Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I’ve got a very special guest today, someone who was on only a couple of months ago, but for good reason. So, Andy Donaldson, you’ve just completed the Ocean 7 in the quickest time ever and in the shortest amount of time ever, so within a year. And during the entire seven swims in 63 hours total, which was about an hour 35 quicker than the previous record before that. So, firstly, congratulations and well done. Just a massive achievement and I can’t wait to get into some of the details on the last one that you had because it looked so difficult. And yeah, just how are you after such a massive 12 months really? Well, firstly, thank you again, Brenton, for having me on here. It’s a pleasure to chat and yeah, gosh, it’s just been such a whirlwind.

I mean, obviously, I’m absolutely delighted at how all came together and how together as a team, we were able to pull off this, well, impossible mission, but yeah, just delighted, still pretty tired from it all. It was such a big year, but yeah, feeling really glad and glad to still have all my limbs and to be in one piece. Well, I think before last time we spoke, I think you had the three, maybe the three or four swims to go. I can’t remember exactly, but it seemed like so you had Gibraltar and then Catalina with the fifth and six swims. They looked like they were fairly comfortable in the grand scheme of things. Is that right? Yeah, they were, you know, they were still challenging in their own ways. But more or less went to plan, which was good. The other two swims, so I think we spoke just after the Cooke Strait in New Zealand and obviously we’re coming off a real big high there, breaking the world record.

So, you know, we went into the Molokai Channel swim over in Hawaii with, you know, really buoyed by that recent success and with a fair bit of momentum and goodness did nature show up and have different plans for us out there. That was a real big swim. And then obviously, Suguru at the end was just absolutely relentless, too. And so Molokai, would you put that up there as one of the hardest swims you did? Because is that the longest? It’s 43K, isn’t it? So it’s the longest swim and longest time wise as well, 15 and a half hours. Talk me through that swim and what challenges got thrown your way. Well, it was very challenging even before the swim we derived from memory. I think on the Saturday and swim on the Sunday. So it was a very quick turnaround, flying in the morning we arrived. We met with the skipper and he said, you know, my twix, my great guy just said, look, tomorrow’s probably our best day. Let’s go for it.

So very quick turnaround. Usually a lot of swimmers will fly across to Molokai Island and meet up with the crew over there. We didn’t really have time and we thought it might be easier to just take the boat across and really went through too well. And I got pretty seasick on the way over. And that’s before you even started this 43 kilometre swim. So didn’t feel too great or flash going into it. But, you know, we set off the shores at Molokai around 7pm. The sun was going down. You’re on this, you know, tropical island in the middle of the Pacific. And it was it was just quite surreal, you know, doing that. But little did we know what was to come. It turned into probably the toughest swim alongside Tsuiguru out of the ocean seven and in my own life. And was it the conditions that really started to ramp up as you were swimming? Or was it the currents? What was it there? Knights are challenging. The big challenges with that is it’s the swell.

So if you think of where Hawaii is, it’s just, you know, a couple of pin drops in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And you’ve got no real land masses to block these rolling conditions coming in from the Pacific. So you’ve got these huge waves that just, you know, lifts you right up. The swims through the night, which the reason they do that is to try swim when the winds are a bit calmer and the conditions are ideally a bit calmer, too. So that’s, you know, that’s quite a challenge itself. And that’s when the boat sits quite a little bit in front. So, you know, you can’t really see your team and it can feel quite isolating out there. So it’s just you and a kayaker. And yeah, I mean, you know, you can do all the preparation in the world for distance and for swimming at night. But it’s the psychological challenges that are harder to prepare for. And in that one, you know, we were swimming into a pretty head on

head on and powerful current and I was making a lot less ground than I’m used to, you know, usually on on a good day, I can hold sort of four and a half to five k’s an hour out there. We were covering as little, probably a bit closer to three k’s an hour because of the head on currents. But at one stage, you know, it was right down at 1500 meters in the space of an hour, which is, you know, taking four minutes to do 100 meters. And it’s so hard to hear that news. And when you’ve got such a big long swim at hand and knowing that you could potentially be out there for another 10 hours, it’s quite it’s quite brutal. And yet very little can prepare you for for receiving that sort of news. Is the team keeping updated every hour with the distance that you’ve swam, what you’ve got to go, how does that normally work for you? And do you ever have you changed that approach over the last year or so with that more experience under your belt?

Yeah, it’s a great question, Brent. And so usually I get updates on distance every hour. We started off, I think with the English Channel, it was every two hours. But I wanted to be a bit more equipped with that information, even if it was, you know, not as rosy as we’d like with that swim. We were feeding every 15 minutes. The water temperatures were a bit warmer, I think around 25 degrees. So I was going to be sweating a lot more, losing a lot more liquids and fluids. I already take on quite a lot of feeds because I’m burning quite a lot of energy within a pace. But it was also an opportunity to catch up with the team and just to make sure that we were engaging quite frequently so that, again, it provided that mental reassurance that you weren’t out there alone, that you didn’t feel as isolated. The team were there and, you know, we’d be seeing each other quite a lot. So, yeah, to find out we weren’t covering as much distance, it was difficult.

But, you know, the team kept me really encouraged and supported throughout that. I don’t think, like I usually say, you know, these swims aren’t a solo endeavour. They are only made possible by an incredible collective and a team. And they got me through a lot of those toughest times. And swimming in the dark, so it’s a long time to be in the dark, especially only having a kayaker next year. Like, that’s eerie enough, right? Just being out between the Hawaiian Islands, what feels like probably almost by yourself. Is that something that you had practised a bit before, just not swimming or just something you had to get used to along the way? It was something that I’d had experience of swimming at night time. So in the Cook Straight, we swam through the night in the Derwent River Big Swim. Again, it was another night time swim, but I hadn’t experienced that level of isolation before where it was just you and a kayaker.

I mean, if I looked up, I wouldn’t have been able to see the boat. They were completely blacked out. And they do that because they don’t want to attract in the sharks, which are, you know, they are attracted in by the bright lights. So yeah, it was quite tough. And I think they were cycling through paddlers every two hours. And I remember that particularly the second guy that went out, he didn’t bring any lights or sort of reflective gear. So I couldn’t see him.

I couldn’t see him apart from maybe a couple of tiny glow sticks hanging off the side of his kayak. But I just saw the silhouette of a shape and I just remember feeling so lonely out there. And it was it’s amazing how much of an impact that something as small as that can make when you’re out there in these massive channel swims. Yeah, it makes me think of someone who’s like who’s ship is sunk in there, just stranded out in the middle of middle of nowhere, he goes, man, how do you how do you how do you mentally get through that? That’s that’s a real challenge. So so you have the Molokai swim and then the Gibraltar swim and then the Catalina channel. You said they were they pretty much went to went to plan, which is which is great. Because it was all in a pretty short space of time. Those last couple of swims wasn’t it like those last three were almost within a month of each other, something pretty much bang, bang, bang.

So Cook Street was March, Molokai was April. Strait Gibraltar was May. You know, I was still pretty beaten up from from Molokai. I’d got hospitalised after the Molokai swim. We’d had a real rough finish to that, which I can speak to. And then there was a month long break in June before Catalina and Suguru, which were both in July. So yeah, this is, you know, it’s just how it fell. That’s that’s how we’d organised it. We we really we took the slots that we could get. We didn’t, you know, we didn’t want to. I certainly made it my I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t coming in over the top of anyone else. I didn’t want to take other people’s slots. It was always, you know, we’ll take whatever we can get in order to try to do this in a year. And if we can do it great, but if not, you know, we’ve tried our best. And so that that’s something that a lot of the organisers took in the consideration and, you know, fortunately, I have a bit of speed.

I have some flexibility with with the way that I’ve set up life and how I can work remotely. So it worked out very well. And those swims fell in into those places. And, you know, gosh, it was tough coming in, coming into those last two, especially just that accumulated fatigue, not just physically, but mentally as well, certainly made it a challenge.

Did anything surprise you when you look back at the at the last 12 months? Anything like you knew it was obviously going to be a be hard and a lot of travel involved, a lot of organisation. But was it was there anything that really surprised you looking back? I think my mindset certainly shifted a lot. I think coming from a competitive background where there’s a big emphasis on on results and in times, I admittedly think that I came into it, you know, quite focused on that and trying to break records and set these really fast times, which, you know, 12 months ago, that was, yeah, I was like, wow, I might be able to do this and I could do this. And it was a quick lesson, I think, you know, things like the English Channel and certainly Molokai, they were real quick reminders that, you know, there’s a lot that goes on in a channel swim and what really is a success, you know, take straight a Gibraltar. For an example, as an example, I gave that absolutely everything,

probably put together one of one of my best swims and finished about 40 minutes off the record. And, you know, there’s an incredible woman who’s in her 70s that only went five minutes slower. You know, so, you know, it’s a real it’s a real level or swimming out in the open water. And there’s so many factors that are involved in the success of a swim or in terms of a time, you know, obviously you’ve got the you have to have like almost the perfect conditions, the right swells and currents, low winds or the right winds. And so to be able to go into swim and give it your all, you know, I think that’s that’s where the mindset shift came in. And I knew that if I’d done that, and if that was good enough to get across a channel, you know, I couldn’t really ask for more. And that certainly helped coming into Sugary after all the all the things that have been happening there with the unsuccessful attempts and people talking about the cross currents

and that it was an unswimable swim. That was the main set I went and what if I could give give this my best and if we’re good, if that’s good enough to get across. Great. I can’t I can’t really ask for more. Let’s jump into the Sugary swim. So I remember a week or two prior to you doing that swim in some of the Facebook groups, there was a lot of talk and a bit of controversy around around that swim where they hadn’t been a successful swim for quite a long time. And there was a bit of issue with like with boat captains, like not taking people at dark and it was only between certain times. And so there was a bit of bit of controversy around it. And I didn’t know what the situation was was for you. And I didn’t know the full full details of it because I’m not completely in that world. But I’d love to get your take on for those listening, like most people listening to this probably don’t know what that was all about.

So could you explain a little bit about what what was going on? And then what your mindset was going over there with this being your last swim and basically no one had made that swim for for a very long time. The Sugary Strait is a channel in Japan. It’s between the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. And it’s one of the ocean seven swims. So the ocean seven, just to take about the step back, was a list of swims that Steven Manitone has put together. And, you know, swimmers around the world ever since it was conceptualized, have gone and tried to take on these swims and tried to complete the ocean seven. So for me, the way it landed, Sugary was the very last swim that I’d be attempting in the whole of my journey. And in the lead up to, you know, like you mentioned, there had been quite a lot of, well, it was very public about what had been happening there and the lack of successful crossing. So I think it was a total of 13 people

that have tried it this season prior to myself. And I think nine of them were unsuccessful and four of them didn’t get to get, didn’t get to get a start. So historically, there’s really only been two associations there that have organized swims, a group called Ocean Navi and another group that was run by by the skipper ion. The organizer, I ended up going with a Japanese chap called Hariyuki Ishii, the Sugary Straight Swimming Association. So most people had in the past gone with this Ocean Navi group. And for whatever reason, things just seem to be a lot tougher this year. The Japanese Coast Guard had introduced a new rule. So I understand where swimmers could only go during the hours of daylight. So between 4 a.m. and finishing at 7 p.m. And when you think of the Sugary Straight, it’s a very narrow channel. It’s point to point under 20 kilometres. And it’s between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean.

And there’s a bit of an elevation difference. So it’s almost like a downhouse slope. So usually the currents flowing from west to east and it’s quite powerful reaching up to sort of speeds of 10 kilometres an hour. So, you know, the best swimmers in the world are only really holding five kms an hour. So it’s, you know, it’s to paint a picture. It’s like trying to swim across a raging river. But at times it really dies down to maybe about one or two kms an hour, so it can be done. And I think with this introduction of this rule, a lot of the best times to swim when the currents were at their weakest was at night time, but it wasn’t possible to go. So a lot of people weren’t getting across. There was a lot of upset swimmers, particularly in how the swims were being conducted over there and organised. You know, I haven’t had too much to deal with Ocean Navi. I tried to organise a swim with them. They didn’t really get back to me.

So which forced me to go look at other options and eventually, you know, work with with Mr Ishii. But so I don’t know how they operate. I’ve seen what I’ve seen online. So, you know, I’m not going to comment on it. But I know there was a lot of unhappy swimmers and it got to a stage where there was so much happening that the World Open Water Swimming Association stepped in and started investigating the channel and the conduct of swims that had happened this season. And when that was all kicking off, you know, it was, it was very difficult for me and my team being out there in Japan and seeing this and reading about what had been happening to others. One was obviously, you know, it’s not good for the sport. When when some things, you know, when people are coming away with such bad experiences, you know, and I was just getting bombarded with messages like, have you read this? Have you seen this? People are saying it’s, it can’t be swum.

It’s unswimmable. People are questioning how you organized your swim. How did you get in touch with this person? How did you do this? And it was, it was very difficult. Swimming a channel was one thing and it comes with its challenges. But to see people talking about you and, you know, jumping to these conclusions or assumptions without actually knowing who you are and what you’ve done, I did that. I find that really tough. So probably the, it was, it was probably the toughest thing I’ve ever gone through in terms of, you know, all of that. Obviously, this was the last swim of the, of my Ocean 7 journey and my pursuit to try to do this all within the space of a year. So there was a lot riding on it. And I knew a lot of people would be watching us out there and keen to see how we go facing these challenges. And yeah, I felt, I certainly felt the weight of it before I even started. Yeah, can only imagine. And especially in a lot of sports

and open water swimming is no different. You are going to get opinions on either side. And people who, as you said, don’t know you. People have got no idea what the background is of you organizing your swim. And people are very happy, will very quickly make accusations. And yeah, and say things that there’s just no, no truth to it. And I mean, I had an Olympian Brent Hayden on the podcast just recently. And he, like, he was even just saying just some of the comments on his like videos that he puts out, like he finds it’s hard to deal with because people with no, with no right basically saying, like, oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about. So hang on, he’s an Olympic medalist and he’s earned the right to teach this stuff. So it’s just, when you put yourself out there doing something like you’ve done, you’re going to cop criticism no matter what you do. And you just, you can’t avoid it. And there was, and like, even just listen to your speak,

there’s no ego in this for you, you know? You’re not out there doing this for yourself. It’s a very selfless thing that you’re doing. So yeah, it just comes with the territory when you put yourself out there with the swim. So I was following the Instagram stories that were being updated pretty regularly. And I just thought, man, if anyone’s going to make it, it’s going to be you. But this looks like such a bloody challenge with the currents and what you went through. So could you share just basically what happened through that swim, how hard it was and everything? Because man, it just, I was shocked that you made it really after seeing how tough these currents were. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we knew that we were, we had this mammoth task ahead of us. And, you know, fortunately in the lead up to it, I kind of just went into protective mode. I stayed offline and together with my team, you know, we had people from all around the world,

you know, offering help and trying to do their research on the channel and making suggestions on when we should go, where we should lead from. And, you know, yes, I was the person in the water, but, you know, I just wanted to highlight that, that it wasn’t just me, you know, there was all these people contributing to the success of that swim and putting their hand up to help. And, you know, that was ultimately what made it possible out there. So we swum on, I think the 20th of, I’ve got one, might have my dates wrong, but I think it was the 27th of July. And fortunately for us, they were willing to try different things from the other group. So we were trying to set off from a little bit further up the cape, shortening the distance, but we knew that swimming across this really powerful cross current, we weren’t going to be able to go from A to B, like directly from point to point. We knew at some point we’d have to go with the current

and almost do a big S-ben. So like you see with the English channel, it’s never, it’s very often not a straight line going from one side to the other. So when we set off, we set off the cape, cape tappy, and we were trying to go out wide to give ourselves the best opportunity to, I kind of need a picture to describe this on a map, we were trying to go out wide so that we could get north far enough before getting swept to the east. Because if we got swept east too quickly, we’d just hit the cape again or get sucked back in because there’s all these powerful eddies and localized currents. But that was really brutal off the beginning. The swell was coming back, bouncing back off the mainland and into the current. So it was just creating this tumultuous surface chop. And I was just getting thrown about up and down, side to side. It really felt like being in a washing machine. And within the first minute, 30 minutes,

I was already projectile vomiting quite violently. I was just thinking of myself like, geez, what? Maybe these guys are right. Maybe this is just unswimmable. Like, I don’t think I can survive this that much longer. I was so, I felt so nauseous and dizzy. And it was very difficult to find a rhythm or to maintain your stroke because every time your arm went over, the wave would just smash into you and your timing would go off. And that made it very difficult. And then like I said with Molokai, you can do all the training in the world for the distance and for the cold or swimming at night time. But that is so hard to prepare for. And we had to be incredibly adaptive when we were out there. So we’re swimming along and we’re starting to make about progress. But I think we were covering maybe about two and a half to three kilometers an hour. So again, probably about half of what I’m used to covering. And Jay Prashel, my key supporter on the boats,

he’s been to six of the seven Ocean Seven Swims out of his own back. You know, he was communicating messages to me, just providing updates. They weren’t necessarily rosy or positive. But, you know, I had these guys on the boat with me and, you know, my mother was there, my uncle handy. And, you know, even though it’s really tough going out there, seeing them up there on the boat, it’s funny, it provides a level of comfort and reassurance that you’re going through this challenge and you’re not doing it alone. And that certainly helped. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’re more than a pair of goggles. Meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with Form Smart Swim Goggles, including a free one-year membership when you purchase your goggles for only $249 US dollars. They’ve currently changed up their offer where you can now get the goggles

and you have one year membership included for free. And if you’d like to continue with the membership going forwards, it’s only $15 US dollars a month where you get access to the workouts, training plans and custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real-time data in the goggles, so you never lose access to that. My favorite thing about the Form Goggles is having the instant feedback of what times you’re doing, what stroke rate you’re doing and also the ability to see what your heart rate is. Because never before have we been able to have these immediate feedback heads-up display where it’s actually telling you what your intervals are. So when I wear the goggles in training, I like that I know my split for the first 50 and the 100 and the 150. So every single lap, I’m getting that feedback on what my pace is. And I find it’s such an important tool for being able to not only have different gears

where you can switch between the different speeds that you wanna swim, but it helps you develop those gears and it helps you intuitively know how fast you need to go to before you’re going to blow up or before you’re going to go a little bit too hard. So it helps you just get really good at judging your pace for when you do go to a race. And even if you’re not wearing the goggles in a race, it’s that intuition and that ability to develop your pacing that these goggles can really help with. To get your pair of form goggles and say 15% off, use our link formswim.com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. And that will get you 15% off your pair of goggles using our special link formswim.com forward slash effortless or the code effortless at checkout. Were you able to keep anything down after that? Like you said you were vomiting after the first 30 minutes. But yeah, how did you feed throughout that time?

Did you continue to vomit and have that say sickness the whole way through?

So I vomited I think two or three times within the first two hours. And they were quite sizable vomit, but I felt better after each one. So I skipped a couple of feeds, stopped drinking a certain drink that was I think not helping the situation. Jay picked up on it very quickly, which was good and he just made sure not to cycle that one in because we use a bunch of different things. But yeah, I did. I was able to handle it and the more calm it became. So I think it took about six hours really until the water really died down from that really turbulent surface job that it was. And then that’s when we started going with the current and across the channel. And going along with the current over East. So there was a little period of respite there. That was quite good. We were making decent distance, but we knew at some point we’d have to almost break out of the current again to get across to Hokkaido and that again was a really challenging time.

Jay communicated to me that, right, we’re gonna have to really work hard over these next four kilometers to break through another powerful eddy. And so, you know, there’s not much you can do. You just have to sort of mentally prepare and sit in for the long haul. And what made it tougher was that we knew we had this time limit to get across this Japanese coast guard set limit of getting across by 7 p.m. before nightfall goal to try break the world record for the cumulative time of the ocean seven, which was 64 hours and 30 minutes held by an incredible swimmer, Attila Minyoki. And that also worked out to be 14 hours. So everything was just kind of lining up like it was. And you couldn’t make this stuff up. It was just almost meant to be. And we really had to press hard. There were some tough moments in there. Jay, I remember I think we might have been three kilometers off and Jay said, you know, there’s a good chance you might get sucked back out

into the channel here because of what the localized eddies are doing. But everyone stayed so calm in that moment, which I think it really does help. You can just sense it when people are panicking and sense when there’s worry. And it was the exact opposite out there. There was a lot of people on the boat. They were all smiling. They were all relaying messages that people were sending in from around the world, messages from family, from friends, even Attila Minyoki, the guy who held the record sent for such a lovely message of encouragement. And, you know, it makes such a difference. It makes a huge difference out there. And, you know, I am, I’m super grateful for all of that encouragement and support. It really helped in those toughest moments and, you know, seeing Ishii there and Mitsu Shimu. They were so positive through all of the adversity that it just, you know, their hope sort of spread and rubbed off on you.

And, you know, fortunately we did. We got across to the other side and we really needed almost all of that time that we had available to us. We made it across at 6.02 p.m., so less than, you know, less than an hour to spare. It was really, really down to the wire. Like, you could make a movie out of it, you know? You’ve got an hour to spare. You’ve only got an hour and a bit up your sleeve to break the cumulative time. It’s like, it really comes down to that point. And something that’s been such an epic journey for you over the last 12 months for it all to come to a head and for you to be pushed to your absolute limit and to have just the currents working against you. I could say, it’s such a real test. It’s like, how bad do you really want this? How much have you worked for it? What was that feeling like when you hit land? Oh, I mean, it was just this huge sense of relief.

I mean, we finished on this. It was like the sea wall with all these huge, concrete, free-pronged ballhards. So I had to, it probably wasn’t the safest places to finish, but I had to kind of time it and what’s the waves and land on this thing. But when I got on there and, you know, scurried up to the top, it was probably the best rock I’ve ever seen in my life. So absolutely exhausted, you know, physically, mentally.

But, you know, just so proud of the team and how everyone had come together to make this thing possible. Not just in Sugaru, but the whole challenge of this last 12 months. So yeah, bursting with pride. And although I didn’t want to celebrate at the time because I felt like death, I was, you know, absolutely over the moon. Is it a sense of relief or accomplishment, combination of both? What is that feeling? It’s a sense of, I think, definitely, a bit of both, I mean, you know, when you’re quite open with your goals, like you mentioned before, there’s room for people to criticise or to scrutinise and you’re putting yourself out there, really exposing yourself and making yourself quite vulnerable. So, you know, for it to come together like it did, obviously there was relief there, but the reason I had been so open about what I planned to do and what I hoped to try to achieve was to try to bring more attention to, you know,

the Ocean Seven to promote the sport and hopefully create more awareness about the reasons why we’re doing it, which was, you know, one of the big ones was to raise money for mental health and to share, you know, powerful messages around hope, courage, the importance of teamwork. And yeah, I think we, over the last 12 months, we have been able to do that. And one thing I will say about this when you’re being open about your goals is, yes, you might feel quite nervous and people might say that things can’t be done,

but on the flip side, you’ll get people that will stick their hand up and offer their support. And I think, you know, that’s really worthwhile doing it because, you know, these challenges, things like the Ocean Seven, even doing any of these marathon swims, you know, they’re not something that you can do alone. So yeah. Do you feel like that’s having that bigger picture, that bigger reason behind it helped get you through those tough times in the swim? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think when, when you’re really in your toughest moments, having a good reason why makes all the difference. You know, why are you putting yourself through this pain? Why are you going to push through this? You know, for me, you know, I certainly thought back to the mental health aspect of things and trying to bring awareness to a cause that’s really important from, you know, for everyone and then is close to my heart,

having suffered from depression in the past before and having, you know, my childhood hero, my grandfather being really impacted by it as well. But also, I think, you know, I’m someone that left their swimming career feeling quite unfulfilled with the things that I’d done when I retired in 2016. I didn’t feel like it realized my potential. And for a number of years, I had felt a lot of guilt and shame feeling that I’d let people down that had believed in me and invested time in me through my childhood and through my competitive years, my coaches, you know, my family and friends, people that, you know, my mom and dad, who would drive me to training in the mornings, four in the morning, scraping ice off the car, you know? So in a way, this was also to hopefully try to repay their faith and I wanted to do it for them too. So, you know, I had all these motivators to come into this and, you know, if you’ve given it your best,

that was my view. If I’d given it my best, it didn’t really matter what the outcome was. I knew they’d be proud. How do you feel now looking back at that and you’re a couple of years older now since you stopped your competitive swimming career? How’s your feeling around not achieving what you wanted with your competitive swimming career and now you’ve achieved this? Do you look back and think, well, like those people that put their time and effort into me, do you feel like they were disappointed you didn’t achieve those goals or is just something that you felt because you’d put in so much work and hadn’t quite got there? It’s an interesting one. I mean, I think if I was to ask my parents or my coaches, I don’t think they would have ever felt what’s the word I’m looking for. I don’t think they would have been disappointed, but in my head, I’d built it up that I had let them down. And yeah, I think this last year has been

a real good opportunity for myself to put that to bed and to move on. And maybe if I had had more successes in my pool career, things would be a lot different and I wouldn’t have done what I’ve done now. So we can’t change the past and I’m grateful for everything that’s happened to this point because it’s made me who I am and it led me to do the things that I’ve done. So yeah, I wouldn’t change it. Yeah, absolutely. It’s quite often like that, isn’t it? Where you wear a setback or a failure at just, at the time, it’s really hard to take and you look at it and you go like, I’m really annoyed this has happened, but then you give it 12 months, 24 months, you can see there’s a reason behind it. You can move past it and it can lead you to greater things and looking at what you’ve achieved, that I think is so much more difficult than making a national team and competing for your country. Not that that’s easy, not at all.

And I’ve got a lot of respect for those people that do achieve that, but what you’ve gone through, it’s like, man, that to me is two, three times harder than making a national team and just physically and mentally that sort of challenge. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of people who could push themselves that far. So yeah, I think your record will stand for a very long time. Time will only tell and whether it’s gone next year or in 30 years time, that doesn’t really matter. The fact that you’ve done what you’ve done and I think being able to just persist and achieve it is incredible. And as you said, I think a large part of that, looking from the outside, it’s because you had a very deep drive and motivation that wasn’t just about you. There’s no ego involved. It’s really doing it for a greater cause and for other people. And it’s like swimming in competitive swimming. It’s like people will do PBs all day in relays

because they don’t let other people down. And it seems like there’s a bit of that kind of spirit in your swings. Yeah, 100%, 100%. And I think for me, the biggest takeaways, like each of these swims has almost taught this, it’s own unique lesson, the Hawaii swim has, for example, taught the importance of having incredible support around you and having a good reason why to push through the adversity and the adversity is needed for growth. Your lowest lows can also be your highs-highs. I went into the cook straight with people telling me that we couldn’t swim in a spring tide. And that was a great example of that it’s important to get people’s opinions, but do your homework and come to your own conclusion and don’t let other people set your parameters for you. Or the English channel, first time I’d ever had to wait before a swim. It’s not like traditional swimming when we know it down to the exact minute when we’re gonna be racing.

There we were there for seven days before we could have been swimming with four hours notice. And so to the lesson there, to focus on the things that are within your control and to be ready. Like it’s just incredible, all these sort of messages from marathon swimming and how transferable they are to your own life. Going through something like Suga Roo, yes it was horrendous at the time, but that’s an experience I’ll be able to draw from for the rest of my days. So for me, that’s been an incredible part and the friendships and the connections made through this last year.

If anything, like you say, records and stuff, someone will beat them at some point in the future, but those experiences, they’re things that no one will ever be able to take away. Absolutely. Now, when you get home and you go back to normal life and you don’t have this massive challenge ahead of you and quite often get it with, and when people achieve their dreams of going to the Olympics, there’s often this little bit of a down period. How’s that been for you? And have you set your sights on anything else just to give you something to work towards? Yeah, it’s very true. I mean, I think there’s a huge come down or a crash, people experience it. After working so long and so hard towards a goal, I think it’s very natural for it to happen. And I’ve had a few people reach out to ask about it and to just politely remind me that it’s coming. And I’ve had a bit of time off since Suga Roo. So Suga Roo was just over three and a half weeks ago.

I actually, I feel okay. I feel okay. I mean, I think I was ready to come to the end of that, that chapter and that journey. And, you know, I haven’t really, I mean, it still doesn’t quite feel real. It hasn’t fully sunk in, which is quite funny. I haven’t had too much of a crash to be honest, which, you know, I am ready for it when it does happen. But I think also I’m really excited about what lies ahead

and, you know, opportunities to continue, A, doing swimming to support worthwhile causes, B, the things that we have going on behind the scenes in terms of mental health, we’re speaking with a number of charities about bringing them together to collaborate, to create more, what’s the word I’m looking for? Not holistic, but maybe holistic. Yeah, to work together, create synergies and make sure that the services provided are cover all bases. And that’s something that we’ve been working really hard over the last 12 months on. And I’m excited to continue to help with however I can. I feel there’s a real opportunity there and to continue sharing some of the messages learned from this channel, from this challenge. So, yeah, I’m not crashing because I’m just so excited about what’s still to come. Yeah, that’s fantastic. I mean, it’s, I think if you keep yourself moving and keep yourself busy enough as well, you can avoid a lot of that come down.

You know, it’s like a plane, it needs that, it needs that speed to fly. And as soon as you stop, then it comes down. So I think you just got to keep moving. You can’t just sit on the couch for a month afterwards and just relish in your achievements. Yeah, you need to keep doing things. And I mean, you’ve got your work there and the business. And I saw your return to the pool as well this week. How’s the body feel first session back? Oh, I was, it was a bit brittle. We didn’t even swim that far. And I’m sure it’s pretty horrible. But no, I think it’s been important to take some time off and to have some rest, you know, not just from a physical point of view, but mentally too. You know, we talk about marathon swimming being 20% physical, 80% mental and to have some downtime for the mental to allow yourself to mentally recover and recharge. You know, I don’t think we talk about that enough. So yeah, these last couple of weeks,

my mother’s been over from Scotland, I’ve been spending a bit of time with her. My sister who lives here in Perth as well. And she’s got a young family. So that’s been really nice. And, you know, it’s just allowed me some time to recharge and come back to the pool and come back to these other endeavors with more gusto and energy.

Yeah, yeah. And in terms of the media after you finish, what’s that been like? It’s a bit of a fringe sport, open water swimming. It’s not AFL, it’s not NFL, but it’s still, from what I saw, there was quite a bit of media attention around it. So how much was there interest from overseas? What sort of commitments have you had there in terms of, yeah, right after the event? So it has certainly picked up a lot of traction along the way and you’re right, you know, we’re not AFL, we’re not soccer, we’re open water swimmers, but I think when there are things, there are things that transcend the world of sport and can really connect with people and, you know, whether it’s been my swimmer or other people that go on and push themselves outside their comfort zone in support of something bigger than themselves. You know, I think that will always resonate with people. So, yeah, these last couple of weeks in speaking to the BBC, they put up an article

and it’s a bit wild, like seeing your face beside the light of Gita Fumberg or Vladimir Putin on the BBC homepage, I’m just this kid from the West Coast of Scotland, a sleepy fishing village, you know, so it just doesn’t add up, but that’s been so the old ESPN, you know, a few Australian outlets, so, you know, for me to get the word out there about the sport, but I think to try to share these positive messages and encourage people into swimming, I got back into swimming in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, after a number of years out in the water, I didn’t have any plans to do crazy channel swims. For me, it was about getting into the water, having this incredible sport that could keep me fit and healthy, it was good for my mental well-being and provided me with access to community. And, you know, I’d love to get the word out there or to do my part to share those messages that is a sport for everyone and everyone can access these benefits

and they might have a good positive impact on your life if you do. So, yeah, I’d encourage people to give it a try. Brilliant. Well, Andy, thanks for being on the podcast and, yeah, willing to jump on here a second time after a successful seven swims. It’s been amazing what you do, what you’ve done. And I’m excited to see what lies ahead for you, whether it’s just as crazy as what you’ve done or, you know, just dial down a little bit because I don’t know how much more wild you can go.

I think, you know, I mean, you know, doing the world’s seven toughest channels in the space of the year, might not, might not guess. Might be a scratch in our heads to think of something that can top that. No, I’d love to continue doing swims that can support worthwhile causes. I think for me, an area that captures my interest is the expedition swims and swimming in uncharted waters or something that no one’s ever done before. So, these swims, they might take, you know, be over the course of a number of days. I’m already speaking with a few parties there about some exciting opportunities that I think we’ll try to fill them. And, yeah, really, really focus on some important causes and the benefits of the sport. So, yeah, watch the space. That’s probably what’s next for me. Is this like swimming with a ruck sack and like, you buy yourself or is this going to be supported? These types of swims, do you have a bit more detail with them?

They’d be supported. So, I think they come in different forms. You know, there’s been some, you know, great swimmers out there that have done incredible things. Guys like Loose Pew, he’s currently swimming down the entire length of the Hudson River over in America to raise awareness around, yeah, around the environment. He’s a big advocate for oceans conservation and things like that. So, yeah, that’s something that interests me and they would be supported. They’d be over the course of a number of days. It’s not about swimming it as fast as possible, which, you know, I think for me is nice to give the body a little bit of respite.

But we’ll see what happens. Like, there’s still some channel swims out there and some swims like the Manhattan Island swim and, you know, Loch Ness back in Scotland that I’d love to have a crack at some records for. And so, we’ll see what happens. There’s plenty of, you know, there’s no shortage of swims in the world. So, if anyone listening has some ideas, you know, they’ll show them through. You know, we’re open to everything at the moment. Fantastic. Well, we’ll put all the links to your socials, to donating as well to the Black Dog Institute too. And I see your following is growing massively in the last, like, what, month or so that you’ve completed the swims like. It’s just taken off, which is really cool too, which gives you that bigger platform to create that awareness around these things as well. It was the, I think it was one of the feeds videos kind of went viral, so. Had like two million views or something, didn’t it?

Because you’re using like a dog lead or something? Oh, have you seen, I mean, I had a quick look through the comments. I mean, it’s obviously hard to kind of follow it, there was all these people that were like, this is a really cool video until he threw the bottle back in the ocean.

Like, it’s so reckless. I’m just thinking, do you not see that it’s attached to a dog lead? Like a bright yellow fluorescent dog lead?

That’s why you can’t listen to comments online, right? Like, it just, yeah, you can’t win. Yeah, you can win. I mean, the internet’s the internet. It’s certainly a source of entertainment. And, you know, like you said, I think there’ll be some good outcomes from that. There’s a larger platform and audience out there to share these messages to and, yeah, hopefully continue to promote the sport and the paths that are available to everyone out there.

Love it, mate. Well, congratulations again. And when I do eventually get back to Perth, I’d love to catch up and meet in person, not just online. And, yeah, mate, I appreciate you being on the podcast and it’s a huge thing that you’ve done. So I’m amazed that you’ve been able to get through it. Mate, congratulations. Yeah, again, thank you for having me on here, Brendan, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.