Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Gill O'Mara - Masters Swimming and Fin Swimming WR Holder

This week's episode of Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast  is an inspirational delve into the remarkable swimming journey of Gill O'Mara - detailing her masters swimming, her entree into the world of fin swimming and the camaraderie fostered in both of these swim communities.

Gill's relentless pursuit of excellence is truly inspiring. She gives us a glimpse into the discipline, dedication, and determination that enabled her to shatter two master's world records and claim four individual world records in Fin swimming in just a single year. From her six-day-a-week training routine involving swimming, strength and conditioning sessions, and fin swimming training; to her recovery journey from a shoulder injury; Gill exemplifies the commitment and resilience essential in a champion.

Gill also shares the fun and camaraderie that comes with being part of the masters swimming community. We discuss how becoming involved in fin swimming by chance, snowballed into Gill competing at the Fin Swimming Masters World Championships this year and as a result of including this discipline in her training,  she has seen improvements in her masters swimming efficiency through the use of fins and a snorkel.

So join us as we swim alongside Gill on this fascinating journey into her swim journey. Prepare to be inspired!

Connect with Gill:
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For more information on Fin Swimming:
International Calendar
Australian Underwater Federation
Oz Fin

Chapters

• 0:08 Master Swimmer Talks Fin Swimming
• 11:33 Swimming Technique and Training Routine
• 16:11 Training Sessions and Fin Swimming
• 32:07 Experiences and Benefits of Fin Swimming
• 46:51 Sponsorship Acknowledgment and Product Promotion

Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:08

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. Today we welcome master's champion Gill O' Mara to the podcast. She has had a phenomenal 12 months of swimming, shattering two masters world records in the pool in the mixed 4x1 and 4x2 freestyle relays, as well as claiming four individual world records in Fin swimming in the bifin Fin 50, 100, 200 and 400 freestyle. What's Fin swimming, I hear you ask? Well, let's hear from Gill, as she engagingly shares all about this interesting new sport and more about her master's swimming journey. Hi Gill, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Danielle, thanks for having me. Oh, you're really welcome. It's great to have you on. I know during COVID you had a bit of a cameo on one of the pods we did from Kawana up at the Queensland States. A little bit of an anecdote about your racing on the day.

Gill O'Mara: 1:21

Indeed, yeah, I felt like a boiled frog, getting back into a racing suit and swimming with that kind of pressure on me again. It was like in terms of the fabric of the suit, it was like how did we do this? It was nuts.

Danielle Spurling: 1:34

I know, putting on those race suits, and especially in Queensland where it's so humid.

Gill O'Mara: 1:38

Oh yeah, Chandler or the Sleeman and Sports Complex, whatever it's called these days. That is the worst. Yeah, swim meets in the change rooms in January there.

Danielle Spurling: 1:50

Yep, do not recommend Absolutely not Well, you've had a huge 12 months, broken two master's world records in mixed relays in the 4x1 and the 4x2 and just recently 4 individual world records in Fin's swimming. So congratulations on a fantastic 12 months. It's amazing, thank you.

Gill O'Mara: 2:16

Yeah, it's been a different year for me. I suppose I'm a bit more under the radar. I suppose it's been fun to try something new and different in fin swimming. It's been a great community to be a part of and experience a world master's fin swimming championships over in Egypt, and then to be part of a brilliant team with my PowerPoints crew and the minds of Lockie and Tomo, who, I think, first crouched some numbers on this spreadsheet and went, hey, we could give this a bit of a shake. So, yeah, it's been fun.

Danielle Spurling: 2:56

Well, I do want to talk all about fin swimming, but let's dive into the master's swimming first. And I know you just mentioned Tomo and Lockie. So who were the four people in your mixed relay? Because you had the same four for both.

Gill O'Mara: 3:08

Yes, yes, we did so. There was the legendary Jenny Bucknell, who needs no introduction whatsoever, and then Mark Thompson, tomo and Lachlan McDowell Lockie. So yeah, tomo's been has a long history with swimming in Australia as a coach of elite swimmers, as well as his own personal performances in the pool. Lockie grew up in Queensland and actually swam with the commercial club here in Brisbane for a number of years and has always been a talent as well as being a super smart oncologist. So yeah, it was a great team to be a part of and I, I guess I felt lucky to be, you know, the kind of the fourth swimmer when there are probably plenty of other options who could come on in and do a good job or a better job for me. So yeah, lucky to be lucky to be along for the ride.

Danielle Spurling: 4:07

Oh no, I'm sure that you were a very worthy part of that relay.

Gill O'Mara: 4:13

Oh no, it was a touch and go for the four by 100 relay. I was a bit nervous about that because I've had a liver restriction about three and a half weeks before maybe, yeah. So I was back in the water for just over two quietly shitting bricks whether I could pull out a number that was going to be get us under that threshold. But yeah, I don't know. We'll call it a hospital taper and yeah, but got there, so that was good, a big relief.

Danielle Spurling: 4:45

Well, it worked well because you you blitzed the record, which was amazing and really exciting. I was there on that day to see that and that was that was a great one.

Gill O'Mara: 4:54

Yeah, it was. It was great. It was actually really sort of emotional, I suppose in a, you know, it was just. I mean, coming back to Melbourne. For me it's like returning home. So it's great to have, you know, friendly faces in the in the crowd and people cheering you on and all that sort of thing to help with the nerves. And then the celebrations of the pub afterwards, which is always good.

Danielle Spurling: 5:17

Yeah, exactly, yeah. So take us back to the beginning of your master's journey. What, what drew you into master's swimming to start with?

Gill O'Mara: 5:26

Oh, good question. I had moved, I had been living in the US and Canada for a few years, in the early to mid 2000s, and I threw myself into work and wasn't. I was probably the most unfit and unhealthy I'd ever been in my life, and so when I moved back to Sydney I just thought, look, I'm going to come back and do things that make me happy, get a bit more perspective on life, and so I joined the North Sydney master's swimming club. I can't remember exactly what year it was probably 2000s, thick, I think, because I think two years later there was the World Master Swimming Championships in Perth. So I was still very much a newbie. I was like all these people are going to Perth, so okay, let's go to Perth and go to swim meet.

Gill O'Mara: 6:19

And then then you just see people of all ages, you know, absolutely blitzing in the pool. So so, yeah, I think it was getting involved in that community. At first I thought, oh, this is great, I can do, you know, some pool swimming, but do lots of ocean swims and that'll be lovely. And I did an ocean swim or two and it I am terrible at it and I don't know how to navigate and I get really impatient and yeah, so not my bag, but fell back in love with pool swimming and then, yeah, had my stroke ripped apart and put back together and and then just started seeing little bits of incremental progress and and just, yeah, had a lot of fun so kept doing it.

Danielle Spurling: 7:05

What do you find the most fulfilling about?

Gill O'Mara: 7:08

it. It's two things. So one is the community side, the friendships that I've made through the sport and the, and the things that we as swimmers and people experience together. You know, you, you can bear your soul in between sets, at, you know, 6.13 am, when life's really hard, and then you've got someone there to, you know, to lend the shoulder or give you a hug, or for you to be able to do the same thing to someone else who's in need.

Gill O'Mara: 7:43

I think you know the swimming community, the people in it are pretty special individuals and so, yeah, being a, being a part of that community and giving back to it and and receiving a lot of love from it is is fantastic. And then I guess there's the sort of that notion of you know, when you apply yourself and and set goals, chip away at, at working on you know, technique or executing skills or whatever it might be, that satisfaction that you get from, yeah, achieving, achieving goals that you might set for yourself. And then and they go on to think, well, what's next? And you know, can I dream bigger and be a little bit better, and all all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, they're the real, the real drivers. But also you know how good is it to get up every morning and and dive in, dive in the pool.

Danielle Spurling: 8:37

Absolutely, and do you? I always feel this way because I train early in the morning in Melbourne and it's cause freezing at the moment, Obviously that's even harder, yeah, so when I get out and I'm driving home. I'm quite smug to myself thinking you know how to still sleep and Exactly you know you go to your bougie little bakery and yes, I like that.

Gill O'Mara: 8:58

that's what is wrong, thank, you?

Danielle Spurling: 8:59

Yeah, I will get my double decaf latte from.

Gill O'Mara: 9:06

Absolutely, and that and that grown-up, thank you? No, it is. It does give you a good sense of, um yeah, satisfaction and feeling like you've. You've put in some hard yards, yeah, which we all have? Yeah, absolutely, and we're not smug at all, I was just not at all, no, but just extra brownie points for getting up.

Danielle Spurling: 9:26

It's right.

Gill O'Mara: 9:29

I remember when I first moved to Melbourne and I got up on a Saturday morning at just three degrees, you know, bucking down with rain and I'm like oh what am I doing? Yeah, it was um, it's a it's. We've got a little bit more cushy here in Brisbane, that's for sure.

Danielle Spurling: 9:45

Yeah, you mentioned that you were in Melbourne and that's how I knew of you and met you down here and you were in. Sydney as well, but now you're in Queensland. Where do you train? Yes, where do you base yourself for your training?

Gill O'Mara: 9:58

Yes, so at the valley pool here. And so when I first moved to brisbane, my coach who's still my coach, michael Brumling he's was, uh, coaching with commercial swimming club, um pretty iconic swimming club from um, particularly with, yeah, swimmers the likes of um oh gosh, liby, liby, trick it, you know, um lethal jones, so many to to name. And uh, yeah, it's so he was, he was coaching here Um, I sort of knocked on the door and I went, hey, look, I know I'm an old fart, but can you, can you make an exception? Um, promise, I won't get in the way, and if you want to kick an old lady out, they just, you know, just tell me I'm not good enough and I'll, I'll go away.

Gill O'Mara: 10:46

Um, so, yeah, michael made some allowances for me to uh, yeah, train with the sort of state and national swaths when I first joined and um, yeah, and so Michael's sort of been he's he's moved from commercial to um you know another club, um, and I still coached under him and he's um been back at the valley for Um number of years now. There's coach and also a manager of the valley pool, um, so I'll split off here and there and, you know, jump into some other squads. Um, you know, infrequently, but yeah, michael's been sort of the yeah basically got me to where I have been over the last sort of seven years or so. Um, yeah, so that's been, that's been great. He's um, he's put up with me and I've learned a few things from him.

Danielle Spurling: 11:33

So and when you said you start, your ripped your stroke apart and started again. Was he the mastermind behind your new stroke?

Gill O'Mara: 11:41

No, that was actually after um, that was while I was still in sydney and um, I must admit, this is terrible, I can't remember the name of the coach. Who, Uh who, did that work? Um, I was swimming mainly with Steve badger Um at north sydney at the time and he had an assistant coach who was there for Maybe a year or so and, yeah, I feel awful, but he, I think he moved on to one of the Um, either the you know the biggest schools or whatnot. But um, yeah, I learned with the old, exaggerated s stroke Um, and of course that doesn't really get you through the water.

Gill O'Mara: 12:21

So I think it was after the world um, the world masters in per um, where I was kind of coming near my times when I was a teenager. Um, but I thought I can probably do a little bit better. And then, yeah, um, and then the coach, and then Steve actually said go work with what if his name was um? He's really good at um pulling strokes, you know, ripping apart and putting the bat together, um, so he did that and um, yeah, I was able to go a little bit faster from Um, understanding how the sport of swimming and all of its technicalities had evolved in in the you know, 25 or 20 or 20 odd years that I've been back in the school. Yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 13:05

I don't think people realize how technical it is, because a lot of people can get in and swim but to increase your speed and go faster.

Gill O'Mara: 13:14

There's so many parts of that moving parts that can be worked on to help you go faster yeah absolutely, yeah, absolutely Um, but it wasn't Melbourne that I um Learned how to do breaststroke um For a short period of time, and we're very short distance, and only when there's a wall in the middle of the pool sorry and then um. But then Michael has really helped me with um, with my butterfly here here in embrisman.

Danielle Spurling: 13:44

So yeah, yeah, nice. And what does your training week look like? Like? How many times do you train, and do you do dry land as well? Share with us what that looks like.

Gill O'Mara: 13:54

Yeah, sure, um. So, generally speaking, I'm in the water six mornings a week, so Sunday is a complete blob to lob breaststroke um. And then I'll do um two sort of strength and conditioning sessions and then maybe one or two pilates classes. And as I've got older and as I've spent a bit more time in the hospital and um, you know, I've come to learn. You know, maybe I am a not maybe I am a slow learner.

Gill O'Mara: 14:26

Um, the less is more theory in terms of um, you know the volume and distance and so forth. Um, I think before, before Guangzhou in 2009, I was doing seven sessions a week, so doubling up on a Monday. So Monday be a 10 kilometer day. Generally speaking, thursday or Tuesday and Friday mornings would be 2k and the rest of the sessions would be somewhere between four or four or five k um. But, yeah, sessions at the moment could be anywhere from, you know, 2k to 4k and um focusing more on the intensity and quality of work rather than just Slogging myself up and down a pool. So yeah, and then the strength and conditioning gym work Um, these days has always got some element of rehabilitation associated with it. Um, or pre-habilitation and um, yeah, and then pilates is generally just a bit of bit of fun, but, um, I feel that that's going to be tapering off a little bit as well. It's only 70 hours in a hour a day or a week.

Danielle Spurling: 15:30

So it's hard to fit it all in, especially with you know busy work life, which I know you've got outside of the pool as well. What, what do you work in or what's your sort of career now?

Gill O'Mara: 15:40

Korea is. I work for um business. We focus on um learning and development and leadership development. So we have a team of facilitators who basically, you know, help people not be evil in the workplace and um, and then I work on some business management and client relationships out of things. So, yeah, full-time job that has its peaks and valleys, but yeah, can be, can be intense at times. Yeah, I like it See much like anyone?

Danielle Spurling: 16:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And. And back to the workouts. What? What is a typical training session look like to you? So you said between two and four k. Take through, warm up the main set. What do? What do you do?

Gill O'Mara: 16:23

What do we do? Um, I love a long warm up warm up. So, on longer sessions, um, you know, there's usually Like 1.2 k of sort of warming up stuff with fins, so that might be you know 600 um, you know 600, alternating free back, free kick, um, then there'd be a component of drill work, so it might be. So it might be you know 350 drill and then 150, um, uh, 25 meters at, maybe you know 80 percent, you know, repeat that a few times and then Descend the distance but increase the intensity of that 50 where you're, you're sort of um just doing more short Sprinty stuff. Um, and then there might be um Some work where we would do some Um stroke count and um and time, um, so descending 50s, um, like this morning, for example, was um three rounds of um of descending 50s, descendants, stroke count and time, with 100 recovery, 150 recovery and 200 recovery after each 50, and then we would get into the main set um, which I skipped out of this morning because I'd already done two kilometers by the time it was.

Gill O'Mara: 17:49

To get there and I'd done gym beforehand and I needed to get to work. So um so I missed out on um three. Uh, what was it? Four rounds of three 25 at 335 meter max efforts, Um with a 50 recovery and then a 50 max um and then a hundred easy. So that was such a shame to miss out on that.

Danielle Spurling: 18:16

And how much of that would you do butterfly, because I know butterflies are your form stroke. Can you swim butterfly? Yeah?

Gill O'Mara: 18:23

It's a good question. I have not actually done a lot of butterflies since maybe April, may last year, when we had our nationals and state, because my right shoulder basically fell apart and yeah, and then after I had, I had a couple of quarter zone injections after my surgery in April, so it had been funky for about a year and I backed off the butterfly quite a bit. So before I went to Egypt, I think I did my first full butterfly set, you know of the year in some time around like early May or something like that. I think yeah, yeah, building back up there, building back up, yeah, yeah, but he's certainly leading into Guangzhou Friday. Friday was always fly, yeah, sprint fly sets, and then typically I would always have done like a yeah, maybe some fly on a Tuesday, tuesday morning as well. So you know, probably two sessions out of the week would be a dedicated fly day.

Danielle Spurling: 19:36

Yes, yeah. And what was the injury in the shoulder? Was it both side tis, or was it more serious than that?

Gill O'Mara: 19:43

No, nothing more serious. Yeah, just the niggly bursa and then niggly joint. Yeah, god, but all the amount of swimming I've done and hospital time, my articulation and basic anatomy is not very good. So, yeah, the front bit of the shoulder was a bit dodgy and the back of the shoulder was also clapped out, so yeah, Did you find the cortisone injections helped?

Gill O'Mara: 20:10

Oh, it did. Yeah, it really did. I was surprised because my sports doctor went my physio's name is Chris and he went cortisone is not the cure, Chris is the cure. Well, cortisone wasn't the cure then it was certainly miraculous. So, yeah, I was very happy with that. Yeah, I still have to do all the things that you need to be doing post-cortisone to make sure that its efficacy is optimized. So, yeah, no coming for those kids.

Danielle Spurling: 20:42

No, coming for all these kids. Exactly, work on that. Prehab, that's right, prehab, prehab prehab. Yeah, I didn't do a dot of it when I was an age group swimmer not at all.

Gill O'Mara: 20:52

Why? Oh no, and I've been terrible as well as an adult. I'm one of the most inflexible people I know, and yet I'd sort of rip myself out of bed and jump straight in the pool without any time for mobilization or anything, which now I'm attempting to pay a bit more attention to.

Danielle Spurling: 21:13

We live and learn we do.

Gill O'Mara: 21:15

We do. We may be old but not wise, but we'll get there.

Danielle Spurling: 21:21

And what events have you got on the horizon coming up for your master swimming?

Gill O'Mara: 21:26

I will do. There's a meet at the Valley Pool towards the end of August. It's a Brisbane Northside Masters short course meet. Love the meet. It's a great atmosphere. We always seem to, you know, lock ourselves into a beautiful sunny day in the middle of winter. So, yeah, that's great. That should be a bit of fun. Don't yet know what events I'll do, but I'll have a look soon and figure it out. And then there will be. I'll go to Adelaide in October for the Australian Masters Games, which I'm really looking forward to because there will be. I think there's two days of swimming and then the day immediately after the swimming program finishes there is a one day in swimming meet. So very keen to get the flippers back on and jump in and compete and spin swimming again.

Danielle Spurling: 22:22

Yeah, well, that's great that you've mentioned it, because it leads us straight into talking about that. What is fin swimming and how did you discover it? Yeah, Okay.

Gill O'Mara: 22:32

So fin swimming is awesome. It is like having a chassis of a Morris Minor car and you stick a Ferrari engine in it. It's so much fun. I love it. I mean full disclosure. I'm a swimmer who loves fins at any point in a session or a program. Bring them on. And I came upon it. It was promoted by a meet was promoted by Masters Swimming Queensland in January 2020.

Gill O'Mara: 23:15

Just before the dreaded COVID hit, which was being held at the University of Queensland Pool and it was the national championships for the Australian Fin Swimming Association, and after Worlds in Guangzhou, I'd had a long-term elbow injury to both of my elbows. I'd had neuropathine and tendonitis in both elbows, so I'd had PRP in October of 2019 on both elbows and that took a while to kind of get functionality and strength back. So I thought, oh, here's something. Here's a meet I can compete in and stick a pair of fins on, and I just imagined that I'd have my hands by my sides and a snorkel out the front and kicking away happily. So I thought, brilliant, sign me up. So I signed up and then the day before the meet, I met a lovely woman by the name of Helen Lane, who's the president and sort of head coach of fin swimming.

Gill O'Mara: 24:24

Fin swimming as a movement seems to have its sort of origins and headquarters, if you like, in Tasmania. So a lot of Tasmanians came up to Brisbane and I met Helen the day before to pick up a particular snorkel that you need to wear, which is more of a metal snorkel with a firmly fixed bracket, because you dive in wearing a snorkel and turn wearing a snorkel, so your typical plastic training ones, sort of flop everywhere and not really functional. So she went here's a snorkel. And then I went well, so how does this work? Like, do you just stick your arms out the front, out by your sides, or I just went, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's kind of two schools in terms of fin swimming. There's Monofin, so wearing the big kind of honking great big mermaid tail, basically, yeah yeah, and those things are phenomenal.

Gill O'Mara: 25:24

I've never really had a play with one, but yeah, they're weight and the effort that people go through to put their feet in and all this sort of thing it's like a whole ritual unto itself.

Gill O'Mara: 25:38

So there's the Monofins, and so, yeah, that's where you do have your hands out from in-stream line position, just kind of merrily undulating your way through the water. And then there's the byfins category. So, wearing two flippers and byfins, my understanding is you can either do a surface stroke, which is again swimming on the surface of the water in that streamline position, as you would, with Monofins, just undulating your way through, or you can use your arms in a freestyle motion. So that is what I opted for and, yeah, gave it a go and it was heaps of fun. And, of course, who doesn't love seeing, oh yeah, 58 for 100 freestyle wearing their flippers? Yeah, you know.

Gill O'Mara: 26:31

So, national championships, maybe then in 2022 in Tasmania, which I couldn't get to because I lived in Queensland and we were still locked out, or was that 21?

Gill O'Mara: 26:41

I can't remember, it's all a blur now, the whole COVID period, but then nationals were held on the Gold Coast in February 2023. So that was the second time I participated in swimming and, yeah, it got selected to be part of the Australian team at the Masters Championships in Egypt. So, yeah, it's a really interesting, intricate sport in terms of the apparatus that you can use. There's a whole range of different fins that are approved and your different range of swimsuits that you can use and so forth, but certainly in Australia, at a national level and as will be the case at the Australian Masters Games, they're pretty low key and informal. So the one piece of apparatus that you need is that metal snorkel, which costs about 40 bucks or something, and otherwise you can stump up in whatever fins, whatever racing suit or training suit that you want. I think the philosophy is really to get people involved in the sport, let people have a good time and enjoy themselves and, ideally, see the sport grow and flourish.

Danielle Spurling: 28:01

Yeah, well, until I saw that you were over in Egypt doing that, I had never really heard much about it, so it's really something that I think a lot of swimmers would enjoy. I mean, there's a lot of us out there, me included, who love using fins.

Gill O'Mara: 28:17

Yes, yes, we love fins Absolutely. Yeah, and it's interesting because the sport is governed by. The CMAS is the association I'm not gonna put on my terrible French accent and pretend to articulate what it means in French but it's the federation that governs all underwater sports. So sports like underwater hockey, underwater rugby, yeah, so it's governed by CMAS, and then the Australian Federation is here in Australia. So, yeah, just anyone who's curious, just look up in Swimming Australia or Osfin and you'll quickly get to the right resources. And, yeah, it's a heap of fun, certainly in going to Egypt meeting a whole heap of people from around the world. It was interesting to, yeah, understand how people came to be involved in swimming. It's not necessarily the primary sport or the first sport that people have been involved in. They can do deep sea diving, they do free diving or water polo or underwater hockey, and so, yeah, it's a real melting pot of different people and, yeah, it was just awesome to learn more about it and get involved in the community.

Danielle Spurling: 29:48

And so your world record was in the Biophin, or is it Biophin, biophin, biophins, biophins, yeah, and so yeah, in the 50, 100, 200, 400 freestyle Right.

Gill O'Mara: 30:04

So yeah, it was a successful meet.

Danielle Spurling: 30:07

Yes, empowered guard Absolutely, and so you just swam that as you dived off the blocks. Normal freestyle, but with fins. So you were using freestyle kick, freestyle kick, yeah.

Gill O'Mara: 30:20

And you're wearing a snorkel, yeah, so, and yeah, you would think, and there's slight differences to the rules. So there's no track start permitted. It needs to be parallel, your feet need to be parallel and it was a mixed meet. So, in addition to my results in the Biophins, I got disqualified in the 50-meter apnea, which is the dive in. You don't wear a snorkel, you execute it in full stream line position, doing dolphin kick underwater and it's a no breath 50. So if you come up for air at any point you're disqualified.

Gill O'Mara: 31:00

But I wiggled on the blocks at the start, so I got queued. That's all right. We live and learn, we live and learn, yeah. So, but yeah, biophins basically, yeah, freestyle with flippers and a snorkel, and it sounds easy that there were certainly a parts in the 200 and the 400 where I was, I was certainly feeling some oxygen deprivation. Your legs are working hard, your core's working hard and, being a complete newbie to the sport like I don't yet understand the science or the physiology of technique around taking breaths or kicking patterns in a 400 or anything along those lines. So yeah, I've got a lot to learn, that's for sure.

Danielle Spurling: 31:54

Well, it's great that you're sort of speaking out about it and advertising it, because I think a lot of people could be quite interested in having a go.

Gill O'Mara: 32:03

Yeah, yeah, I think it'd be great, come to Adelaide, give it a go. And certainly what I have found, I mean in terms of my age group in master swimming. I'm 47, turning 48 next year, and so there are always peaks and valleys in your time in master swimming. So for me, I was feeling pretty crispy and burnt out towards the end of last year and just needed to.

Gill O'Mara: 32:34

As appealing as it was to go to Japan for world master swimming, I really just felt the need to do something a little bit different and give something new a crack, and so this is certainly a great outlet to do that, and I've also found it surprisingly to really help my swimming. My stroke efficiency has improved because I seem to lengthen out more with the fins and snorkels. So I've been able to apply some of that from training the fin swimming and put that into practice when I'm not wearing fins Much to my coaches a stound man because I'm not an efficient swimmer. So, yeah, you know it's fun and there are benefits that you can then apply, and I think it would be great if more masters clubs and masters coaches took an interest in it and just explore how they might be able to get involved in the sport?

Danielle Spurling: 33:47

Yeah, I mean, do you, when you are training for that, you just include that in your normal training with the fins and the snorkels?

Gill O'Mara: 33:54

Yeah, yeah, so I basically did, of the six sessions a week I do, I dedicate two of those sessions to working specifically with the fins the fins that I got earlier this year, and I must thank my friend, christina Eccles from North Sydney Masters, who has participated in the national championships with me on the Gold Coast. She sort of did a bit more research and went, oh, I think these fins could be really good. So she ordered them and I kind of tagged along for the ride. But they're a slightly longer and they're a thicker plastic so they're a little harder on your feet. I use a bit of taping cream to kind of get them on.

Gill O'Mara: 34:38

They're kind of like breaking in a new pair of shoes. You know I've got little cuts around my ankles from where they've done some damage. But yeah, it's been fun to sort of have two sessions a week just working with them and doing things that you maybe forget to do, like understanding where your feet need to hit the wall when you're tumble, turning. You know, counting your strokes coming out of a turn because, like swimming, you can utilise at 15 metre mark on the water. So, yeah, trying to be as efficient as you can, coming off the wall and managing your breakouts and then mastering the art of diving in with the snorkel, which actually isn't too difficult given the type of snorkel that is used.

Danielle Spurling: 35:31

So, yeah, Is the breathing part in your mouth when you dive. Ah, yes, it is yeah.

Gill O'Mara: 35:37

So it's a centre snorkel and then, just as you might use a plastic snorkel in training, where the bracket sits on your forehead, that is a metal bracket with a really thick you know a thick strap, and then the snorkel itself is a metal snorkel and is quite narrow compared to the training snorkel.

Danielle Spurling: 36:07

So, yeah, Do you find, though, when you dive in, that it pushes back against your face, or no, not really.

Gill O'Mara: 36:16

I mean you do need to sort of strap it down fairly firm, but no, no, I mean I now use that snorkel in training because I find it to be more comfortable and sits in place so you don't have the mouthpiece rolling around or twisting about when you're doing turns. So, yeah, it's my preference to use that type of snorkel now.

Danielle Spurling: 36:40

Yeah, and you mentioned in the bi-fin that you can do stroking or you can do it as a streamline. So in your race in Egypt was there people doing the streamline?

Gill O'Mara: 36:52

No, because they, I think, the categories and again, this is where I'm still kind of new to it, so I'm not probably not articulating the categories properly, but you would enter a surface race or a bi-fin's race. So the surface, the surface event. Typically they tend to be more mono-fin's than bi-fin's, but you can compete in the surface events using either apparatus, whereas the bi-fin's is it's bi-fin's, it's freestyle. You use your arms, yeah, knock yourself out, yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 37:31

And they chose you in the team from national, so you can't just enter it yourself like you do with masters pool swimming.

Gill O'Mara: 37:39

Well, I think it's if you, I think if you hit a certain qualifying time, you are selected, but so it. So you, but you are. Yeah, you do, you're selected to represent your federation. So the Ausfinn Australian Masters team, so it's by Country Ratham Club and then, yeah, it's administered by the or Helen did. Helen made a huge amount of work kind of getting those getting the team together and managing, managing our entries and all that, all the logistics associated with it. So, yeah, it's not a, it's not a club-based thing. It's not like there was the Finn swimming Tasmania or Finn swimming Queensland or you know, or you know UQ Finn swimming club or anything like that. Yeah, so it was kind of nice to cap on with a little platypus, which is our Ausfinn emblem, you know, and and do the kind of country cap swaps and t-shirts swaps and all that sort of thing. So, yeah, it was good fun, really good fun.

Danielle Spurling: 38:48

Yeah, well, yeah, that's really great. I'm really interested to hear all about that and I think a lot of people listening will be as well. So we'll maybe put a link to that website in the show nights and people can follow it.

Gill O'Mara: 39:00

follow it that way, absolutely, and certainly if anyone's got any inquiries about it, I'm more than happy. If people want to reach out to me directly and I know Helen Lane, as I said, you know, the president and head coach of Finn swimming in Australia would be more than happy to, yeah, to answer any queries and and we'd love to see the sport grow. So, yeah, that would be awesome, yeah, fantastic, and hopefully you might come and try it in Adelaide yourself, danny Allen bring some friends Maybe.

Danielle Spurling: 39:30

Yeah, Well see, I'm injured at the moment. I can probably do the kicking part of it.

Gill O'Mara: 39:35

Exactly and, and, as I said, like my, my elbows were still sort of very much in recovery mode. So I, when I first gave it a go, so I just very tentatively, you know, put my arms through the water and yeah, so yeah, give it a crack, you'll be right.

Danielle Spurling: 39:52

Yes, yeah, it sounds good. Now everyone that comes from the podcast. I always ask them the deep dive five questions, their favorite things, a little snapshot of their swimming. So favorite pool that you've ever swum in? Oh well, I do love the valley.

Gill O'Mara: 40:10

It is an awesome pool, though there is a great Olympic pool in New Mia in New Caledonia that I swum in a couple of times and that is beautiful. So yeah, I'd say I'd say that one. I can't remember the name of it, but yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 40:25

Yeah, I think that's where Michael Bowles squad went recently. Oh, probably training camp before World Titles.

Gill O'Mara: 40:33

Yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 40:34

And it was a beautiful, it looked beautiful, the pool there.

Gill O'Mara: 40:37

Oh, it's stunning, yeah, and then just walk along the ocean and have a crepe and a cocktail. You know lots of love, yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 40:43

Exactly, Exactly. And what's your favorite?

Gill O'Mara: 40:47

butterfly drill oh butterfly drill I like to sort of do. My progression is kind of a 50 as four strokes left arm, four strokes right arm, three strokes three, two, two, one, one, and then I'm done, and then going doing another 50 as four strokes, four strokes, two full strokes, three, three, two, two, two, one, one, two, and then, yeah, doing, you know, two left, two right, to both arms, and then your classic beyondy to left, to both arms, to both arms. What kind of language is that? I don't know Two arms at the same time and then two right arms. So I quite like that progression.

Danielle Spurling: 41:40

Yep, yeah, that's it. That's a good drill progression. And how about your favorite freestyle training set?

Gill O'Mara: 41:46

I do like our Saturday morning ritual, which is a bit of a heart rate threshold. We sort of set that then gets into some sprint territory. So, I don't know three, two hundreds on a certain interval, at six out of ten, and then you know for 150s, with a, you know a seven out of ten intensity, then, yeah, five, one hundreds or something like that, eight out of ten, and then get down to some fifties and 25s With and you know the number of you know 200s, 100s or 50s. That we do probably isn't right, but as in, I'm not recalling them correctly. But yeah, the point is you reduce the distance, you increase the intensity and you get more rest as the set goes along. So I find that works well for me. I tend to. I feel like I need a while to sort of warm up. So, yeah, whereas, yeah, a lot of people are a bit cactus on, feel like I'm just starting to Heat up and get some sizzle at the end of it.

Danielle Spurling: 42:50

So yeah, how about your favorite pre-race snack?

Gill O'Mara: 42:54

Oh, who raised snack? Um, I tend to eat light on my racing days. Um, yeah, so probably For breakfast might be like eggs and veggies or something like that. Leftover stir fry is always a good, good option. Yeah, it tends to be sort of bitter, you know eggs, veggies, rice, something like that, and then Sorry, I'm just laughing at some of the reactions that this might get. I really got into fresh dates lately, so, um, you know that's a good hit of healthy, hit of sugar and and things so, yeah, and how about your favorite swimming memory?

Danielle Spurling: 43:34

certainly the.

Gill O'Mara: 43:36

Certainly, the, the relay teams this year have been really special, not just because of doing them, but, I think, also just understanding where everyone was at in their life. You know, heading into them and and and what a little meant for each of us and and coming together as a team. That was pretty good. And then, I guess, from a personal results, I think I'm not so good memory is the end of my hundred fly at Guangzhou in 2019. That was pretty memorable. A lot, yeah.

Gill O'Mara: 44:17

And then, maybe on a more positive note, yeah, the 50 flying Guangzhou was the first time, like Pract 30, and snuck in for bronze not not expecting to to get that result, so that was a good memory, but yeah. And then there's been memories of you know the types of conversations that you have at the pool and you know when you hear of someone, you know Getting married, or you know having a baby or being sick or, yeah, losing someone there. They're those community moments that I think are really more priceless than the. And then the results that you get yeah, yeah, yes, yeah. I think you've hit the nail on the head.

Danielle Spurling: 45:01

That's what master swimming is all about that community and that's a belonging to something absolutely Absolutely. Yeah, and you think God, one of these people put up with me every day, but they do.

Gill O'Mara: 45:13

I'm sure they're happy to log in a flipper in the face if they don't know.

Danielle Spurling: 45:20

Of course.

Gill O'Mara: 45:24

Well, Jill, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's been lovely catching up with you and hearing about your journey.

Danielle Spurling: 45:29

That's been great. You too, danielle. Yeah, thanks so much, and I'm glad you're here today. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Gill O'Mara: 45:39

Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thanks so much and, yeah, again, really encourage anyone who is even a little bit curious about things moving to, yeah, to reach out, have a chat and, yeah, hopefully see some of you and Adelaide with your, with your flippers on at the Australian Masters games.

Danielle Spurling: 46:00

Yeah, fantastic, we'll see if we can get some of them there. Fingers crossed.

Gill O'Mara: 46:04

Brilliant, okay, take care. Thanks, daniel. Take care, bye, bye.

Danielle Spurling: 46:11

Well, who here is now interested in Finn swimming? Jill certainly made it sound very appealing and I can see the benefits to pool racing in adding this into your training schedule. We'll put the links in the show notes to a few different areas that you can discover more about this. And who doesn't love swimming in a pair of fins? Did you know that we've now got transcripts and blogs available for our most recent episode releases and we're working hard in the background to bring the entire catalogue up to date with these new additions? You can check out all our new content at torpedo swim talk dot com. Till next time, happy swimming and bye.

Danielle Spurling: 46:51

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