E45 - Merle Maud - Swim Smooth Coach, Ironman, and Open Water Swimmer.

Hey legends, welcome back to The Clever Dicks Open Water Podcast — where we dive deep into the minds of swimmers, coaches, and salty sea legends from around the world.

Today, we’ve got an absolute ripper of a guest. She’s fast, she’s fierce, and she knows her stuff — it’s the amazing Merle Maud! Merle’s not just your average lane cruiser — she’s a certified Swim Smooth Coach, a seasoned Ironman athlete, and a passionate marathon swimmer who’s helping Aucklanders of all stripes find their stroke, build confidence, and push limits. You might know her from Swim Smooth Auckland, where she’s turning spaghetti arms into streamlined torpedoes every day.

We’re chatting race prep, mindset, marathon swims, and how to balance coaching, training, and maybe even having a life outside the water — if that’s allowed.

Buckle in and enjoy the chat with Merle Maud.

https://www.swimsmoothauckland.co.nz/

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Welcome to another Clever Dicks podcast. In this podcast we talk to Merle Maud. Merle is my coach (I'm Jim) and she's had a remarkable journey growing up in Estonia with very limited access to swimming all the way now to being a top triathlete with swimming as a strength and also swim coach. She really started swimming in Dubai and that was a bit of sea swimming and then decided to get more and more into coaching so she could become better herself. She's a really top triathlete today and coaches a squad in Auckland. We talk about some of her achievements and also her approach to coaching. I think you're going to enjoy this. Well, welcome to another Clever Dicks podcast. In this podcast we're talking to my coach, is it Merle or Merle? It's Merle. Merle. Yeah. Merle. But in English version it's probably Merle. Merle. Merle. That's cool. I like it. I don't know what I'm supposed to say even if I screw it up. Jim's also got a confusing one. It's Jim, but it's actually pronounced Rodrick. Yeah, that's what's not more possible. Okay, well thanks for coming in joining us. As I said beforehand, we kind of really start with just giving you a chance to tell your story. What's swimming and being active kind of for you, how you got into it and what keeps you going and then we can start chatting after that. I guess my story of a swimming is actually, I came from track and field background. So I used to race for track and field for nine years. So I start sports around age of seven. What were you, a short putter? Actually, I was. No. Actually, what I was enjoying the most actually was hurdles, juggling and disc. So that was kind of... Through what? Yeah, so I really enjoyed the technical side of things, of course. So the hurdles were clearly a very technical. Asked me to run a hurdle now. I'll probably want to be making it. But then coming from Estonia, which is in the time when I was living there and growing up, we didn't have any opportunity to really go to the pool. So I was actually quite obsessed about swimming because the swimming that I was able to do was probably three months in a year when we had a swimming pool actually open. We never had a swimming much of a lessons. We just went in and then really enjoyed it. I did like after my other trainings, I went to swimming and I was like, I really want to be a swimmer, but clearly never got to swimming. In this level, but yeah, the swimming has kind of followed me through all of my life. Now I've of course quit the track and field when I went to the study of like high school and stuff and but I still swimming is always been something that I always returned back to and then kind of getting into more, I guess, serious swimming was when I moved with my job to Dubai. I had to kind of, I had to keep moving myself. There was a new country and I was desperately trying to find where can I swim. I went to Dubai 2014. Things have changed of course over the years, but it wasn't really like here. You're going to go to the pool and just jump in. It wasn't really easy to just go and find the pool in Dubai. So I just found a group that was doing sea swims. I was like, well, how can this be? It kind of came out and was quite terrifying in the first go, but but yeah, that's kind of where I, all this kind of like the most swimming journey I guess for where I'm now actually started on like when I moved to country and had to keep myself acting somehow and swimming was clearly my go-to thing to do. Oh, that's that's really cool, but you're more not so much a swim a bit of triathlete now. So swimming is just part of your repertoire. Correct. So yeah, clearly don't consider myself as an all-new swimmer. So yeah, triathlon is my passion at the moment and so swimming is quite the smallest part of course for triathlon, which is sometimes sad if you're a strong swimmer. But yeah, so training for three sports now, cycling, running and swimming. So keeps me occupied, keeps kind of a variety in my training in my life. So yeah, I kind of really love it. It's kind of interesting. You're probably in the minority of triathlete to prefer swimming. Yes, probably is. I guess it really depends when you start to triathlon journey because yeah, I do see a lot of people in a squad or it's like they just want to get to triathlon, but they never have swim before. Sometimes I see swimmers, it's like, oh my god, I really would like to do triathlons. So they need to learn how to running basically and what to do with the cycling. So yeah, you do meet a lot of different people, some people love swimming, some people don't, but yeah, quite a big minority of triathletes would prefer it to be cancelled. And it's quite happy, happy times then. Yeah, in the old days, I can remember going to watch Iron Man in Africa. And Iron Man used to be a canoe. But I think it was on Africa. I think it was because that was also I mean canoeing or kayaking, whatever you want to call it, it's also very technical art. And then used to be Nick Bester and those guys back in the day, they were all canoe. I'll take you out on one of the surf skis and we'll see how many nanoseconds you can stay up right in it. I'll take you up on that. I've done a bit of pedaling before. I've kind of done a river or two. I'll be able to stay up. Oh, I get it right. We'll get you down to the surf. We'll see. Maybe they started in South Africa because it's quite sharky. I still remember my sharky-chucky. Yeah, I still remember when my world champs and then I saw a shadow in the water and trust me, the quickest exit I've ever done in the water. But it's probably was only shadow for the rock. Was it PE? PE. Okay, so you're going to tell us a little bit more about some of your ironman events but just before we started recording, you were telling us about PE. I had a friend of mine go down for holiday and they used to spend Christmas and New Year down in PE and there was always a New Year's Day race. It's roomy race. Maybe five Ks or whatever the case might be. It's a good swimmer and the field was fair. You know, everybody's sleeping in too much field or whatever the case might be but there was probably about 150 cars on every just we're going to do this race and my mate decided to swim with a GoPro. So swim the race, did, you know, did really well, came right at the top of the field, finished his holiday, went home and about three months later he decided to download the footage and sort of have a look. And exactly to your point is while they were swimming, there was a great white that came casually sort of under them and through the field, just not interested at all, probably came and had a look but just swim away. So that was pretty scary for us looking at this footage. Oh my god. So yeah, Shaki Shaki. So that great white probably was just having a bit of a Sunday afternoon stroll and going twice the speed of all the suns. I believe, I believe she entered the race and she was actually just competing. So she was so safely. So it's interesting. Okay, I'll ask the question. How bad is jump in your coaching sessions? There was no bad swimmer. Ah, you see, you haven't met me. Oh, you gave it. No, don't know what she's saying is I've got more opportunity to coach Jim than many of the other people in this spot. No, every swimmer has his own strengths. So if you talk about coaching in general, so that's what I'm all about is like trying to get people into into small swimming and actually feel that it's inclusive sport for Adam, exclusive sport, which is this is how I experience it when I was a kid. Yeah, got you. Well, I think by bus dunking and I've got a similar sort of thing is that we're converted runners through injury. Yes. So we don't have the whole lots and lots of time and appoolers as a youngster with, you know, with all of that and I think it shows in in our styles, you know, we just put one arm in front of the other and get out of the smile on our face. Yeah, well, you need to find alternatives how to how to keep yourself going because otherwise, what are you going to do with your help? Say, so swimming is definitely, I think, a sport that you probably can do when until you die because it is very very not sharks, not sharks, but it is a sport which is can keep going until really like old age because I've did on a pierced, so which is how I kind of hit quarters. And for example, the swimmer's in there, there's 80-year-olds and they're still going strong and it's it is so awesome to see it just makes you like really believe that swimming is something that should be accessible for everybody. Yeah. And inclusive and a sport that you can really do as can't really as long as you as long as you live. Yes, I agree. I mean, we're what, 70% water ourselves right, so it makes sense. True. What headquarter's own Perth? So in nuts and set headquarters, but Paul Newsom, who is our kind of founder of swim smooth, so he squad is based in Perth. And the education that I went through which has been quite long with him, we did have to go and spend time there with him for a couple of weeks, see how the squad runs, so we had a quite intense kind of education system in there. And you can see just the great atmosphere that they're having a squad and you just learn what the system can do for as a coach and what are you trying to build because I really came to the system of having no coaching and I didn't have a squad and that was thing that I really wanted to do. So I went there with eyes open and I was like, wow, this is what I'm going to create. Cool. So you started coaching before you got to New Zealand. So you've coached in a couple of places around the world, right? Yeah. So the journey started really in Dubai. So I actually wasn't Dubai as a urban planner and designer. It's a natural progression from urban penalties from coach. So yes, I've moved from already from Mistonia to Sweden and Sweden and then I got moved to Dubai with the projects and as I said, I found swimming in there. So yes, I've found a passion in there and I said, well, what is for me to lose to trying to kind of, I guess, kind of coming back to the story actually to kind of understand why I started the coaching is, as I said, finding a place to swim and then I was asked is life for the group. It's like, oh yeah, you know, we have the master group in here. If you want to go and do a triathlon, you do need to start actually training for that because clearly you know how to run, you know how to cycle bike and you can swim. So it's perfect. You must be a common triathlon. I was like, right, let's go and have a go. And then finding the squad in there, I just felt very kind of, it's not excluded, but finding that I didn't have no idea. It's like why I was in the squad in a way is like what was the purpose of the squad. It was very, like very summer kind of focus. So a lot of fast efforts, I didn't seem to get any bitter to be honest. I was struggling to keep up with the people because clearly I was not a great summer at all, even though in my head I was like, yeah, I can definitely swim. When I went to the squad, I was like, no, you cannot. Clearly because you can't hold onto the pace. So it didn't felt that was much evigated to me. But then I found that there was a swimsuit coach who was travelling through Dubai and I managed to meet her. And there was a first-ever time I was like, oh my god, this person hears me is like, what, that I want to be a triathlete, I'm not a swimmer, I haven't never been, been coached swimming, I've been self-taught swimmer. And she understands where I'm coming from. And then she made the process for me very easy to digest. It's like, okay, these are the key things you really need to work on in order to make your stroke more efficient. She didn't want to be becoming the most fast swimmer in the world. She was like, you want to be efficient, what your style is going to be. And then we talked about training and how hard to actually kind of start training for the triathlete because she herself, Fiona Ford, was her name, was exceptional triathlete herself. So that's kind of spoiled me into this kind of desire of like, I'm actually going to quit my job and I'm going to be swimming coach. That's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Well, I'm loving it because I don't, this is one I know, but the reason I met you is I go along to your squad and I thoroughly enjoy it and I get quite a lot out of it. So I don't can try to come along once, but unfortunately you start a little bit before he's normal wake-up time, which is, what kind of normal wake-up? It's about seven, quarter past seven. Oh, I thought it was nine, actually. I wish I could make it happen. Cool. So, so that stage you were doing sort of sprint triathlons, I imagine the shorter stuff? Yeah, all the shorter style sprints are a little big. So that was kind of like, grassroot of actually triathlons also in divisor. We have very small group for people doing it, which now is like massive sport in Dubai as well, as any part of the world, and as this comes a very popular sport to be done. What's the ocean temperature like in Dubai? Well, it can vary heaps. So during the summer, it can be 30 plus degrees. You definitely don't want to be there. You might just go in, dip in and just get out pretty quickly. But in a winter time, it's 16, 18. People would wear wetsuits because for us, that was really cold. If you would come in here, you will be like, no, no, no, this is really warm. You guys are joking around in here, but no, it's a very big variation because to see there is not really deep. So the temperature changes quite a lot. It's very salty as well. So when it's a very warm water, you just feel like you're, it's almost like floating, but it's like, okay, so all the evaporation just makes it quite, okay, interesting. It's a very different, very huge variation of the season, the census warm, but it's amazing as for us would be European summer, like a good temperature, yeah. And just out of curiosity, the competitors at the triathlon events in Dubai were they mostly sort of the international guys working there or were there, was there good mix of locals as well? So no, that was all, we're all were experts, all international, so not too much of interaction between locals as such. Now as I understand more and more locals are kind of getting into sport as well. Mysefub was in Singapore when I was coaching as well. I had a great mix of local people, but then also a lot of experts because that's what is kind of a really mixed people in there. So yeah, met a lot of different people from different part of the world and from walks of life to be honest. That's pretty cool. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Question. So as when you're in the ocean, you're swimming in a wetsuit, when you're racing. Yeah, I don't know if you do it when you're training as well. Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. So so obviously that the whole technique and body posture and everything in a wetsuit versus not being in a wetsuit is quite different. So what do you imagine? Of course. So how do you coach a triathlete in a pool for an event that they're going to be doing in a wetsuit? What should the guys be looking up for? So I guess, well, using a wetsuit, of course, you can train that also in a pool. If you know that you have to go, for example, there was a guy's racing kids this last weekend. And I know you need to train because it's quite hot in there. You're still racing in a wetsuit, which is quite quite interesting. So you're actually getting used to with the heat. As such as using just a wetsuit for the training wise, I wouldn't change what they're doing fitness fires because that doesn't really change. But if you would, for example, be extremely strong kicker. Your body position will be extremely high up in a water. So understanding of if the legs are going to rise up too much and you start kicking in the air, you're clearly wasting the energy there that you definitely don't need to waste. So we're kind of probably looking at increasing the stroke rate instead to get the kind of momentum in there and try to calm the legs down, hit position sometimes. If the legs really, really pop up at the back, encourage a little bit looking forward underwater. So of course not the next end where you get your next sore, but it's just kind of trying to kind of think about yeah balance a little bit better because it's changing. And of course choosing a wetsuit is extremely important. No kind of knowing the starting point of what kind of some you are. Yeah. And that's how you're going to choose your wetsuit. So I race in a very thin and very even buoyancy profile wetsuit because naturally also females, we tend to sit much higher in a water. So you don't need as much neoprene around your hips and your legs. Correct. So whilst and also for some guys who have exceptional swimmers, they don't need the extra points in there. So it's really understanding of what kind of typos from your and then going to go and pick the wetsuit according to that rather than going to go right this is the best wetsuit in the world. I'm just going to go by that. Other thing is like what is your shoulder flexibility? Is that really important for you? So nowadays it's most of the wetsuits are becoming very reflexible when it comes to shoulders, the thicker it is of course the harder it is to turn hand lifting the hands up. So and of course how much money do you want to spend on your wetsuit as well. So that's kind of always the range of like looking is like what is fits. But it's also body size and the body types. I've used a lot of wetsuits and not everything fits unfortunately. Yeah, 100% right. And I guess also I mean if you bought a wetsuit that fits you perfectly six months before race day, potentially your body shape is going to change and it is going to wait for your shoulders. They're going to get a bit broader. Yeah, most of the time it's still it's not going to be too big of change unless you necessarily want to lose weight in there or something like that. But it has still some kind of flexibility and kind of you don't need to keep buying yourself a new wetsuit. Yes. Yeah. What is the rule at like I mean for or there's a rule that says something around if it's X temperature. Yeah, it's a 24 I think 24 and a half. 24 and a half then that's a non wetsuit as well. So pros they're doing a bit of a colder water I think for them is 22 and a half or 23 and a half. Have you ever competed in a big event that's been a non wetsuit one? And the question would be like did your performance differ from really well, I suppose it's relative performance. Yeah, well, you can't really always going to go and because the courses are so different. But I did first ever kids race I did. I think there were three people of us only used the skins because we were like this water was way too warm to go and swim with the wetsuit but saying that next year I was like really seriously competing and I'll definitely borrow wetsuit because I'm quite a bit much much quicker even if you use a sweet suit. How much quicker is a wetsuit? Oh it depends person to person it can for some people can be alike I don't know 10 minutes for me probably won't be such a big difference. It's more of the lead to do with a body position when you just take away. It's a huge advantage to me but I'll make it over there. I must tell you, he did sneak on some cheaty shorts this morning and ask them. Oh yeah? I was able to keep up until he put pedals on and then he wasted me. It's gone. I really do think that for people that have got smaller hands and feet like me that pedals should be legal. I really think that we should have had one. I was thought that I'd be an adequate swimmer if I had big hands, big feet and a big fat ass because there there's pedals, fins and a board. There's definitely a correlation between your big hands and then feet so that's for sure. That's for sure. Yeah 100%. I mean I've got girls hands look at that. Yeah. So but I've also got a pedal. What do you call that thing? Too much pedals. Too much pedals. How often a week do you swim? If you're at the pool from a work perspective all the time does it become like difficult to get in and swim? No. Well we all have a good and bad days but often I jump in straight away after scored so and I do the same set this was quite as done. But yeah depending on a little bit what is the race schedule coming up for me I can swim like a 20 kilometers per week. Yeah. Over and above obviously all the cycling and the running as well. Yeah. Yeah. So it really depends like are there is going to be three sessions or five sessions in a week so yeah it's quite a lot of sessions. So your sessions are obviously quite long. So yeah I tried to do at least three sessions but if I'm getting into Ironman kind of really high level of racing I tried to do three sessions that is five kilometers wrong for me and the rest of it is just a little bit easier staff more recovery technique work of course and just kind of just being in a water. Yes. So it's still relatively a lot of swim and I love I love swimming and I think it's easier to kind of actually cardiovascular system wise just to kind of get a little bit more fitness in sometimes doing a little bit sprinting it's also pretty good you get your heart rate up but don't really need to pan on constantly on the payment and things like that so yeah so it's really depends what kind of season I am and and I'm going to start racing or not and sometimes I choose to do three sessions in a week and I'm pretty happy about it. Got you. Yeah. I'm pretty happy with three sessions a week as well I'd lend all the running in the start. So a lot of the work you do at the squad and I think maybe it's quite a swim smooth thing is with a tempo timer. Yeah and I definitely get a lot of value out of it but it's always kind of increasing pace on all of the sets that you that you do and I'm just trying to work out is that a swim smooth thing or is it just merely just deciding that she just needs to she's training hard for for a big event and the rest of the squad's going to do what she needs to do. I was wondering how the thought process goes about sitting up your your squad sessions. Well it really depends on what session actually going to come so you know I want a Monday we'll do relatively easy stuff and lots of paddles here we go over Duncan this is this is your session. I'll be there on a Monday. There is your session an opportunity to come. So that is usually what I try to keep you quite easy for you guys because I know everybody is coming off from a weekend. Most people have been training quite a lot because we do have a quite a lot of triathletes in the squad as well so it's just to kind of get you guys back into swimming so to say Wednesday is all about your threshold so you don't come that too often but it's really that is probably the one of the hardest session in the week because we are really functioning in really on on the red line so to say in your threshold which is we call CSS. How do you know what your threshold is? So you in order to know it you need to actually test it so 402 100 max. Jim Masanid he loves it and then from that I can calculate out your CSS. That's a good note so when I do come I've got to cruise that first 200 and 400 make sure it's nice and comfortable. It doesn't actually work that way because whether they set it up as a make it all competitive and then it's really hard to actually cruise when you're sitting there I can do this. Oh geez I've just given myself a world of good none. But then coming back to you a question about why it's getting constantly feels like it's getting faster is actually it's not it's not getting faster you mean red mess session. The red mess session yes because it was my CSS plus five then plus four plus three plus two oh my lord and the sessions go 200 300 400 500 500 and plus oh my lord that was an absolute fail and I thought gee I'm so soft and then I looked at my heart rate afterwards and I was missing all the times in my heart rate was sitting at 155 so in other words you had more potential to push harder. No no no there was I was maxed out at 155 my heart rate how old am I? 72 yeah what do you say? well 220 minus your age is not that should be a maximum. That's a guideline yeah so one so 160 should be according to that guideline 160 is my 100% yeah I don't believe that guideline I think that it's a guideline yeah it's not always accurate no definitely not but no the red mess like sometimes yes we're doing a negative split sometimes we're doing positive splits so it really depends a little bit like because the red mess is is quite a challenging session there's a reason why it's called red mist story basically goes that it happened of course in a Perth in a Perth squad where in one of the really really good simmers basically through her toys in this type of session because it's extremely mentally actually challenging plus also physically very challenging even though we're not actually working anything close to the threshold we're just we're just like a touching on the corners of your threshold and then the fatigue that grates from that for some people there's just like I can't do it it's like this is too hard or like why why it's so difficult but it just shows that we are working actually quite a fine lines we're talking about basically six seconds where we are where where the squad kind of works basically it's like threshold up to plus six seconds for hundred so in between all of these paces is all physiological response for you and the red mist is very challenging when it comes to like fatigue able to hold your form and a pace it is it's a three things that you need on your racing hold your form hold your pace and what are you doing in your head so it is it's like and some days are good sometimes a little bit more challenging it always depends what happens there before but it's always good to get it done hey I have to say I like it and despite the fact that it's very challenging it's probably your most popular session because if anything's going to sell out it's going to be red mist but I think that you know from a mental point of view not only is it tough but it's also on a Friday so you're sitting there thinking oh yeah nearly finished three oh I've got red mist but that's all like a cherry in the top you get it done early in the morning and the rest of the day is like right I've done the harp it in a week and then I can relax it's just the rest of the day because Jimmar Alves on a Saturday in a Sunday and he says oh I've done red mist on Friday I've got to take it easy today so which is which is fair enough I would say it is fair there we go there we go so when I first heard about red mist and you mentioned the name and where it came from I sort of had a picture of my head of everybody like getting nosebleeds and like flooding the water and I was like oh I'm like why do I want to go and do that it is just a really like a name just to kind of little bit describe it it is a it's a really good challenging session and if you would do any any long distance like a triathlon so even like marathon swimming you definitely this would be in your in your schedule yeah clever decks is New Zealand's largest swim focused podcast and our team at swim skates is proud to be their official partner with all things swimming swim skates offers both piloting and safety for solar marathon swims as well as various packages including marathon relay swims swim camps and swim adventure holidays swim skates is also a facilitator of the Auckland Triple Crown coming soon proudly brought to you by swim skates it's like any squad each lane has kind of got its own little subculture you know and sometimes you just can't move people because the culture is wrong in the lane but yeah it's kind of interesting because I swim in the slowest lane and red mist some of the swimmers are even slower than me it's hard to believe but you know they they're absolutely maxing maxing out on those those stations it's actually quite awesome to see what's your threshold what's your threshold um around 120 200 okay and and so if you've worked out that threshold are you able to sort of extrapolate that out and get a gauge of what you're supposed to do on race day for example yeah that's what we're training in this one yeah so that's why like it's really swim smooth we haven't invented CSS we haven't invented critical critical swim speed but we have really coined it as a training methodology because we do believe in the science we do believe in numbers and as I said swimming is is quite a quite funny sport because we are working in a very very small range of seconds which you would in a running you would be much bigger ranges and heart rate or a pace or running right writing is a power or heart rate so you're working very fine line so the more accurate it can be around it the picture is going to be your outcome because there's no point of doing miles if you don't know what you're actually aiming for you might actually be swimming too hard or maybe you actually get swimming too slow so having this guidance on the CSS is actually it's easy to actually then in your head it's like okay so this is the effort I need to do on my racing and that's where I got so excited about swimming swim smooth when I was in Dubai and I was introduced that it's like so all of this effort that I put in becomes so much more meaningful because now I have a framework and I know where is my base level let's face it I started like a 150 per hundred pace and I managed to work up so and I'm not a swimmer so it is all about work all of these years but it's the more precise you can be knowing what you want to achieve I find that this is a tool that it helps you a lot rather than spending hours and hours in a pool which most of the time well most of us actually don't have a time for that we might squeeze in three hours three sessions in a week and that's a pretty good result for us but ask anything do more and we are clearly we're a time poor anyway everybody's a time poor come to that place. So as interested as you said I'm not a swimmer but from that I took it I was not a swimmer from from being a youngster because there's definitely some people out there that they're just awesome swimmers but they were probably awesome swimmers from when they were six years old and they've got it all the way through and people who start later I think there's I don't know whether it's just a self-selection process but you can't make up for those those very early years yeah for sure but I think still I have a great belief that that I've I managed to do quite a like a big jumps in my in my performance and I put it down to being consistent being really patient it hasn't been an easy journey but it's been and I've used a lot of my mentors it's like done a video analysis for me and asked help is like okay because I do a video analysis other people so I ask actually my peers to do a video analysis for me is like can you can you point out some of the other things that I do and then we work then I'll work on these ones so I do trying to kind of think about okay how can I make myself more efficient and then the training behind that has also been like for me it's been the one that is actually be helping me to get faster because I'm not having spent a lot of time in a pool like hours and hours like a swimmer because clearly I wasn't doing as a child and as a triathlon like we just can't really do it because we have to do all the other sports in between so yeah so I think there is an opportunity for you get faster even if you haven't been a swimmer as a kid so I'm a big believer that in any aspect of your life you can always improve it doesn't doesn't matter where you start from you know if you've got a very low base you can improve and you you know it's it's clear that not everyone can get to the Olympics because that's just never going to work otherwise the Olympics would be the entire world correct so but I absolutely believe no matter what starting position no matter what age number ideally you can always improve so I'm absolutely with you but the one thing I was just thinking going back all the way to CSS it's something that definitely I feel and I was wondering if you think others do you know I've got a CSS pace that I've kind of worked up with that 200 400 some days I'll get down there and I think oh shit I am just so much better than this and I am and and I find swimming at all of those those places kind of really easy and then there'll be another day I get down and it's just you know even starting off at CSS plus five just feels like such a mission yeah yeah is that common to everyone feel the way that I do is it yeah well no it's just performance is not a straight line that's that's the thing is like you just one some days are really good some days are not really good so we all have these days I think but as I said it's always you want to think about like almost I'm in my head I always think about like a three days what I've done the three days beforehand and how it will affect my performance on the day that I'm going to go so maybe maybe you had done really hard bike or run maybe well maybe haven't eaten enough maybe like I've had a really busy day of work some of the times I'll just miss a snack maybe make haven't maybe slept really well so there's a little so many combination of like things that goes into performance your performance is very small slitter of your general so that's sometimes people get really like oh my god I can't hit the base and I'm like okay maybe not maybe something has days before has been lit a bit harder for you it's not that you can't perform that it's just the day what's it's just the day yeah it's you haven't just dropped all your fitness automatically it was just and as I said it's we're talking we're working in seconds and milliseconds sometimes in the swimming so it's it's it's a very very small maybe your double turn is not really good today maybe you just like my fumble turn you've seen it I touched it so we can also lose a second in there already so it is like a really like it's I think it's the feeling and effort that we're putting in a swimming and knowing it's like okay this is how should we feeling is more sometimes more important we can't forget the RPE which is the proceed effort that is also kind of quite relevant thing to use in the training so we have numbers we have human beings yeah cool so maybe we can talk about some of some of your your triathlons you've you've done some you've done pretty well over the last couple of years isn't it yeah yeah so I think last year was definitely my my biggest year kind of if I can say in a career even though it's not in my career at all so this is just the fun that I do for my free time um but I did manage to basically win everything that I wanted to win in my head um I went to see I want to do the taronga which isn't always in the end of January after Christmas and New Year always good to go and have a go so I managed to overall win on that um I've continued to go to Topos and into point three I managed to be overall winner for that and then I went to Keynes to try to call it for the World Championships um one my age group and second overall and then the niece um World Championship is definitely been one of my greatest public achievement which is I came third in my age group which is yeah it's like two and a half hours of climbing on the bike you think that this mountain never gonna end and um yeah it's a very very challenging course coming especially from New Zealand as well switchbacks and very technical dissents and yeah there was a lot of accidents on the roads and stuff and and then I managed to came fourth also in the World Championship here in Topo. That's awesome yeah it's a big year it's a very very big year that's a lot of racing I usually I never do so much racing it just takes a lot of time from my work and kind of just that just a general life doing this yeah a lot of a lot of time commitment for that so yeah and of course you obviously need to sort of take a little bit of a recovery after a race and then start at the race again and yeah so it's challenging hey wow what um what do you do I mean clearly you do a lot of technical stuff which I'm imagining guys across into your running and your cycling as well but what do you do from a mental perspective do you apply your techniques or do you have a a mental coach or anything like that for you or I don't have any coach for that but um I think the the older you get the wiser you get I think if I would think about myself back in a young days when I was racing clearly I wouldn't have as my calm mind as I would be now yeah I think it's just understanding your why is why you're doing what I do at the moment and just kind of stick to that and and I find a lot of my calm in my training and I'm like yep I've done the work that I'm that I put myself on my coaches put me I've done these things so I find the calm and kind of reinsurance in this like right I know I'm fit yes I'm always gonna go and give my absolute best and every single time it turns out well I've had horrible races as well but at least an attitude I will always try to go in is like I've done the work I'm just gonna go and now test it out how well can I do it so it's for me it's more I've turned it into as excitement and then like a test rather than oh my god I need to perform like the best best so for me it's more like a game in my head yes just trying to take away like the I have to perform I have to be the best no this is game for me got you enjoy it right to done the work yeah of course it's like it's sometimes hard to say enjoy your armament when you want to do a marathon in the end yes but it still it is still has this kind of fun enjoyment around is in your pain but what is your why um my wise always I've I've grown up at the sport and for me why for the sport is like it's my mental health I feel always great when I don't any exercise it can be walking it can be just something little so the sport as always being my kind of place to go um quite always happy find most of the happiness um but it is part of it's it's part of my lifestyle because I've done it for so many years it's just I wouldn't be imagining my life without it so yeah and I enjoy it still so um the question is as a coach you've got a whole squad of people and the reason I love squads because I like the social aspect of it I think I'm actually a coffee drinker that uses swimming as an excuse to get together with people too now do you train with other people do you have your own little group or mini squad or do you tend to just do most of your your training on your own yeah I do most of them in my own yeah for the swimming wise I definitely be I swim on my own because I work in times where where you guys actually swim so and then when I can train most of the people I work but I do have a little little like a training training group from my bike rides and stuff so I can still have my little social aspect and have a bit of a jokes and things like that so I'm not totally a training alone but yeah most of the time I do actually so it's a lot of I think it's it's well I suppose everybody's different I know a lot of people do that out of choice but I would find that super harder I don't know if I'd keep on doing it's the social side of it is as important as the as the the putting the energy out or doing doing the exercise yeah true and that's why that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to bring a swimsuit squad to different part of the world and I've done it to buy I've done a Singapore I've done it here now so it's I've done it build up from scratch basically three different squads as a as a community so that's what I've always felt as well as sportism community even though I can't always train with people but being part of it community as a coach that is like the most biggest enjoyment for me it's like being looking happy people are doing so I get to know you guys and I have this lot of like quite a lot of personal relationships which is like for me it's like really really important well I get a really good feeling with that squad of yours you know I'm probably not the most I know some people are there kind of every day and yeah there's a really good feel yeah I've heard any good things right yeah yeah so it's all about inclusive being inclusive and then kind of understanding that people coming from different different kind of walks and stuff but it's still there's a space for them for all of them in there and then kind of trying to I tried to meet people in the level that they're coming into the squad as you know we had the people who have done master swims people have been like you were college swimming and then there's people who are just wants to come for fun so it's really like a really huge mix of people but there's still a common theme in there enjoyment around the swimming so it's kind of things that connects us all so that's one of the things that we're kind of quite interested in especially in this podcast getting it out you know there's definitely an opportunity to get more people active in New Zealand and with the amount of water we've got around you know how do we get more people swimming do you get much in the way of do you sort of get any interaction with people who are sort of saying I'd like to learn and I'm an adult I'd like to learn how to swim is the very much of that that sort of comes your way or how can we improve the accessibility of swimming to people yeah so I do I actually do I have a little squad called improve beginners right then these this is the group for people who can swim a little bit usually they should be able to do already 25 meters and freestyle so they are willing to come and come and join the squad and then we do a lot of technique work in there and that is like this little spring block for them to go and start to be confident of even being around with other people because that could be also quite intimidating is like oh my god there's other people around me and the harm going to perform but it's like they're all kind of similar level so I teach them technique we're doing a little bit a more like a fitness work so they're just becoming confidence I've had people coming to the improve beginners and then an Iron Man after that so it's like you just need to I find there needs to be a space for adults because that's what I work most of it for them to feel it's safe it's like in not only like yeah it's safe not drowning but also that they are hurt and and feeling that they are met in the level that they're coming in rather than oh my god it's like deserve that's what I've tried to bring with my squad is having a different levels and people can come and feel that they are welcomed and I think that's the only way of bringing more people in is like so Dan Abel I'm sorry to interrupt you Dan Abel had a similar approach because you you're arriving there and you're literally putting yourself you're taking off all your coats you're exposing your tummy fat and you're exposing the fact that you're you know so you you're really putting yourself in a vulnerable position and when you're used to it I mean we don't think about it anymore I'll walk down the beach you know I feel rocks right but a lot of people for them that's not I don't want to do that you know so that's an important point right people need to feel comfortable then so my first entry into a squad I decided that I mean I grew up and I knew how to swim as in as in you sort of beginners I could I could do things and I decided to become a lifeguard so I started going down to the tips and I just swam just on my own until I was fast enough to actually do the test but I was swimming next to that the morning squad at the tips and I was swimming next to the fast lane and I just got seriously put off because these were these were really good swimmers you know and they're going two times your speed or more yeah and I just thought I it just made you feel so inadequate all the way through eventually I went back to the tips and I said you know do you do adults from classes and they sort of put me in there so I go and go and talk to that guy and he did a little assessment and said come to my squad and oh but it was too fast you know you go in the slow lane and all of a sudden I got in there and that was kind of my my entry into into swimming was acceptance into a lane where we were all very very similar and Vic was swimming in the lane that's when I when I met him and we all sort of grew together yeah yeah so it's and that's what when when I use the CSS for example that is also very easy for me to kind of put people in the right lane space because people are afraid that that there's one over they're not good enough which is often it's like I'm not good enough I'm like are you are good enough if you can swim you are good enough so I think it's also the perception of people it's like I'm not good enough I'm like you can swim you are absolutely fine you just need to little bit of get a courage in and then just come and just see how and learning from the others because this is how I learned swimming is I was looking somebody else and trying to learn from them but you learn from other people just literally looking around what's happening looking over the cross the lanes so that's like it's just we're humans so I'm just thinking back now when when I was sort of also trying to teach myself how to swim I'm sure it was part of swim smooth you'll be able to tell me right but there was a it was smartphones weren't like such a big thing so it was like on a laptop or on a computer and it was an animated sort of video of a dude called mr. smooth you used to be able to look at him from the front and from the side and yeah that's sort of you know you speak while looking at other people's from yeah so we have a mr. smooth but you must be careful when you google mr. smooth because there's other stuff that comes up as well so which one will you look that's why it's so much just a smooth he's doing around there yeah yeah well it's not using uh the gentleman hazel actually so it's one of the little plants and we did um we did an animation of him and then we have a swinger so that's why that comes we have a swim types yeah six six different swim types and then smooth and so to say swinger which we're calling a people that are more ocean swimmers you know if you go google mr. smooth and swingers all together that's why you should look at it let's travel yeah so we we do use yeah and used to have animations and stuff so we'll use them so so question from Mars out how do i increase stroke rate what can i do to increase stroke rate do you have to increase stroke rate that's the first question i look like i'm swimming in slow motion so in before i can probably say that you have to i've got an odcation at a chord yeah but we need to put we need to look at it um so there there is no need always to increase the stroke rate if there is no problem with it so why is it such such a thing for people to measure stroke rate is it just you for example on a marathon swim one of the requirements from from an observer perspective is to track stroke rate through the marathon swim so i'm assuming that it's potentially to see that the stroke rate is not dropping dramatically so we're looking hypothermia we're probably looking at you more medical issues and kind of saying how the swimmer is doing physically because the stroke rate ball going to decrease because it's going to be longer yeah so but it's to increase the stroke rate you need to probably look at what your catch is doing but it's before you can look at your catch you probably need to look at what is your hand entry is doing what is your alignment in there so it's really like a cascading effect but we tend to kind of yeah so the stroke rate is important for ocean swimming definitely so we're for more smooth type of swimmers which is a longer stroke we need to be able to adapt to stroke rate a little bit more compared to like what we're doing in a pool so it is a little bit quicker getting into this catch phase and then actually engaging with the water slightly quicker what happens when you go out and it's a real lumpy wavy day out in the ocean and you and you've not got your sort of head wrapped around long and smooth easy strokes could it change it up a bit you have to change yeah because otherwise you will be mercy of the waves unfortunately and you feel like you're going to go one step forward two steps back and you might end up in a beach yeah so it is really it is a good challenge for a pool swimmer's definitely who who have not done ocean swimming and then kind of get it in this wild world of waves other people depth of the water so all this kind of interesting thing so I've gone through that yeah just to learn how to swim around a take a corner around a boys is a bit of a technique yes of course yeah do you take your swim squad to the ocean for ocean sessions um I skipped it actually last year but uh most of the years yes I've not done actually a specific ocean swim sessions where we're going through most of it actually your tactics you're changing your stroke you're citing hard to draft hard to go around the boys but then also starting using a little bit of CSS there as well so we can do quite a fun sessions where it actually comes more measurable of effort wise rather than just swimming in ocean so there's like a very different kind of approach of like it's going to be actually coached and we are usually take a markdown boys which is like a 400 meter kind of a kind of a triangle so we work around that depending whatever I want to do in there and what's the kind of the goal of the session here oh that sounds like hard work yeah so what's the rules with triathlon you're you're a lot of drafts in the water you definitely want to draft in the water unless you're the fastest person you want to draft in the water yeah and the best place to draft is that like on the feet or to the side or well it really depends even what is your comfort in there so like to draft somebody on the side you need to be able to go pretty close to them and be comfortable also breathing towards the person that you're expressing and kicking in you yeah it's more about actually being close to it and then basically getting the arm rhythm more kind of sync what the other person is doing but kind of on the feet some people find it easier are personally find it probably on the hips is better because you don't have this really disturbed water which comes from your feet yes so yeah so I think from the hips is actually more beneficial if you if you if you know how to do it but you do need to be pretty close in there it's pretty good at the close but it's also when it comes to the drafting you can't just blindly follow a person on the front you actually need to be able to cite as well so there might be going of course right so there's no point of actually drafting if this person doesn't know so yeah so you need to pick your good sizes I've made that mistake so many times because you spend so much time just concentrating on the draft yeah and by the time I've sort of looked up you know I'm of course complete and it takes me so much longer to do but especially if you start drafting somebody who doesn't like being drafted and they're keeping on moving away from you yeah my problem is I draft of shazil right because he shazil's my last little special needs by the other swimmer then I'll he's a stronger swimmer than me so I'll be drafting of him but he doesn't really keep where he's swimming to right so he'll just swim and if I lose concentration I'm like whoa okay we got it we got to go back there all right both of you are swimming into each other the entire time it's it's quite a he like I'm watching yeah yeah what's the furtherest you've swam oh probably um I've done a quite a few uh longest ones uh been in in Thailand yeah they just um with the tin cane there yeah they let us lose when it was sundering and and raining and I was oh my god if I'm gonna go out of here live I'm pretty lucky yes and um probably the most amazing swimmer I've actually done is rotten swim oh got you oh you've done rottenest yeah but I did as a team but I probably ended up swimming most of it so you know that that's like 20 just that's just under 19 yeah just under 20 according to Mike yeah okay that's that's one of the most epic races I've ever done and that's from the mainland to right near start yeah yeah yeah yeah and then was without wits it's nice because that's that's kind of the regulation in the okay but really I didn't know that okay that's cool but it's about a 20 degrees from yeah but it's very I think we had a pretty good year we had a quite a big swell but last next year when I was coaching an athlete who was racing there and she was just cutting the cut of time where they actually start pulling people out because of the hypothermia and the swell is becoming so big yes they can't rescue anymore so yeah and then last this year it was this year when it was cancelled because no this year they got through the previous year so yeah so this swim can be really detrimental yeah for that yeah so you would have had to have had your own kayaker or boat with you yeah yeah kayaker and boat and yeah how did you find that because that would have been different to your normal sort of triathlon tubs for me yeah I was scared yeah I was I was quite nervous very different yeah yeah but it was yeah how did you prepare for that oh I still did a lot of red mist red mist as well was the god too but yeah longer distances we're just eight kilometers in a certain session so yeah did you use back on the running and cycling prior to that or yeah so I didn't I didn't do much of a long distance then yeah I did most of the understanding point three so not like a full armistice yeah and would it be fair to say like after a 20k swim which is I mean that's probably the equivalent to like a running marathon tubs no no so it's just like almost a double marathon yeah yeah yeah it's a long day out there it was a long day for us that's right the marathon swim in the Olympics is 10k so I've always just taken it that you can run four k's for every one k that you swim that it's it's it's close enough that you can sort of put it together but recovery better would you find or maybe I'm I'm not telling you I'm asking you would you have found the day or two after a 20k swim your body will cover us quicker than what it would after like an iron man or something like that well let's face them I haven't I didn't do this as a 20 probably yeah yeah yeah I got a team for the team yes but well it really depends like how good are your shoulders yeah like how good is your technique because it's the same muscle group yeah it's like really if you if you're taking good care of your shoulders like maybe you're not really sore maybe like you're gonna be still sore everybody's gonna be sore but yeah so but it's like yeah for an iron man it definitely takes me good two weeks to kind of feel like I want to jump them back in them kind of on my trainer and do a lot of stuff so yeah so definitely different to doing three sports or one sport which is more on a shoulder-based cardiovascular so okay this is a bit of a I'm putting on the spot right but swimmers runners cyclists triathletes who's the coolest bench the swimmers or the cyclists well the difference is that in the swimming you hear it's basically in the water you're clearly clearly not having a chat in there so I think the swimmers don't make treffy terms deep right true so it is a bit of a I think the social aspect for the cycling is definitely little bit more appealing for some people rather hit down and keep swimming and following the black line so but yeah how can we get more people from other sports running cycling whatever into oceans for me but what do you reckon is the biggest obstacle for them um well if they don't know how to learn to swim yeah that's probably first step so we can we can give your details right so they're going to contact you directly and you're going to teach them yeah but then we actually have acquired a lot of cool stuff in New Zealand which is like the beach series which is really accommodating for people to do like this so yeah yeah so you actually have a good little opportunities which is not kind of oh my god I need to do two kilometers of swimming in ocean I don't know what to do yeah you can start doing a little small steps yeah all right um and then with with my squad so hopefully next year kind of take them back again so my improve my little improve beginners yeah don't go to the ocean so I will do like a small little things with them just to kind of really talking always the dangers of course because ocean is not a pool let's face it always a body system never go alone in my head even if you good swim out I will never go alone um that's what my rule of thumb is yeah and then just yeah talking about the skills and stuff and talking about the currents talking about the waves like all this kind of things that you don't really encounter at the pool so yeah so I think it's it's a part of a little bit education let's face it we also would probably need more pool space that people actually can go and enjoy swimming because it is clearly I think working in the space I know how constrained it is so and of course it comes from from the young children as well it's like when the children are learning to swim and did the parents take him to the sea my parents never took me to the sea so it's clearly something that they didn't know how to swim so clearly then I'm gonna come and bring your children yes because you can't say them so yeah so it is I think it just comes from the from the children but it's also what is opportunities yeah a lot of opportunities but taking advantage of all beach series and kind of small little events that we have we are spoiled today yeah so I think there is opportunities and just more people being kind of willing to probably give a go as well so from your point of view you've got the swim squad going but you also do individuals and video analysis as well yes so people can reach out to you yeah so video analysis yeah video analysis is a big thing that I've done yeah so many years now and that's for the swim smooth is also what kind of attracted me in the first is like video analysis showing people what they do really explaining very simply actually that's kind of our kind of a method in a way is making a really cause and effects of people feel like so maybe it's not a rocket sign actually it is quite a lot of like understanding how one things lead to another so I think it's such an amazing way of learn about yourself actually and I get your framework is like okay rather than gonna go and try to work on everything you actually may not need to work on everything you might just need to fix one two things yeah and you're ready he's like oh my god that just feels so much easier so it's just a kind of yeah I find it so useful it's and you don't need to be a kind of a great domain or to do it's like if you can swim we can already do it and then you kind of start seeing it's like oh yeah this is what I move because the perception in the water is so different if you would be taking a person to the dry land and that's going to do a movement so yeah cool so if somebody wanted to get hold of you for this what's the best way is it through the yeah so swim swim to Auckland that's the easiest way to kind of find your line or swim swim to Auckland we'll put a link to the website in the show notes and yeah people can can get hold of you yeah if they want yeah that's very cool what's next for you I've just started my big prep for a carnival champ so this is going to be the Hawaii this year that's awesome so yeah so it's going to be in what swimming in a very warm waters cycling and running in a massive heat in the lava lava field so so they're doing it but differently it's it's a woman only event and then there's a means only a vegetable so yeah so this year is the last time when we are split and next year the woman and men is going to be coming together again in Hawaii only so yeah so they try to trial it for two years and it wasn't as successful as as I remember as as hope so the female participation is still not as high as males so we still need to do a lot of work for females to be coming more into sport and willing to do this kind of things so there's also a lot of entry barriers for females to be part of triathlons and then kind of when we talk about ball champs it's still time away from families a lot of training etc so yeah yeah so I suppose the whole race there would be different you know because you would have I suppose more more space in in a ladies only race after the yeah so the key for them was actually to get even numbers on above males and females but clearly because the participation is less for the females which was harder to hit them numbers yeah so it's easier for the males so but yeah yeah looking forward to it's like it's a quite a I went there two years ago and I got COVID just before two days before the race so I have a I feel I have a check the second chance to go and try to conquer the probably the one of the world hardest areas that's a rich one right correct so the world champs have been there all the time yeah awesome awesome what what's your best 10k time running was oh don't ask me that bad at the moment by hide which was weird it's like I don't consider myself even though I did a track and feel the lot yeah don't consider myself I like a run out consider myself and now as a triathlete yeah so it's like the identity changes over time yeah true so you don't really like excel only in a one you tried to excel of all of them constantly you got to figure out the rate must vision of the run yeah that's called that's called fart leg yes so fart leg is actually Swedish words like I can fast slow fast slow yeah yeah so yeah how do you make me that famous yeah thin lead yeah so your read must is sort of loosely based on on fart leg it could be a similar kind of like yes like you have a little bit of easier stuff a little bit more tempo stuff so yeah so it is challenging you know working always full capacity but it gets to feel like almost on a full capacity we used to do something called nomination fart leg when when I was running a thousand years ago and it was quite interesting because it would take everybody out of out of their comfort zone so there was four guys running and you could be doing a cross country on a track on the road wherever but you would do a warm up and then you would be nominated for for ten minutes and you could go whatever one minute hard three minutes easy you let's run up that hill and I could go ten minutes hard guys you know so everybody would be trying to sort of up do the last guys nomination but it keeps you honest right so it really does get you fitting and fast but I think if I had to try that now I would either have a high-tech or but that's comes back from the red mist is like some of the summers are really good and sprinting some of the people are really good in a long distance so that's what call them them like diesel engines or petrol engines so you have people who love doing short stuff fast stuff and then you have summers are like I'm really happy to be in this more kind of a tempo zone and I don't really want to do fast stuff so that's where the challenge comes is like you you need to challenge on each aspect of your fitness in order to actually gain a classifier yourself as a one-cylinder diesel engine. I thought you were going to say EV you've only got like X-Mine and Mars. I feel like we could chat all day to you. Really appreciate your time. Oh thanks for having me. Yeah man that's been cool. Yeah yeah thanks so much. See you in a squad red mist. Hi my name is Caitlyn O'Reilly I'm the youngest person who have completed the Ocean 7 Challenge and for this really cool podcast has helped you learn something new maybe it's introduced you to new swimmers made you smile then please take the opportunity to subscribe to Duncan and Jim's channel I'm sure they would absolutely appreciate all your support. Cheers. Thanks Caitlyn. Well as always you can give us feedback on our Instagram account at CClever Dicks or send us an email CleverDicksnz@gmail.com we'd really appreciate hearing from you and cheers we'll speak to you again soon.