I don't like it because everybody knows it and so they judge you. You feel like people are judging. Oh well, you haven't done the English Channel, then you're not as good or whatever.

Danielle Spurling: 25:51

And I'm like yeah, someone just came up with the idea of the triple crown. These are the three. It could be any three, couldn't it?

Julie Box: 25:58

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. The thing is with Australians the three we find it and it's easier for us because these are swims that you can book in, you pay your money and you're done, whereas a lot of other swims really are done, people are doing them locally, with supports and so on, whereas these are easier for us to do because they're organised. So we tend to do it. I mean, it's on the cards for me, but I had to find my Y and it took me years to work that through and I now know what my Y is. So do I want to do it, the swim whatever, but I want to go over there and I want to meet all the other swimmers. I want to meet the people that from the Dover Training Club and King Swimmers and all of that. I want to observe other people. I want to help them out on boats. So when I go, I'll go for a good month with the idea that with any luck, my swim gets over and done with first.

Danielle Spurling: 27:04

Yeah, well, that's a pretty good Y. I like that.

Julie Box: 27:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so, like just get that bloody swim done. It's not one that ever has appealed to me because it's another channel but it doesn't have bioluminescence and like it's just that it is the English channel. So you know, the biggest thing with it is just it's unpredictable. So I might get a go, I might not, whatever.

Danielle Spurling: 27:29

Yeah well, I think that's a good mindset to have, because a lot of people do go over there and they're in the second or third slot and they don't get to swim. Yeah well.

Julie Box: 27:36

I've got a first slot because I booked so many years ago. I reserved a space and I don't think I would like to be like I cannot afford to back and forward, so if I don't get it done then I'll move on and do something else. So, yeah, I've got. I'll be when I go. It'll be a first slot.

Danielle Spurling: 27:55

Yeah, well, that's good. That's good that you were so thinking, planning ahead, thinking ahead, yeah absolutely.

Julie Box: 28:02

But yeah, as far as it like I've already got. You know I have lots of ideas for swims that I'd like to do. You know there's things locally that might be workable. I don't know. There's lots of stuff out there, isn't there?

Danielle Spurling: 28:16

Yeah, oh, yeah. Well, we're an island surrounded by water, so there's a lot of yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of different locations. Yeah, absolutely. Just going back to something you said before the Australian swim. That was the toughest that you'd ever done. What one was that?

Julie Box: 28:32

Well, I guess there'd be two that I have in my top two for very different reasons. One of them was a swim that was supposed to run as an event, which was the Gold Coast Marathon. It was supposed to be a 21K event from Coolingata up to surface and for about three years it was delayed because of COVID, because of weather, because of whatever, and this time I can't even remember whether I was there and it was COVID or whether it was. It must have been COVID that cancelled it. And we were already there.

Julie Box: 29:08

So I started out with the route that they had planned, from Coolingata going north, and a few of the locals decided the night before to switch the route and start from surface and go back. But logistically I didn't have that much ability to change my plans and you know, anna Strong, she's a fantastic swimmer she said to me look, it's probably not gonna make more than an hour's difference. And I went okay, those guys set up in the morning and they were done by seven hours or so, and I set up, you know, at dawn and started swimming and as soon as I got in I went oh boy, this is gonna be a long day. It was rough. We had a northerly current coming straight into me. We had a northerly wind coming straight into me. It took me 18, sorry, it took me 10 hours and 45 minutes to go, 18 and a half kilometers to get to Broad Beach and we had to stop because we had no plans for dark. It was on dusk, that surf was up. The boat wasn't allowed to come in. I'm not a surf swimmer Like. I've always lived in North Queensland where we don't have surf. It was just getting to the point of dangerous.

Julie Box: 30:31

So I finished that swim absolutely shattered, because I had thought eight, nine hours at the most, absolutely most on a bad day, and it took me 10, 45 and I was still 3K short. I had bruises, like I actually had bruises on my legs. Everything was like the it. Just the power in waves is amazing. So, yeah, the boat couldn't come near me. So most of you know I didn't have a kayak, I just had a boat. It's meters away because it was just, yeah, so that was bad, but fantastic because that wasn't long before I just I swam around Magnetic Island and after finishing that I thought, mate, I've got it in me to keep going. So so that was really good from a psychological point.

Julie Box: 31:26

And the other one that was really tough was when I did the Porta Pub 25K. The jellyfish, oh my God. I've been stung by jellyfish plenty of times, but the jellyfish there I just it was horrendous. It was, you know, 10 hours and 20 minutes of agony from start to go. I got out. My goggles were full of tears, my face was swollen everything's swollen. For a month after I had like marks on my arms. It looked like I'd been cutting myself it. Just that was painful.

Danielle Spurling: 32:00

Yeah, what kind of jellyfish had they got over?

Julie Box: 32:03

there. The ones that day were sea nettles and the Western Australian box, which so two different types. One hit me at the start and burnt all day, and the other one hit me at the end. So yeah, not a killer box, but painful.

Danielle Spurling: 32:21

Yes, yeah, I mean gosh, that's. It's tough being an open water swimmer, isn't it?

Julie Box: 32:26

Yeah, but you know, once you've paid your money and you've got all this stuff put together, there's no way you're gonna stop because of a bloody jellyfish. Is there, that's right? Like pull me out. No.

Danielle Spurling: 32:38

What's the magnetic island? Swim like.

Julie Box: 32:41

The one from Maggie to Townsville. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. So it's our 70th anniversary this year. So, yeah, the swim itself started in 54. And I think it was one of those showpieces for when the queen came to visit and it ran in cages for many, many years so you had to be, like you know, picked and competitive to be in that, so it really attracted the elite. And then, I don't know what year, they stopped doing it 14, 15, 16 years ago they stopped the cages and it's been open to far more people since. I mean, there's no way I would have gotten into any of this without having that locally.

Danielle Spurling: 33:29

So, yeah, yeah sounds like a really nice one.

Julie Box: 33:33

Well, it's, you know, warm water for people that come up here. Most of us still think that's pretty cold, like it's, you know, in between 20 and 22. At that time of year that's about the coldest that we get up here. Yeah, it's good, like. But yeah, like it's okay. And the thing that I found when I finished it the first time was like I finished that 8K and I was just bouncing. I was like man, I can keep going.

Danielle Spurling: 34:03

It sounds yeah Well, you painted a great picture of open water swimming, so I hope that some people that are listening that may be sort of teaching on the edge of doing their first one will be inspired by what you've told us today. What sort of what tips would you give someone that's just about to do their first one?

Julie Box: 34:21

Just relax, stay to the side, stay wide, don't worry about it. Let all of those fast people that give a hoot, let them go first and just do your own thing. I stay wide of all the boys and stay out of trouble, just don't worry about it. And it's some. The other thing is like I do quite long swims but I remember doing that first 2K swim. That was absolutely so far outside my comfort zone, like I think you need to really celebrate people that are, you know, stepping up and doing these things.

Julie Box: 34:59

When I started the anxiety was just massive. I had no faith in myself whatsoever. I mean, when I started swimming with the kids our stinger nets go about 50 metres out into the ocean I was scared to go out to the back of the stinger nets. I was not that good of a swimmer. I'm still pretty mediocre. Any coach will look at me and go, oh my God. But you know, if you relax and just put the work in, the biggest thing is just relaxing and going with it. Don't fight the water, don't fight the waves, just roll with it. We all know how to float. Put your hand up. You can always get out. Try again another day.

Danielle Spurling: 35:43

That's true. Yes, yeah, I like that advice. Now, Julie, everyone that comes on the podcast. I asked them the deep dive five, which is a bit of a snapshot of your swimming. So give us your favourite open water swimming location that you've ever swum in.

Julie Box: 35:57

This is so hard. I probably have to say Manhattan, because just it's stunning, it is absolutely stunning, just yeah, I've never been to New York to see that skyline that we've all seen on movies and TVs. And here you are, in the river and all the locals are like what the hell is somebody doing in the river? Yeah, that was pretty amazing.

Danielle Spurling: 36:26

Yeah, that would be. It would be great seeing that skyline go past. How about a bucket list ocean swim that you want to do in the future? It doesn't have to be a race or anything.

Julie Box: 36:36

Look, I'd like to do some stuff around Turkey. Yeah, I met a friend, I made a friend who is Turkish Bengi, who is on a path to do the Ocean Seven, and you know I've seen some of the locations. I just think you know I've got a little bit of a hankering to do that, but I'll swim anyway. Really, they've all got their great things they do yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 37:03

I'd like to do that data and else swim, which is yeah. Yeah, it's probably a bit too short for you, but for me 5K is probably as far as I go. Yeah, but yeah, that looks like a really great swim. Yeah, I'll go anywhere. How about your favourite training set?

Julie Box: 37:22

This is really hard. I like variety. I was with a coach for a while there who taught me how to do fly and I've started really liking that. So now I really like to have a bit of fly in all my things. The other day when pools were closed, I went with a friend to the raft base and he made me do a set, which was it was eight, lots of 100, but they were all broken down into 25s and there would be three fly and one breaststroke and just repeat that eight times, all on 45.

Julie Box: 38:05

Now I'm a mediocre swimmer at best, so I was coming in at 30, leaving on the 45. And it just makes you huff and puff and gets the heart rate up. And I do like to fly in at the end of a marathon. Swim just deflects a bit. So watch this. Wow, it's impressive, yeah. So I really liked that, but really any set that's got lots of variety. But I also like to just go by myself sometimes and swim, you know, three, five K just up and down, up and down if my head needs it.

Danielle Spurling: 38:43

Yeah, okay, well good, that's a good answer. What about the scariest sea creature that you've ever come across?

Julie Box: 38:50

I've had a little incident with a snake where it nibbled me. That was pretty scary. I've had fish fly into my head and cut me with their bony little lips. I don't know. I get over it pretty quick. Oh, there was that tiger shark that I didn't know I was swimming with, all right.

Julie Box: 39:12

So we were at Great Keppel Island and I was on a boat and the group had been swimming between two islands and Val had been had picked me and pinky up because the current across was just too much. We were like, yeah, let's get a lift across. And as we're going across, in the distance I could see the main group and then a straggler about 100 meters back and that was Cookie from Sydney. Anyway, I couldn't hear what she was saying, but I could hear blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'm all alone. And I was like, oh, val, stop the boat, I'll hop out and swim with her. So I did, and when I got to her she was like thank you, I was here. This shark was underneath me and it's been following me and I'm so glad you're here and you're so brave and I'm like I'm deaf. I didn't hear you say shark.

Danielle Spurling: 40:06

Oh.

Julie Box: 40:06

God, yeah. So that had been following her for a couple of minutes just really deep under the water and to the side, and then probably had moved on with the boat. So by the time I got there I couldn't see it, but I just thought, oh, julie, yes, that's terrible. I think it proves a point though these things are curious but not necessarily out to get us, so I'm pretty relaxed about them.

Danielle Spurling: 40:33

Yes, yeah, I mean, look, there is. There are shark attacks in Australia, but there must be thousands of other times that we go swimming and they're out there and we don't see them.

Julie Box: 40:44

Absolutely, absolutely. I had a dolphin go underneath me down the strand last year and it's so murky that you can't see them, but you know the uplift of water and then I saw the you know it come out just a little minute later and I went. That's what that was, and I would never have known that a big animal was underneath me at all. Yeah, it's a bit. It's a bit scary.

Danielle Spurling: 41:09

I had. We had a pot of dolphins swimming with us down in the bay during COVID, because there was obviously no one out on their boats at the time, and so there was a lot more sea creatures, a lot more wildlife, and that was amazing. But we there was a little. It was a little bit eerie as well because they came in quite close and it's just a little bit like it's fascinating, but it's also, you know, I was a little bit wary.

Julie Box: 41:36

Yeah Well, my daughter tells me lots of dolphin facts, and they're not always quite as pleasant as we think they are.

Danielle Spurling: 41:43

I know, my husband tells me those same facts, and that's, that's why I was a bit pathetic. Yeah, and last question what? Who's the, the open water swimmer you most admire, and why?

Julie Box: 41:57

I, I. There is no way I could nail one person down and tell you that I get so much out of people that give it a go, fight their fears, get in and do it Like I've been there. I've done that. I know what it's like to sort of doubt yourself. I watch those ones. I watch the ones that come in right on the end. I mean I'm, I'm in the back of the pack, but I watch the ones that come in after me and I sort of think, gosh, you know, like they're the ones that inspire me. I've met Andy Donaldson and he's fantastic, but he's an elite swimmer. I, I. The inspiration doesn't come from that. Does that make sense? Like I think it's fantastic, but for me personally, the inspiration comes from the back of the packers.

Danielle Spurling: 42:48

Yeah, no, I like that answer. I always find it really interesting to hear what motivates people and you know who you look up to, so I think that's a lovely answer yeah, it's just, and it's also.

Julie Box: 43:01

it's not about distance, it's about the roller coaster of life and and where it takes you and where it lets you take them, take you it. You can sit at home and do nothing or you can go on an adventure, and those adventures bring a lot of challenges. But, yeah, I love watching people do these things.

Danielle Spurling: 43:21

Yeah, no that sounds lovely. Well, julie, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast today. It's been lovely hearing about your open water swimming journey, and I'm sure everyone's going to be really inspired by what they heard today. Well, thank you so much. Take care.

Julie Box: 43:36

No worries.

Danielle Spurling: 43:37

Amia, thank you.

Julie Box: 43:38

Bye, bye.

Danielle Spurling: 43:41

Thank you, Bob. I hope you enjoyed hearing from Julie and gain something from your own swimming from her insights Hot off the press. As I finished editing this episode, we found out that Julie completed an epic swim in the Derwent River in Tassie. Congrats on another success, Julie. Until next time, happy swimming and bye for now.