E50 - Brian Gray - 150km River swim down the Waikato!

This chat is about a remarkable Kiwi story of grit, brains, and a touch of madness.  We welcome back Brian Gray – a Kiwi Master Swimmer with a heart as big as the Waikato River itself. Brian recently swam an astonishing 150 km's down that very river, the one he grew up beside, in honour of his dad.

It took him 24 hours straight – no sleep, battling the tide, and pushing through every obstacle nature and his own body could throw at him. From the sheer physical toll to the mental chess of staying focused, and yes, even the not-so-glamorous reality of figuring out how to go number two while still swimming – Brian holds nothing back.

This is a story of endurance, memory, and love for family, told through one of the wildest swims you’ll ever hear about. So, grab your goggles and settle in....

Brian on Instagram: @bmeister_gray

Transcript

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Welcome to another Clever Dicks podcast. In this podcast we are talking to Brian Gray again. This is the second time we spoke into Brian. In this episode we talk about his epic 148 meter swim down the Waikato River. We talk about some of the planning and what he needed to do to get up for it and how he felt leading up to it and during the swim and also some of the adventures on the swim. Then we start talking about potentially what he's going to be doing next or though he's not really trying to commit to anything. I think we've got some some more adventures to actually hear from from Brian. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Cheers. Bye. So welcome to another Clever Dicks podcast. In this podcast we are going to talk to Brian Gray again. This is the first time we've got a guest come back. So clearly we did something not too bad the first time, Brian. Oh, it times I had to re-circuit. So I think maybe not everyone might have listened to the first one. So you just want to give us a bit of your a bit of your story just to refresh all of our memory and then we can go into some of the amazing things you've done recently. Well I was thinking about this today. It's a bit of a short story. I got into swimming in a squad when I came back from London. I think I was 25. I don't make me say how many years ago that was. And then I just got into long swimming in 2020. Yeah. So not really that long ago and had my first cracker long swim at Tupper in 21 and got a DNF and managed to do again the next year which was quite hard to swim for me. I found it quite tough. And so I decided to get really interested by the whole designing a swim. Something that suits you and your swimsuit. And of course as you run those Tupper was tough because it's just a big long drag and it's mind games. You're stuck in the middle not seeing much improvement. So next year I decided to swim around Waikiki so you get movement. Yeah. So that was that was 22 I think. And then I had an enforced two years off. And so I've just done my big one. Just done your big one. Just for reference two things. One is the Waikiki Swam was a 55 km swim. Yep. And it was also the first time anybody has ever swam around that on it. Yeah. And secondly your waft obviously weighs the pants that you had to have an enforced two years off. Yes. Yeah. She's actually going three years for the next one. Okay. I just want to do it. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I'm saying two. She's saying three. Two and a half. Yeah. So you don't have anything in the bank from all those years when you weren't swimming. You can't claim any of those. Unfortunately not. No. I'm going to get a decent lawyer too. I've lost that contact. I really don't know because I think a lawyer wrote it up. And he says he is a lawyer. So what kind of hard place? Okay. So you've done your Waikiki Swam and you were thinking what next? So I'm guessing you kind of thought I'd like to do something that hasn't been done before. Yeah. The motivation for the next one. I was going to do the wangane river. Yeah. My dad died a bit before I started doing long swims. And he was such a cool guy and I really miss him. And I have this new passion of long-distance swimming. And his was history and he really loved the wangane river. And so I wanted to combine his passion with my passion just to feel a bit closer. He sounds a bit corny but that wasn't it. That's very cool. So Ivan and I went and did a bit of a rickety and ended up being quite. It was cold and I thought I'm not very good with cold. And also he freaked out a bit on the first rapid. It's like 30 metres of getting in. And no cell phone reception and actually it's not that easy to get down to the river. So I did the all endurance thinking yeah well I can't do this ADK so what else and I'll do 150 instead. Okay let's not do 80 list 250. Okay yeah I'm not sure how that sort of speaks to the long swimming sort of mental approach to life. No that speaks to my logic. Speak to your logic. Okay so how did you manage to do 150 then if 80 was a long way? Well I saw this Mark Twain quote by Coincidence this morning which said that ignorance and confidence were pretty much guarantees you success and I think that sums up. So I did I decided as soon as that one going to be trip. We could see that it wasn't going to be a goa. And so straight away I went and checked out what else I could do and did quite a few rickies over and over and checked out various spots on the river. So when at the Port Waikato for the record what I did was swim from the dammit carapero down to Port Waikato. So we checked out down at Port Waikato and various places going up. Yep. There was quite good current. It seemed down below it was three KNR. Yep. And just it seemed warm enough and yeah so I got an excel sheet and worked out how fast I swam based on my tapo time and then plotting the currents all the way down. It was actually quite a complicated swim to work out because you need to make sure you hit the bottom at the right time because it's tidal for 20k or so. Yeah. Yeah. If you hit it the wrong time then you're going up instead of down and right down the bottom seems to be like 4kNR current. So you can swim against it. Wow 4kNR going upstream. I don't know actually I'm going down stream that was 4kNR right at the bottom. Got you. So complicated to try and work out and you know if you're 5% wrong then that adds up. There are an hour over. So we cocked it up in the first hour of your swim right? What happened? Because there were some issues. There was a bit of an issue. I was supposed to start 8 and start at 9. So there I go. That's your hour. How can you tell me you didn't cock it up? Well there was more. Okay. More than that. So I checked it out. I'll take a step back. I had some really awesome people helping me. So of course there's Ivan because no one does any big swims without Ivan. It seems. Yes. And my brother and all Brent who's been on all my successful swims and I've got childhood mates, Mel and Tim who they belong the big boat. Yeah. And the other two guys got from a Facebook post in the local Cambridge Facebook. Yeah. So a friend posted there asking if someone would help a swimmer. Someone with a small boat would help a swimmer. And so this guy Rob or his wife said, yep, my husband helped. Cool. And met up with him and we went and did a swim from the dam down and checked it out. And all right, this is how long it takes to get up there and all that sort of thing. Oh, also Rob's brother Mike helped as well. Okay. Can't miss anyone out. Yeah. So we we jumped in the boat in Cambridge and it took us like 20 minutes to get up to the dam or something and had a great swim and you know, booked out the speeds. But then on the day, we had the same thing. We had an extra person. We had Ivan and so it took us instead of 20 minutes to get up. It took an hour to get up. This little boat didn't handle the extra way. I had to get out and run partway. So we started off an hour late and it's just such a beautiful experience that day. You know, yeah, there's this little beach. We we decided the beach because on that day when we went to check it out, we motor it up to close to the bottom of the dam and there was this really big angry man in a 40 vest swearing his head off at us. Sorry. So we popped just around the corner and that's how we decided we were going to start the swim. Okay. That was just a safety thing he was concerned about, was it? Yeah, they had the gates open. That was a really fun swim. I I'd recommend that. But you know, magic, magic start was a beautiful day when we when we started the swim and quite surreal. It was a beautiful blue sky and getting standing on the beach knowing that something magic's about to happen. The whole experience was just beautiful. A big adventure because we didn't know what was going to happen. Yeah. And it was just so exciting. From the mung we turned up because we stayed at this guy's Rob's house. We rocked up on Friday afternoon and it was palpable that the electricity in the air and it was just incredible feeling. The whole all tingling just thinking about it now. Yeah, but it was when you something was going down. And so on that morning, when you're actually doing it, you know that you're boating up the river. The river is beautiful and flat. You wouldn't recognize it. Up past Cambridge. Okay. It's like these big it's quite deep down the big cliffs on the side. Furns growing everywhere. It flows really fast because all the rivers squash down in a smaller area. Yeah. And it was very surreal. We were there greasing up and then these guys came out of the bush with boats and arrows. Oh wow. We're just standing on this remote beach. You can't get there by a road or anything. What are you doing? I was just going for a swim. Oh, where are you going? Yeah, so we started off late. But, you know, pretty relaxed. I don't get fazed by too much. And I don't really remember too much. That was it for podcasts. Right. I think there's lots more of the story because I can fill in bits from other bits. Yeah, so we'd organized it. There was a big boat, which is six and a half meters and then we had robs, little boats. And the idea was that we'd have two shifts. So a driver and a feeder. A feeder slash it's over. They'd do four hours each and then swap over. So we started off with one team going up, coming down and then we met the boat. Yeah. As we were going down, it was just so beautiful and relaxed and sunny. And I forget took about four hours to get into Hamilton. And I was lovely to sing all the houses and all the people in the sun, relaxing and enjoying themselves. And then yeah, some people coming out and cheering by I think too many people knew what was what was going on. We had a little bit of media. Yep. And then we had a time. So there were some people and it just started off really well. There's a bit of foreboding. All the way down to Hamilton and everything is going fine. Everyone's happy. Water temperature was good. Yeah, it was about 20 degrees I think. And until we got to Nara Wahio and it started getting dark. And there's not actually there much water on the river. Yes, not quite as much. It's not because it's just widened as art a lot. Yes, it does. And you know, they were an amazing team and just I didn't know there were any problems whatsoever. But all of a sudden everyone was in this little three and a half meter boat. Both teams? Yeah, okay. There's a bit of two people at the best of time. But all of a sudden there was four people in there. It ends up that the big boat been running along flat tap and then the sand been. And then it had several times and the the inlet for the water on the engine got clogged up with sand and stones and things like that. I don't know how they managed to get four people in that little boat. We're working the boat still there now. They ran a ground and just said, oh, I guess we're camping here tonight. So they spent the night there. They had to wait for someone to come and go and pick up the trailer. Okay. And then they somehow managed to get the boat off ground because it's quite heavy because it's not like that. And so they had to go by road down to the bottom. So were you left alone for any period of time? I don't notice. I mean, I'm massive. I've got a bit of a history of so many. Yes. So just on that run, I'm kind of interested if you sort of look back in hindsight. Is there anything sort of planning wise that could have helped the big boat get down there? Was it just because it was dark and just because it was dark that they couldn't sort of pick a channel? I'm guessing there was probably enough channels if you knew where to go that you could take the boat down. No. No. No. It was just shallow across the whole whole of the river. There's definitely channels. But even the little boat had to be dragged. So you could go down a channel and then at the end you'd be stuck. And that's what happened at night. So from Nadoa here, it started to get dark. And we had four people in the boat. So it was heavier and deeper, yeah? Yes. It was a great little boat, flat bottom, fortunately. Little, like a little IRB, little federal? And like an aluminium IRB. It didn't have the, like, so the whole thing was, it was aluminium. It's quite light. It's 100 kg. Okay. So potentially you didn't need a big boat? Well, obviously you didn't need to go to the end without a truck. If you didn't have a big boat, then you'd need people going by car and being dropped off to be picked up by the little boat. Okay. I've gone through all the different combinations and permutations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Doing things. And I always go with whatever is the most simple. So if you just start, you run together and then you just... I actually agree with the earth, I think, keeping the team together as much as possible would make logical sense to me anyway. Yes. And now we've finished. We know that you can't do it. So just to kind of support you on that one. So we did a, we, we esported in the help, Ivan on the tapo swim. And I launched from the other end of the lake, as you know, with his wife. And I'll tell you what, finding the swimming group in the middle of lake tapo was an interesting exercise. And there was times when I was thinking, hmm, I wonder what I'm kind of doing here, you know, because even with, you know, I could see the tracker information. And I had, you know, a Google map, but it wasn't that easy to put it together. And a small boat on a big lake is surprisingly hard to pick up. So I think that your point of keeping everything together is appropriate. If you can do it. Yes. And having been there, I know you've lived out a lot of other fun details too. That was a good weekend. That was a very good weekend, yes. Okay, so sorry to interrupt you. Yeah, go. I was going to say so, so that was night time. And the whole night was just a bit of a blue really. It got less than less water and you're swimming down channels and then you're crossing over to another one. So when you say crossing over, so you swim until you kind of almost ran it, ran aground, and then you'd have to just walk over the channel and two funds into water. Drag down until it into the next channel. It was not, you know, not a wrong way. I could stay in the water, but it was shallow. My hands were on the bottom. Okay, so you didn't have to stand. No, no, no. Okay, so you managed to just keep swimming with the boat to be helped. For four guys in a boat, they had to drag it down those little bits. And then I don't know what happened, but at one stage, we'd gone through one of those channels. I didn't know we were, I think it was five o'clock in the morning. It got quite foggy. Oh, okay. And I totally got lost and ended up swimming upstream for an hour. And I don't know how I even, I thought I was following direction. Yeah, I thought we'd gotten down to where there's quite a few islands as you get. Yeah, further on down. And I thought I was going along the other side of an island. I didn't actually realise it was just a river with two banks. Yeah, yeah. And so they they lost me for quite a while. And I thought that was it. I got a bit sad at that stage. You thought there was the end of your swim? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I turned around. So they found you and told you you were going the wrong way? No, well, I mean, I just knew it was really hard swimming. And so I thought all right, that's it. I just told me to go this way. Yeah. I had actually turned back and then turned around again. Yes. Looking for them. And I thought, well, I can't carry on going against the current. And it seems pretty obvious now, but I've been swimming for quite a while and I don't think the best at the best the time. But you're also fatigued. No, I mean, you've been going for almost what, 20 hours by that stage. Yeah. So just thinking out loud about that one, do you think that there's any value in, so we've got these, Mike provides these little trackers, which are great in their battery part, you know, sort of satellite GPS kind of things. Do you think that on some of these more adventurous swims, it would be more sensible to, especially at night, to have the swimmer actually swim with a tracker, even if it's put it into a little toe float or something like that. Do you think there's any value in that? Maybe at night. Maybe I just shouldn't be so stupid. Yeah, but I think you have to, I don't think that it's that at all. You know, you've got a very fatigued swimmer. You've got you're in a different environment that there's so many extra things and you're trying to just swim, right? So I think, you know, just pure safety wise, whether whether that would be something worth thinking about. I guess if the circumstance made it necessary, it was, as I say, it was foggy and it was nighttime. You think it would be hard to get lost. And current means you could probably get, get along faster as well, which is another complication. So you're saying like, get up in the market instead of find my offer and it's find my swimmer. I was thinking, one of the other things, you know, when you're just purely thinking safety, you might have a tracker, which would help your crew come and find you, but, you know, suppose you were swimming up a branch of a, of the river and, you know, you, you got up a tributary or something like that and you got really tired. So how do you call for help? You know, so having a little sort of PLB or something, with this one at nighttime when things are there, I just think it's- What the hell is the PLB? It's, you know, like, one of those things they put in the key reason they're there, those aerial things that they try to find out. Got you. It's, it's a personal locator beacon. Okay. And where are you going to shove that inside mind? That thing's a big dude. Put that in a toe flight. There's a lot of weird toe flight there. Says who? Says- This is a unique swimming, a swimming swim. Are you all greased up already anywhere? Or are you going to make a plan with that? Slap on. Okay, you can get your own one. What were you, what were you feeding through the night? Did you stop and have like a palm meal? Well, I started on Krumra. I'm not into the- I don't like all the ultra-process crap. It's not very good for you. Jim knows I got a rant on it. I'm not going to go on, but I want to be more into whole foods. But that didn't work because ends up, I don't have the the throughput on the stomach. That came up after 10 hours. And so I worked really well with gels. They seem to do the right thing for me. So I was on gels and then I got drinks at night. Yeah, I think you need. So you need some tea? Super tea or? No, it was one of those energy drinks. I got that. But just warmed up. Yeah, warmed up. Yeah, I think it's- I don't handle cold very well. So that's super important for me. I've never actually had a warm drink when I'm swimming, but I could imagine it would feel very pleasant. Yes, it was the right temperature, yeah. And it feels hotter and hotter the colder you get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm really keen and something that I've been playing around with a lot before that is going on the fat burning. So you can train yourself to be more of a fat burner. So I'm pretty keen on that. I'm pretty keen to try that on the next 24 hours. What would you need to do? You change your diet and get a bit more keto leading up to it. So is it like six weeks or a month? 12 weeks is probably the thing. Would you also do the sort of time restriction thing so that your body is more used to getting into into sort of the ketosis or is it really just about the diet that you're thinking? Well, it's two things. One is you change your diet and you change your swim intensity. Because these swim slow, you're burning a higher percentage of fat. Yeah. That's all bullshit on that. I swim slow all the time. Yes, this is a sky year before last and Aussie ran five marathons and five days and didn't eat anything all week. Really? Just said salt and water and then a magnesium tepola in the morning. So when you spoke to Neil Aegis, he's got a fairly good nutrition plan now. But some of his training swimmers before that, he would do six hours no feeling to get his body used to just, as you say, working on the fat stores and the climatise himself there. Yeah, I do a lot of that. So I don't have, I've been in a whole food for a couple of years and I don't have any starter stuff. If I'm doing a swim in the weekend, I won't have any carbs the night before and then have nothing pre-swim and nothing during this one. Quite a police one for four hours without getting, you're not hungry when you get out either. So you don't get out and get stuck into carbs and then start a cycle of, yeah. So, and I've got so much energy now. It drives the Mrs. Nuts. I'm always up doing the dishes, cooking dinner, my lawns and doing the house, we're going for walks. I just got so much energy. Do you do any other luck supplements or anything to go with that or? I do most supplements. I don't think of that good or necessary, but I do protein, animal protein, and I do creatine, I do creasing. But vitamins and things like that are often, they can't be bad for you. They're too much iron and things and then they're all synthetic. They're not actually here. If you take vitamin C, it's generally not vitamin C. So you don't eat meat? No, no, I do. I eat meat and you have a protein supplement. Well, it kicks off, oh, I love this. So into the science and what every swim does for you, I totally changed all my swimming, all my feeding, everything. I've just flipped on his head and changed, and I just think, all my training, I think about what's this swim doing to my body. And every time you swim, you know, why? Why swim? What are you doing for? I never, like, I hardly ever swim fast. I'm just going about the adaptions. And my whole training for this swim is, I was swimming about 12 times a week and doing about 25 hours training, but I was going for the lots of little. Yes. Because you've got three triggers, you can do your intensity, your duration, or your frequency. And those are the only things that you can background with. If you up your intensity, then the other two suffer. If you're swimming three times a week for an hour, then that's three hours out of 168. That's like a real small signal to your body that you're a swimmer. So what I, and when you stop swimming, your body's abrogulate, you get this thing called afterburn. So an hour swim is actually an hour and a half. Yes. So what I did is lots of little. Yes. So you get the effect of your swim and the afterburn. Yeah. So I just like some of our listeners to realise your definition of little swims because I was following your driver on the lead up to this. And do you classify your 10k swims as just little swims? I don't think I would say 10k to the big one. No, but it's not a little swim, right? It's a regular swim. For you. Yes. Oh, if you're doing 150k, if you're training for 150k, you're up to see it. It's a regular swim. So your 12 swims a week, you said there was roughly 25 hours of swimming? 25 hours of exercise. Okay, not swimming. Okay. So Mondays, I do the squat, which is an hour and a half. And then I swim for an hour after. And then go back for lunchtime squat. And then go back for that afternoon squat. Plus, these lots of biking because I don't. I bike you in. You ride to the squat. Yep. And then the next day be an easy day because you've got to recover. So I only do biking and then do jump and then time to swim with a small swim. And then Wednesday is the same as Monday, so three swims. Big day, yeah. Thursday is another easy day, but then you have Koi swim series. So a bit of intensity. Yep. And then Friday, that's two swims because there's no evening squat. And then Saturday and Sunday, I just do like sort of around 12 to 16. But do really ocean on the weekends? No, usually pool. Okay. The first you go, the bigger the mess is how I'll look at it for wear swims. If you swim with an eye heart rate, whether it's training, or whether it's my big swim, you can't go as far. So if you look at a sprinter that go flat out, a sprint runner, 100 meters, their heart rate's massive. Yes. Compare that to a marathon runner. They can't maintain their heart rate. Yes. But they can go a lot further. Then compare that to an ultra guy. They can't maintain the heart rate or marathon runner. I think a lot of swimmers swim at marathon. All right, when they should be doing slow. So I, my weekend swims often, my heart rate's about one team. Yep. And I just swim a long time. And then it's all that's your fat burning. Yeah. So pretty good pathway. And you can just go further and you don't need, you barely need to recover. So I think you want to swim as much as you can. But as you can is I measure with HIV. So your heart rate variability. So I have two apps that I use to do that. So in the morning, when you wake up, because you've just finished your recovery. So that's when you measure your recovery. Yeah. And I see if I'm probably recovered or not, if I'm not properly covered then also go easy. Would you define yourself as more of a swimmer or more of a nude? I literally spend hours and hours looking at research and podcasts and YouTube. You and Jim will get along like an awesome fire. Well, we kind of do because we've got very some of them. Yeah. I often start thinking about my swim route in the ocean after I've started actually swimming in the ocean. Yeah. Oh, we should like go now. I must be not also interested in that. You know, so I think everybody's body reacts differently. So if you go back to your long swim, I remember you saying afterwards we saw and you said, no, not at all. Whereas if I swim, almost all of my swims, if it's three hours or more, my arms hurt that they hurt lots. Now, I reckon I could probably get little arms though. I could probably get better if I did longer duration swims. I kind of get that. But even when I was a runner slash jogger, more of a jogger, I would end up with very sore muscles after that even when I considered myself quite perfect. So I think that there must be everybody can improve. I'm a believer that, you know, with a rut training, you can take whatever you, whatever your basis and you can, you can make it better. But I also believe that everybody's base is different and how far you can take it is, is dependent on basically your body and the approach that you take to change. But also on top of that, you've got different bodies. So I can't put on muscle if I try. So I'm more, I think more slow twitch. So I think I was built to go long. And I've got long arms, which I think helps as well. Sure. So I'm going to claim that's why you're so much better than me. Yeah. Well, you know, also, I've been swimming for a while, as I've said, in squads when I was 25. Did you actually swim at school? Were you a swimmer? No, I wasn't. I remember. This memory came to me earlier in the week for some reason, thinking about sport and the mind. Because I think swimming, it's all in your head, especially as you go along. When I was at secondary school, I was training running in my last year and my mum told me, oh, your grandfather was a really good runner. It's in your genes. And she just said that. And I started running after school. And every night, I've run for an hour and a quarter, an hour and a half. And when it came to cross country, I just did really, really, really well. And it was just because I told myself, oh, my mum and dad, you were good at this. All your grandfather's good. So mentally, I beat pretty much everyone in the school cross country team. But it's just that little thing. The belief sound is same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The mental aspect to it. Yeah. I'm a believer in that. Yeah. That's that confidence and ignorance too. Yeah confidence. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've got one of those. Yeah. Okay. So let's just go go back to you. So we kind of got sort of halfway down down the river and we were lost in the middle of the night. Yes. We carry on with this story for a bit there. Yeah. Well, we managed to find, I managed to find one of the other guys. And because they all split up and there's something going in the bank. I think Ivan was getting a take by Eels. He was feeding them chocolate logs. We can across him. And I think we were a Mercer or something. Okay. Yeah. In the end. So we're just back on track again. That was it. It was like, like it didn't happen. I thought there were going to be really angry with me for being stupid. And I was just, the whole way down, I couldn't believe that these guys have given up their time to help. I just the whole way down just filled with appreciation. And I was just really happy that they didn't shout at me. Yeah. And so we just kept on going like, no one said anything. It was like, I was back. Okay. And we have probably relieved. That's what we thought you had lined. They didn't push somewhere somewhere. Yes. They were honestly the whole way down. These guys are incredible with troubles that hit and just hit it all and keep things. I think there's a bit of an interesting dynamic there. You've got all the supporters are trying their best to just give the good vibes to the swimmer. They're all focused on the swimmer and then the swimmer's got nothing else to think about. It's just, I hope all my supporters are okay and I appreciate what you're doing. You've kind of got this cross flow of energy, I think. Yeah. So what the hell's going on? You find out afterwards about boats, crests and all these sort of things. It's the duck with its feet going below the water for 10. So things were pretty uneventful from then. The light came up and started to see a few more people. There was one guy who helped out with the trying to understand the river. There was a lady whose brother-in-law lived down there and he was saying, oh come down, we'll go out in the river and the kids have moved out of home, come stay and there's so many people like that. He was awesome. So we went out with him and he showed us all the channels and all the areas that never ran out of water evidently except for that. So he was down there and people, there were more people. So one question on just the lack of water. We had a pretty dry summer and especially with that guy who knew the river so well, do you think that it was just almost unfortunate that it was a dry summer? If we'd had a bit of a wetter summer, do you feel the swimmer would have gone better or would have just, would you have still had similar sort of challenges? I think it would have gone a lot better. I actually talked to Mercury and he asked them if they'd open up the gates for me but they were so keen. So about 9 o'clock, how do you feel? No. It was definitely dry and the river was definitely pretty low. Yeah. And then from then on the sun came up. It was just a bit of a grind. We were behind time so we weren't getting the toilet flush. That we were hoping for. And it just went on for quite a long time. So that was a beautiful set. At that stage, obviously, suns come up. You're looking at 24 hours of swimming, top scenario. Yeah, it's not the most exciting but I was feeling pretty good. Did you have any indication of how much further you had to go? Did you ask were you interested or were you just quite happy? That's a good question. I had recognised various points from when we'd gone up with that guy. And it seemed like there was a long way to go but it doesn't sound very motivational and people ask you, you know, why do you do this? And it's the same answer. It's that I haven't got anything else to do. If you get out, then what else do you do? Just keep on swimming and fill in in time. Yeah. Let's listen to your body, I guess. You know, listening to some thoughts that would assuming your mind goes to places that isn't, you haven't occupied for a little bit. Yeah, I have this various things I do just have conversations or started shitting my pants for a while just because I meant to do it. Okay. Did you get on purpose or was it a bit of an accident? No, no, why do I have a camera? So it's got to come out, huh? Yeah. Hello swimmers, I'm Shannon Keegan, US-based founder of Intrepid Water and host of the podcast Stories from the Water. My friends at Swimscape in Auckland, New Zealand are the proud ambassadors of Auckland's most iconic ocean marathon swim, the 20 kilometers around Rangitoto Volcano in the Haraki Gulf. This is a very achievable marathon swim that like all long-distance swims will live in your memories forever. I don't know about you, but I've got this swim on my bucket list for when I get to visit the beautiful land of the Kiwi. Jump on swimscape.co.nz or email info at swimscape.co.nz to book your slot. See you in the water. Did you chave? Fished waters a little easier on your run? No. No, chave. I felt good the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sore during or after. I felt better after that than I did after Waiki. Normally I got a sore throat from breathing in. Yeah. Quite hard. But for some reason I didn't. Though I did get an inflamed tendon on my left shoulder. Okay. Afterwards. Took a little while. So, dude, do you think that the fact that you were swimming in fresh water made a difference? You know, because on the salt can really get your mouth. So that it would make it a little bit easier because you didn't have the salt aspect. Yeah, I think definitely. But I think people could do more for that. I think if you had say coconut cream, have a feed then coat your mouth. Maybe. I don't know why people don't do that. I tried Listerine on a long swim and wow, it tasted so bad when it went in. I thought this was the worst thing I've ever done. But for the next half an hour afterwards, my mouth felt so good. Oh, really? Yeah. Listerine mouthwash. Listerine mouthwash. Yeah, we heard it here. First people. Yeah. Yeah. So I've never done it again, until you went up to get in it. It wasn't initially a pleasant experience at all. But my mouth did feel wonderful afterwards. It really kind of reset. Well, yeah. Weird and wonderful stuff that you guys have tried, eh? Yeah, support crew passing you some of the story. Don't swallow it. Let me see what happens. Oh my god. Okay. I'll stay away from that stuff. So by this stage, you would be getting to, I guess, the area of the swamu, you would stop feeding the title in flights? Start. Yeah. Yeah. And it does it like it really is low. You wouldn't know it, but you can't get a boat when the tides out for quite a lot of that section. Okay. Which we had known. And there's various channels around it, down from islands, because it winds out a huge amount down the bottom there. Should the boat give you at that stage? Um, no. No, no, no. That was that was able to manage the whole way down, actually. Yeah, because the tide was still and that was still going out. So we didn't hit it at low tide until later. Okay. As we got further down, we did run out of water and the tide started to come in. Okay. And we had to stop 2K short. Okay. Because we were getting pushed back up past against the tide to have a choice at that stage. Unfortunately, so 2K short and the riding was on the wall. So 150 Ks. Yeah. 48 Ks. Including going backwards and forwards. 160. Yeah. So I don't know. B. Yeah. Okay. 40 something. I'm sure you weren't disappointed with having to stop a little shy. Um, I felt that in my head, I felt like an anti-clinax to get out just because I've been enjoying the whole team thing. And I knew when I got out, we were going to have to go our own separate ways. And that was what I was thinking about. Okay. Because there's such awesome people like they all incredible. Well, I guess the only thing you can do is do another stupid swim and you wipe them all back again, eh? Yeah. So next year or the year after or the year after? Yeah. So we see who's got the pants on. Whether it's the year after or the year after. So I suppose the next question is, are you up for a sort of consultancy for people who might want to do a little camping swim down the river just so that, you know, they might know what to expect? Absolutely. I'm happy to help anyone out on anything if people want to chat about stuff. Like I say, everyone is everyone's so different. Yeah. I have worked out something there works for me. And it fits the type of swims that I like doing. I'm not, I'm not fast. I don't think. I'm just so excited about this. I really love doing it. And I get excited the night before I'm about to do a squad swim. Yeah. Thinking about what's what I'm working on. And yeah. Hey, clever dicks listeners. I'm Merlet, the head coach from Swimmy's Mid Auckland. Wondering how to improve your stroke or breakthrough your performance plateau. Our swim analysis session will help unlock your potential by capturing your stroke from every angle and showing how to correct it. We use a swimsuit methodology focusing on the individual rather than the stroke. Use a code clever dicks to get 15% off if you book a bit analysis session before the end of this year. And if you're an Auckland or visiting, come check out our awesome squad. The first session always free. Find us online swimsuitorclin.go.nz A bit of a detour, but as part of your, I would imagine part of your experimentation or part of your prep for this swim. You did a 24 hour pool swim. That was so good. I would recommend that to anyone if you want to work out your nutrition. You can't work out your nutrition. I think on a four or five hour swim. Because like I said, I can swim four or five hours without eating the night before or the morning. Yeah. How do you work out your nutrition? You need longer, really, I think. So, fools pool? Yeah. 20, what is the date? I can't remember. I can't remember. It's the 20th of October. We are doing the second, it's an annual New Zealand 24 hour pool champs. We're hoping that you're going to come and defend your title. I said I'd never do it again, but yeah, man. Nice. Nice. It's really interesting. And you know, this big swimming is all about the mind. And I gave myself a good student talking to before the last one. If you feel like getting out, you're not going to do it. And then your brain just like bypasses your conscious mind. And I got out because I didn't want to have any more of that stuff I was eating. The 24 hour pool swim. Yeah. I couldn't face any more. What were you eating? Pepitrums, strong chocolate. I think it was. I think I'd eaten everyone else's food as well by this day. And so, I hope to go back to mine. I was like, I smelt it. And even to this day when I smell it, I feel like dry reaching it. So, you know, that's another reason. Well, I'm thankful you didn't experiment with trying to go to the Lou in that pool swim. Thank you, guys, for as you know. Did you get, um, did you get, like, saw, I don't know, legs back from tumble tuning in that swamble. My lower back from all those tumble tunes. Yeah, it's a loaded tumble tune. There's a lot of tumble tunes. Yeah. Okay. I'm keen to go back. I'm keen to try out some new shit. I'm quite keen to see how far you can go on. On low carb. So, there was that polish dude that, uh, the record apparently, I mean, he's like some x and and p and not some crazy like outright. So, real fast swimmer. But I think he did 103 kilometers. That's nuts. But you reckon, like, you know, all things being equal, training going, well, what do you reckon is possible for you? For me, for maybe 75. I can't know. Maybe not even that. Well, I reckon it's doable. If I think back, and this is me hiking away, um, on the side right, but you seemed to be swimming really fast in that swam, but then you were taking breaks. I took one break for hours. So, I went, I did, I think it was 56 continuous without stopping. Okay. Um, and then I had that brain shortcut. Yeah. Yeah. And then I got back in and I was swimming a lot faster at the end. Okay. I felt better the longer I went. Okay. So, that's probably more that fat burning because I stopped eating. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I felt better at the end than I did halfway through. So, here's another question, Mark. I've been, um, Samar, similar to you in your, your school course country and similar to you as well, Jim, with your sort of marathon running background, my backgrounds are also running. And I've been watching and researching quite a lot of the, the Barclay marathon. Do, do you know about the Barclay marathon? Do you know about it? Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to one of my other mates about it. I find lots there as well. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, I'm not an expert, but I can give you a brief summary right? It's, is it that, so they're going to run? No, no, no. This is, this is in the States. It's like in freaking Tennessee or like somewhere in the, in the sort of woods. Um, and the story goes that there was like an uptraumatic group that used to go out and into the sort of mountains and run and do all of these long runs. And there's a prison out there, somewhere. And there was like this jailbreak in the gas, the skeleton, you know, ran out, um, and I believe he was gone for like, I think, okay, the stats were made a little wrong, right? But the dude was gone for three days before they found him. And he had only covered like 12 miles or something like that. Obviously, he wasn't a runner. So, these runnades were like, ah, mate, I reckon we, you know, we could wax that, we could go away further than he could go, right? And they started the sparkly marathon. And the whole idea was it's, it's loops. Um, and there's a 60 hour cutoff. And it's generally five loops, right? And a lot of people get passed three loops and then you get a pattern on the back and they're called after fun run. That's like 60 miles or 70 miles or something, it's like the fun line line. But it's up through the mountains and it's a little bit of like orientering. So you've got to, on your lap, you have to like find a, a book that the race organis have, have left under the big oak tree next to the river, whatever it is. And if you're race numbers, that number 13, you've got to repart page 13 and then return it to the race organisers on your lap. Yeah. To prove that you've done the whole lap. Yeah. Now, um, this year's sparkly marathon, nobody finished. No body finished. Not one. Not in history, there's only ever been one woman that's finished. And on average, the stats of something stupid like this being, whatever it is, let's say there's been 200 or 300 runners, only like 16 or 20 of the guys I've actually ever finished the parking marathon. So if I was a runner, I'd be like, how big that would be my thing. So what's the swimming version that we can do of the parking marathon? It's funny because I've got an answer for you. I reckon what you do is swim the tides. And the cool thing about this is that anyone could do any one of any ability. So for example, you start and say long bay. Yeah. One bay. Um, yeah, yeah. And then on a low tide. And then you swim in. And maybe it's maybe if you're good, you can get to take a pony. No, maybe if not, wherever you get to, you get to. Yeah. I don't know the North Shore. And then so that's the change of tide. And then you get back in again. And you could swim as many tides. Okay. You could do that anywhere in the world. Yeah. Anyone of any ability could just go up and down with a tide. Yeah. I like that. You don't need a lot of support. Just one guy in a kayak close close to the beach. So you say five tides. Yeah. You could. Yeah. Five tides. There you go. Not five laps, five tides. Five tides. I think you're on to something. And then do it anywhere in the world. Yeah. And then you compare distances. Now the way he starts this race. Because I think I'm having a glimpse into the future here. You might need to be the starter. If you're not swimming, I suppose you'll be swimming. But you can start to answer. How would I say? So he stays. Hey guys, the race is on the last weekend of April. Whatever it is. But now it's not called Saturday 8 a.m. We start. The race starts when he feels it's good to start. So part of the intrigue and part of the, I don't know, the stress is you can't go and have like a full night's sleep thinking tomorrow morning, I'm going to wake up at six eat and then I'll be ready to rest by it. Because it's going to, he's going to call it. And the way that he calls it is he starts his, he likes to cigarette. But apparently an hour before you've gotten hours worth of prep after he likes to. Correct. Yeah. So lots of cigarette and everybody's like, I'm going to go like, I'm going to get ready, right? But until then you're like nervously waiting around. Everybody's like watching this due to see when he laughs and persigulate. And it might be on the Sunday. It might be on the Friday. It might be at three o'clock in the afternoon. It might be at six o'clock in the morning. So we're going to need to get you some cigars maybe. All right. He goes to cigarette. It will mix up. If you're doing a swim the tide, that's not going to work. But I like the idea, you know. Catch a fish. Anyway, I could do it. Yeah. Did you hear about my swim fishing? No. No. So I've had all sorts of ways of trying to make swimming fun. Yes. I mean, one of them was a higher fishing line to your toe float. Yes. With no bait. With a spinner. Okay. Try and catch a cutway. And any successes? It's that called a swimmer. No, I thought maybe I shouldn't be doing that. I was going to say it's something that I could do because I'm at the back. Yeah. Yeah, but I would be worried of it attracting because if you catch a fish, yeah, that's going to attract something else, right? Yeah. I don't think things through it. Yeah. Obviously. I can't have it. Was it over there? There were some dude in the news a couple of weeks ago in Israel, I believe, who was how bent on getting a real cool GoPro video of sharks. Did he read about it? No, I didn't know. So instead of, you know, whatever he had, his fins and his snorkels and all that crap. And he decided to bait himself. And he got munched. What a surprise. He got munched. But I'm hoping the footage was pretty cool. Yeah. Hope this actor won an idiot. All right. So you're probably just about on time now. So after the swim, body okay. He said that you had a bit of a shoulder issues. Is that all sorted now? Yeah. So I've been back into the swimming for quite a while. Yeah. Feels good. Feels good. I'm doing my own sort of training now. I think that you've got a three year buildup to the next swimmer, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I've been been leaning into that research. I've been looking at and having something that suits more the way I think. So I've got a squad of one. Yeah. Yeah. And you're thinking about what the next challenge could be. Yeah. That's part of the process. I'll presume. Yeah. Yeah. Local. Well, I've been thinking. I'd like to do something a bit longer. Yep. Because do it till you break it, son. Yep. Yeah. And I haven't broken it yet. So I think I'd like to try a 20 sorry 48 hour. Yeah. Okay. Pretty sure I could have gone another night. Okay. So what's the longest is like 60 hours? Yeah. That's just over 60 hours. Yeah. And if I think back to like day in and I had and serotonous and all of those, it's all been like 50 or something. I get a bold for that. In my mid 50s. You told us last time that you were going to get bitter and bitter as you get older. Well, I have been. So what is my first stage? We've got a so 55 is like the new 75, right? Is it? I don't know. I'm going to be surprised to get it out of the way. Well, now he's still on the build up. Yeah. I'll have to turn 50. But you're a legend, dude. And we'll see you again in 18 months time for a maybe two years time for another chat about the next stupid thing that you've done. Yep. You're an inspiration to to tons of crazy people out there and keep going, dude. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Rick and so on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone wants to chat about anything, you know, if they're planning on training for something, I'm more than happy. Reach out, jump or put your work on tech details on. Yep. Yep. Just email. If I can put an email in the my links probably on my Instagram. Instagram. Instagram. I'll put a link to Instagram and they can reach out through that if you're six months. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really reliable like that. You know, I'll check Facebook monthly. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks. Hi, my name is Caitlin. I'm Riley. 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, Caitlin. Well, as always, you can give us feedback on our appreciate hearing from you and cheers. We'll speak to you again soon.