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 episode number 116 of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Vicki Tate who has recently swum the 40 kilometre crossing of Lake Taupo. Lake Taupo is a lake in New Zealand on the North Island and from its longest point it’s 40 kilometres across and earlier this year Vicki made the swim. She made the crossing and is one of less than, I believe it’s less than a hundred swimmers who have completed the crossing and she came along to Howe Week last year to a Howe Week camp in Thailand and this was something that helped her prepare for the swim and she was also taken across or led across by one of the coaches that we have along to Howe Week which is Philip Raschus, one of four people to do a triple crossing

of Linglish Channel among many other incredible swims and in today’s episode we talk about some of the battles that Vicki had to fight mentally as she was crossing Lake Taupo, some of the things that she had to do in the lead-up to the swim that she found quite challenging, she had to push herself through and she’s not someone who necessarily started swimming from a young age so she didn’t have much of a swimming background, someone who started later in life and we look into what’s the thing that made her want to start swimming later in life and then build up and work towards something of that magnitude. So it’s a very interesting episode and one that will probably inspire you to push that a little bit further in your next session. So let’s get into the episode. This is Vicki Tate who has just recently crossed the 40 kilometers across Lake Taupo. So Vicki, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Brinton. So you, I mean we met last year at Howe Week camp and you

were training for the for this big swim that you recently completed and I mean your background isn’t necessarily in swimming, you’re not someone who grew up from a young age swimming all the time, you’ve only been doing it for a couple of years and a mutual friend of ours who will mention John Hancock, he said that he thinks your story is quite impressive from going from not being able to swim okay to swimming a 40 kilometer straight swim which very few people in the world have have really done anything of that sort of distance. So where did it all start for you when it came to training for Taupo and deciding that this was something that you wanted to do?

Well, yeah, as you were saying, I wasn’t a swimmer as such. I did surf life-saving when I was a teenager. So I spent a fair amount of time at the beach, you know, training twice a week in the pool and then went to uni, played football and then when I graduated uni, a couple years later, moved to Ireland and then moved back to New Zealand and developed asthma. And so then I sort of thought, okay, well, may as well start swimming.

And that’s where I started out with the, not even being able to swim one K and gradually, you know, sort of started looking at open water swimming. My first swim was a 2.5 K and that was actually in Taupo. And I remember doing that and, you know, getting two thirds of the way around and vomiting. It was somewhat choppy. And then, you know, sort of just getting really determined about that I could finish it, wasn’t going to get pulled out. And then each year, I sort of gave myself another goal, a longer distance. So I went up to a 5 K and a 10 K. And then the 17.5. And, yeah, after that, I sort of thought, well, maybe I could try for Cookstraat or for Taupo. And in February last year, I was trying to decide. I wasn’t sure if I actually had the ability to do it. Had a chat with Phil Rush and he was like, well, you can give it a go. What’s going to, you know, the only thing that’s going to stop you is you. You may as well just

give it a go. One of my friends who was a marathon runner and a Ironman, she passed away in February with ovarian cancer. And she kind of motivated me quite a bit. And I thought, what would Bernie tell me to do? She’d tell me to just, you know, get stuck in. She had ran 60 Ks on a 60th and 65 on a 65th. And so I thought, wow, I’m turning 40. I might as well give Taupo a try. Thought it might be slightly easier than the Cookstraat, even though it’s longer, but, you know, different conditions. Yeah, that’s that’s incredible. So when did she pass away? Was it this year or last year? No, last February. Yeah, so 2017. Yeah, gotcha. And so when did your training start for Taupo? When did it, when did you commit to it? And when did you start your training for it? Probably March last year. I sort of started slowly building up,

you know, going from two or three swims a week up to four or five, and slowly building up my distances each week. And then, you know, just keep going through the year. It was a really long buildup, probably comparatively to a lot of people. And that was just because I knew that I needed to do a fair amount of work. And yeah, that’s where I sort of came into going, okay, well, I need to work on my technique. I should probably go to a swim camp. Hence why I came to Howe Week.

Yeah, and that worked out really well, because we have so the the person who was in the boat with you or one of the people who was in the boat was Phil Rashu, who’s a legend open mortise room himself. And he, he takes people across the Cook Strait and across Lake Taupo. And he’s come along to the last two of our Howe Week camps. He’s coming along again this year. And so he, yeah, it was good to good to have him there. And, and then I was there as well with another one of our coaches, Mitch Patterson. And I mean, it was it was a decent a decent week in terms of the case, but it’s become a lot more of a technical focus with some challenging sessions in there. Was there anything that you particularly worked on or that you got from Howe Week, when it came to your technique and what you felt like you had to do or focus on in the lead up to Taupo?

A lot of it was just ironing out the niggles that I would have when I was doing longer swims. So, you know, you do a 10k session on a Saturday, which you’re doing every other Saturday. And you know, your neck or your shoulder might be slightly sore or my lower back could get a bit niggly. And so I had kind of started ironing out some of the neck stuff with bilateral breathing, but it was still happening. So when I turned up at Howe Week, that was kind of my focus was to try and get rid of that because swimming 40ks with sore neck is not much fun. So, yeah, I definitely found that that the technique side of it really helped with that. I actually didn’t have any neck pain at all through swimming across Taupo. So that was pretty good. What was it that you changed in your stroke to combat that?

Head position and probably timing and timing of my arm stroke and then where I’m entering the water.

You were entering that a little bit too far out, weren’t you? Yeah. Overreaching a bit memory. Yeah. And yeah, and probably just not maybe not slightly deep enough. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, well, it’s I mean, I guess it fitted pretty well in terms of the timing because it was October, your swim was in March that you did it. Yeah, March. Yeah. And and the thing with that too is you’re kind of on on call, aren’t you? There’s no fixed date or at least not for a while. You’ve got a bit of a window there and Yeah, you get a window of time where you’re you’ve got three or four, five days. It depends on what your time’s like as well with how much time you can take off work.

And yeah, so there’s a window of opportunity either side of a tied window of cook straight because obviously Phil’s got to fit in the cook straight swimmers as well.

And then you just you hang out up in Taupo and wait for the best weather day. So I was actually up there in the year the beginning of March, which is Ironman weekend. And my swim was actually supposed to be at the end of March, but Phil rung me up and we had a bit of a chat and then I had a bit of a meltdown and spoke to a few people.

And yeah, I adjusted my training schedule around that

and decided that actually beginning of March was more realistic. That was going to be my next. Oh, sorry, I didn’t trust that. I was just already fatigued from the training. I was mentally quite tired from having to keep going. And yeah, Phil thought I could, I could do it then.

So was that the time that you felt you, you, yeah, I was going to ask, was there a time that you felt you couldn’t do the swim that you doubted whether you’d be able to make it across? Or was it, or did we pretty confident the whole way through? What was it like mentally for you? Through training, I was always unsure. And I sort of had these these kind of key goals of a watch, what I needed to do, like I knew that I needed to do a really big swim and a couple of really big weeks of training and training and, you know, rough water as well, just in case it got choppy. And I guess having pushing the swim forward a month, that threw me off because I hadn’t done some of those things. So I was like, Oh my God, I’m not prepared. But during the actual swim, I never, I was quite surprised. I never actually had a moment where I thought I can’t do this. I had moments where I was like, Oh my God, I wish this would be over right

now. But I never thought I can’t finish this, which was, I was amazed by when I reflected back on, I thought, Jeepers, that’s pretty impressive. What was there a point throughout the swim where it started to really hurt? Or was it pretty even the whole way across? And how did you pace it as well? Was it just, was it just a steady pace the whole way through and you’re able to maintain it? Or did your speed drop off towards the end as you fatigue? What was it like?

It, I definitely got sore. I think I was swimming over three K an hour in the first 10 Ks. And then I dropped off a little bit. It got, well, I thought it got choppy. Phil trained probably didn’t think it was, but when you’re in the water that long, it feels like it’s choppy. And yeah, I kind of went in and out of cycles of swimming really well. And then not swimming so well. And, you know, Phil would say to me, I can see that you’re, you’re either need some more fuel or you’re, or you’re in pain. And it was always, you know, when I was in pain, I wasn’t swimming as great as I could be. I think, yeah, I mean, by the end, I definitely was a lot slower than the start. But I was relatively consistent. I think, I don’t know, you’d probably have to ask Phil that question. I definitely got to about 25 K and got into a really hard space. Like multiple parts of my body were hurting. I spent a lot of time singing

songs in my head over and over again. And yeah, when I got into that, into the headspace where I was like, man, this really hurts. I started thinking, okay, I’m just going to count my stroke. And just kept counting and counting and counting. I started thinking about what else I could eat next, you know, little treats. I knew I had, I had a Mars bar in my little pack and I had some Coke. So there were sort of things that I was holding on to for the end. And yeah, that’s sort of, sort of, okay, if I get to 30 Ks and I can, can have the Mars bar. So that kind of helped. So you need sometimes isn’t it just a little sort of carrot dangling at the end of or at specific markers, it doesn’t need to be much, but just those little little markers as you go through. And I sort of, I did the same thing when I was doing some longer swims. Like when I was doing sort of a 10 or 15 K training swim towards Roto at the like, you know, the 10 K

marker on the fourth lap of a five lap swim, it was I’d save something in reserve there. And the same thing for longer runs. And it’s just and that’s all it takes. It’s just because you mind play these plays these games. And it doesn’t need too much convincing to keep going if you give it the right motivation. And especially when you’re deep in the in the hurt locker, and you’re that far, or you pass a halfway mark in a 40 K swim, but you’re not very close towards the end part, you know, 25 K mark. That’s, that’s when it can really start to to get grim. I can imagine and yeah, yeah, I mean, one of a couple of people said to me, you know, I think it may have even been Phil. He said, don’t look forward and don’t look back. Because, you know, you’re right in the middle of the lake. And you just like, Oh, my God, I’ve got so far to go. But there were a couple of times where I did, he said to me, I actually have a look how far you’ve

come. Because obviously, I must have been struggling. And I was like, Oh, shit, that’s pretty good. So yeah, I mean, there are, you definitely need those little motivating things that help you along the way. Because you’re on a, you’re on a really fine tipping point of either, you know, keep going or oh my God, this is too hard. And I think once you start going into that, it’s too hard, then it’s kind of all downhill. So you just have to really keep focusing on little bits and pieces along the way. And, you know, feeding every half hour always helps because you, you kind of expect it after that long, you know, when it’s about to happen. And you think, sweet, I can talk to somebody for a minute or, you know, I can take you out of the situation that you’re in just for a few minutes. Yeah, so that definitely helped. I’m curious, what songs were singing you had to remember which ones? Yeah, I was singing Tom Pettis, I won’t back

down. It’s got a good rhythm, I think for swimming. Yeah, it has actually. And the other one was Ruder Mentals. What is it? I’m not giving in or something like that. Yeah, I think I know yeah, I know the song you’re referring to. And black seeds keep on pushing. They’re all very, very motivating songs. Yeah, well, I’d listen to a few songs beforehand and thought, which ones will will I sing? You know, because I’d read a few books and, you know, people said, oh, it’s quite helpful. Because you’re in your own headspace and all you’ve got is the noise of the water the whole time. So it’s a long time to be in your own headspace. Yeah, it is. I think that’s what I did for Rod Nessus. I had Toto Africa in my head the whole time. And I didn’t know it. Well, actually, I found out at the 10k mark that my skipper in the boat had it blaring from the speakers, but I couldn’t hear it when I was swimming. So he had it blaring for about four hours

in the boat. But and he sent me a message yesterday, where he had a video and that song was playing somewhere in public. And he said, this reminds me of you. And it’s probably more burnt in his mind than it is than it is mine. After four hours of Toto Africa. But it’s it got me it got me through and it’s just it makes the time go a lot quicker. It’s quite funny because you think that you’d actually hate the song after it. But not at all. I actually quite enjoy that song. So yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s starting to annoy me now actually, the song. I’m it just reminds me of getting up at I think it was like three o’clock in the morning or three thirty in the morning. And I had it going then before I got ready for the swim. And I think and I think that’s why I can’t listen to it at the moment because it just reminds me of early mornings. And I’ve got a two week old sign and I’m not getting any sleep at all. And it’s just not. Yeah, so it’s just bad memories. It’s

deja vu. I think but yeah, it’s I think next time I’ll I don’t know if I’ll go the same song or not next time I do a long swim. But yeah, it’s it’s a very good strategy to use. And I remember Phil talking about counting your strokes as well. I think he said he’d count to 300 and he just kept going through that when he was doing these long sort of 10 to 20k races back in back in the day. And I found that quite quite useful for the mostly for the training swims. But I used a little bit during the race as well. Were you counting to 300 or was it just non non going to about 30?

Because I’d get distracted by something that hurt me or you know, my arm hurts or my back hurts or I’ve got cramp in my foot. So how short our tension span is isn’t it like the only way I could count to 300 was to kind of think I do it go to sort of 50 and then count again to 50 again. But yeah, okay, that’s one lot of 52 lots of 50. And so but I guess it’s also hard to to be counting. It’s like 242. So you don’t have enough time to really do it either. But no. And I think it can actually slow your cadence down a little bit. Because if you can’t get slower, then your rhythm gets slower. So I think that’s probably why souls are a bit more beneficial. Yeah, I’d agree with that. And was there anything that was different on the day than what you expected?

No, not really. No, because I’d I had a really great opportunity where I got to sit on the on the support boat for one of the local swimmers in Wellington Roy seven. So who did cook straight? So a lot of the stuff that I was unsure about I kind of experienced just observing. So that was quite nice. I guess I’ll the only thing was not having anybody at the end saying hello, well done because because my swim was delayed until the it was supposed to be on the Saturday and ended up being on the Tuesday. All of my support people had to go back to work. So I ended up with just filling Katrina on the boat and then a friend who actually lives in Taupo turned up at the end. So that was the only thing that was really different.

So when it comes to is there anything that you do differently in the lead up to it or during the swim itself? Is there anything there that you look back at and go I could have done this better or differently that would have helped or do you feel like you had a pretty good run up to the swim?

You can always do more training. I think it doesn’t matter how much you do it never feels like enough. I think I would probably do more training in the actual lake. I did they call it the epic epic swim which is in January which is 17 and a half case one and Taupo well into about four hours, five hours drive from each other. So it’s kind of hard to get up before a weekend.

But yeah, I definitely would get in the lake more just because of the buoyancy factor. It doesn’t obviously like to see swimming is completely different. So I spent a lot of time swimming in the pool because of the buoyancy lack of buoyancy and lakes. So yeah, that’s probably what I would do differently around training in the swim. I probably would have fueled less sounds a bit weird. But I think I had way too much fuel on board. And I got to one stage where I just don’t want to eat anything or drink anything. So I think I swam for an hour on, you know, I just had some water or some electrolytes or something. So I think yeah, those are probably the main things that I’d change. But what was each feed like? Was it different each time or generally? Yeah, so I had some electrolytes with it’s like a protein electrolyte electrolyte mix. It’s by a New Zealand company called Pure Nutrition. So it’s quite good for

endurance sport. And then I just had to haul these replace as well as an alternative. And so my feed cycles I’d be having an electrolyte drink of some sort. Half a banana. If you guys have bliss balls over there. There’s another like empower bars, which is just a nutrition bar that you can use dates, dried mango, Eskimo lollies, which is a local New Zealand lolly. And yeah, caps of tea. Half fry crust or something like that on board. We did fill set up a cafe for it. I know there was like you’ve got too much for a bit of to be overprepared. Yeah, exactly right. That’s funny. I mean, the Mars bar was only because I had spoken to another swimmer who had done the cook straight. I’d spoken to her a couple of weeks ago, and she goes, Oh, yeah, I had a little treat of a chocolate bar. And we thought about that. And you know, in the end, that was the thing that got me through because I had some gels early on. And after the second

gel, I felt nauseous. And so I was like, No, don’t want any more gels. And Phil was like, you know, I think we’re at 35. 35 k 30 k something like that. I don’t know. And he he said to me, have you got something that can just give you a good burst of energy? And I went, I’ve got that Mars bar. He was like, Yep, get that down you.

There was all, you know, melted in the bottom of the boat in a plastic bag.

Yeah. But yeah, imagine you need anything at that stage of the swim. Yeah, wouldn’t matter. Yeah, wouldn’t matter. Where it came from, just yeah, that’s be pretty enticing. No, let’s mention that the, you know, late hafos like absolute pristine, clean, fresh water. So it’s not like it’s going to be that gross. No, exactly. Yeah, that’s right. And I because I did the I did the Ironman event there in 2016 and did the swim and about halfway through the swim, I drank some water and it was so fresh. It comes from the things sort of the mountains nearby. And it’s just, it is such a nice lake. Just yeah, so I mean, I don’t have really so many lakes before, but it’s just very clear, very clean. And it’s kind of that temperature where it feels just like the the water is very, I don’t know, the best way to describe it. But at that temperature where it’s sort of, I don’t know, 1718 degrees, is it 1780 degrees? Yeah, it’s just very sort of yeah, it’s a little bit warmer

it’s normally about that. Yeah, what was it for you? I think it was about 19 degrees like it’s been a really hot summer. Well, for New Zealand. So I was actually that was the one thing I was quite surprised about was how warm it was even at three o’clock in the morning. Yeah, and I didn’t like there was only one time where I sort of thought, oh, I’m a little bit cold, but I wasn’t like cold cold. I was just probably just slowed down my pace a bit and felt a bit cooler. And it was when I was like, Oh, have a cup of tea. Yeah, so it’s a beautiful lake to swim in. And, you know, the only I guess the only regression is that you try to do it as fast as possible. So you don’t get to stop and have a look around. So yeah, that’s right. We can’t get up there and swim around the coast of it or something. How many people have sung across it? Um, so with the like official marathon swimming rules, there’s been 48. But in total, I think there’s been 54. So those other

six would be wet suit swimmers. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that’s it’s pretty incredible. I mean, one of those it’s one of those things that very, very few people in the world have done. And I’m sure there’s gonna be more to come now that what seems like marathon swimming and swimming is really, really picking up a lot. And it seems like that’s a real destination swim for there were I mean, he took seven people, which I think they’re all Kiwis or locals, seven people across Taupo this year. So that’s a fair amount. Yeah. So I expect there will be a lot more. Yeah. Yeah, it’s um, if I was ever going to do a 40k swim that was uh, yeah, that was um, in a, in a, well a 40k swim at all, I think that’d be a really good one to do just because it’s um, obviously it’s the lake, don’t have to worry about currents and that sort of thing. And just the, I mean, it’s so, so nice around there, like we did a little bit of sightseeing when

we were there for the Iron Man and and just swimming in the lake was was just, I absolutely loved it. It’s just such a nice thing to do. So um, yeah, if I, if I had the the guts and the stamina to do 40ks, I think that would be it. But 20k was just I could do it. You could do it. So you say that, but I got cold in, I think it was 21 degree water for 20k. So I um, yeah, I’ve got a bit of work to do when it comes to surviving the cold. But um, yeah, I mean, I really enjoy the marathon swimming since, since doing a lot of training for, for right nest. And I can see the, the appeal of it and why people, even, even why people enjoy the cold water swimming. You know, I didn’t do a whole lot of cold water stuff. We did a little bit in the lead up to right nest, but it’s just, it’s such a good feeling after, after you get out from, from a two or three, four hour training swim, you um, you just feel, feel amazing. And I can see why it’s addictive. And

is there, is there an event that you’ve got that you’re training towards now? Or are you just sort of getting back into it? It’s quite funny. So Anna Marshall is a local swimmer. And she’s done Taupo. So she’s actually the fastest woman to have had done Taupo. And she said to me, Oh, Vicky, you know, you’re going to get asked what’s next all the time. And so we have this long standing joke that’s like, what’s next? Every time I see it. And yeah, my, my answer is always pizza and beer on my couch. But no, I don’t have anything in particular. I’m thinking about going and doing, there’s a swim in Lake Wanaka down south, which is a 10k swim called the Ruby. And that’s, that’ll be a lot colder than Taupo. I think it’s 16, 17 degrees. So sort of looking at that at this stage, just going to do 10k races and hopefully try and do them a bit faster. Because it’s been a long time since I’ve actually just done the 10k. Most of my 10ks have been, you know, in the pool

training. So it’ll feel like a sprint after

but yeah, we’ll feel shorter. Definitely. Yeah, it’s I’ve found you, at least for me anyway, when I was doing when I did right nest it, your mind can get accustomed to things very quickly. Like it was, I did my first 10k race in December. It was the state champs here in Victoria. And that and I struggled big time that 10k fitness wise, I was fine, but just had a few issues with with what I ate the night before and the swimsuit I was wearing and things like that. And it was just it was a terrible 10k and I just maybe not want to do to do it again. But then come January, February, I just I did some a lot of training sessions over 10ks and did a lot in the open water that were over 10ks. And it just it felt like felt like nothing. So once I’ve done that first one, it my mind was just very comfortable doing long distance. So it’s just it’s these incremental steps where where you can do it. And I’m training for a 100k running race in September. And I’ve

just started to increase the case for in training for that. And when I first started training about three months ago for it, I did a I think I did a 6k run around the block. And I was I was dead. I couldn’t run for the next week because my ankle and my knee and all this sort of stuff. And but then you just get used to it. It’s the body adapts very quickly. So but it also it also goes in the opposite direction to if you take too much time out, especially in swimming. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, that’s what I found with my training, like I had to be quite strategic how I trained because I because I work as an osteopath. So I’m using my body all day. And having old sporting injuries from playing football and stuff. You know, people would say I do a cycle of three weeks up, you know, loading and then one week, reducing your load. And I just was getting sick all the time. And I, you know, really early on in my training, and I had a chat with Phil and he was like,

just do two up and one down. And so that kind of really helped just modifying what I was doing and not sticking to somebody else’s ideals, I guess. Because you because everybody’s individual and we will carry our own stresses and strains and you know, our body responds differently to training loads and all that sort of thing. So it’s really, I guess that was the best thing about doing Taupo was actually learning so much about my own body and about my own mentor ability, I guess, as well.

Yeah, it’s a it’s such an incredible thing to do to swim 40 Ks. Because what did it take you in the end? How how many hours was it? 15 hours and four minutes.

Because that’s I mean, that’s a huge amount of time to be walking for let alone swimming. So it’s just yeah, just an incredible feat. So congratulations on on such a such a great result. And it was it was just great to I was following the track as you were going and just great to see you make it across because there’s so many things that can happen on the day as well that can make it a lot more difficult from, you know, wind and weather or your stomach, not not taking on the nutrients and all that sort of stuff. But so it does take a lot for it to come together as well as all the training and all the leading and build up to it. So just just awesome that you made it. So congratulations. And no doubt we’ll catch up in sometime in the future because I think Wellington’s kind of like my not my second home, but it’s just when it comes to the amount of swimmers that I know over there. It’s it’s yeah, you need to come and do a hell week in Wellington.

I know it’s a half to the half the Thailand how weak is is Kiwi so yeah, that’s right. So yeah, no, I’d say I need to get over there sometime soon. So yeah, or two kids, isn’t it? It is. It only gets harder when when the second one comes along. But I’m sure I’ll find some space maybe maybe next year I think it’ll have to be. But I promise I promise I got a few friends over there and I said I’ll be there this year. And that was about two years ago. So yeah, it’s I keep keep delaying it. But maybe next year we’ll see.

But thanks. Thanks for joining me on the podcast and sharing your swim and the details of it. It’s yeah, I was going to going to ask you straight after you did the swim. But I thought no, it’s probably give you a bit of time to I guess reflect on it and just see what things are like for you. You know, a couple of weeks later. And yeah, it’s good just to see what you what you think about it now being sort of two months after the swim. Still feels a little surreal sometimes, like it didn’t happen. Yeah, is it a blur to you now do you sort of is there specific moments that you remember or is it all just mushing to one memory? Yeah, there are there are definitely certain parts of it that I remember. But a lot of it just feels like a bit of blur. Yeah, like I remember dawn break. And I remember thinking, Oh God, I wish the sun would come up because I’m really struggling with concentrating in the dark. And you know, swimming along and and the dawn started to

break. And I and suddenly my granddad popped into my head, you know, and he’s passed away. And I was just like, Oh, wow. And I was thinking about the Anzacs. And you know, those sorts of things. It’s like, Wow, how does that come into my head? Yeah, that was a pretty special moment. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever feel that part of it. And finishing, you know, like, we were at the point, which is about eight K out from the finish, and this big sailing, old sailing ship with a group of two people on tour were on it. And they’re waving at us. And I’m like swimming along going, Oh my God, this is so hard. But it kind of propped you up a bit. And when I got out, there was a couple that walked past and they were like, Are you the young lady that just swam across the lake? And I was like, Yeah, not so young. But yeah, that was me. Oh my God, you’re amazing. Yeah, just the finishing was really funny, because it was there was nobody there. And there’s, you

know, there’s kids playing on the wharf jumping into the into the lake and a family kind of playing and next to me as I was swimming in and I’m swimming in thinking, these people have no idea where I’ve come from and what I’ve been doing all day. They’re completely oblivious. And I’m just like, Oh my God, this is so hard. That’s funny. Yeah, you don’t you don’t do it for the fanfare, do you? You know, you have a big, big welcoming party at the the other end or you have a finishing shoot to go through. It’s, it’s kind of how I feel after like, after going for a big run or you do a big training session, you’re just like, Oh, no one knows how like how hard that was or or you know, a big event where you’ve you’ve gone through this very challenging experience, but all they see is just you walking out of the lake and they’re like, Oh, she must have gone for a half hour swim or something. But yeah, but I think one of

the best parts was probably the fact that, you know, my best swim buddy was there sitting on the boat for 15 hours with me. And she I remember having a chat with her afterwards and when we got to what I thought was at the point, and I thought, okay, I’ve only got eight had to go, I can do this. And I stopped for a feed and Phil said to me, oh, you’re at 6k and I went, what 6k? I thought we’re at eight. And my friend Katrina was like, no, no, you’ve got this, you’ve got this. And afterwards, she said, that was when she she almost cried. And I went, that’s when I almost cried. And then I was like, no, pull it together. So yeah, it was quite cool to have her, you know, her there the whole time and and just caring for me through not just the swim, but either side of the swim. It was pretty amazing to have somebody do that for you. Yeah, you can’t get through these things without your community, basically. No, definitely not. And yeah, I found a similar

thing with rottenness was my best mate was on the kayak. It sort of helped me with the feeds. And then my wife and summer on the other end and especially when it got hard with 5k to go and and I just I just wanted to get out because I was I was cold. I was just like, I get to the end and you get to see your wife and son and and then just have my best friend there as well. Who was he flew all the way over from Melbourne to do it to over to Perth. And I just I didn’t want to let him down either. So it’s good to have people who are depending sort of depending on you or they they care that you how you go with it. That that community and your friends or your squad squad friends as well. Yeah, again, so those little things that make a big difference. Yeah, it’s a huge difference having those support people, you know, even just going out for a swim in the sea with one of the local Wellington swimmers, you know, that’s just having those people that

you can call on and be like, can you come train with me today? Or are you going for a swim? Good, I’ll come with you sort of thing. Because yeah, you can’t do it by yourself. No, no, it’s not much fun if you’re a especially when you’re trying for longer distances. Like the only way I got through training for Roto was with with a friend of mine, Lysandra, and because we did our long swims together. And I was I think I’ve got no idea how I would how I would have gone had I not had someone to do those longer swims with like, I guess I would have just done them in the pool. But it’s very easy to get out if you’re training by yourself and doing 15Ks in the pool. Yeah, so that’s what so Royce who is doing cook straight, that’s what him and I did. We did a six hour pool swim.

That was torture. Um, yeah. And I definitely couldn’t have done it without him. I mean, he’s swimming, you know, way faster. I’m doing 3K an hour and he’s doing 4K an hour. But just knowing that somebody else is there with you and you stop and have a feed every half hour and have a chat and, you know, you’re like, right, let’s go again. Get that feed down here. And, you know, how are you feeling? Yep. Good. Cool. Let’s keep going. Yeah. So that really helps. We did, I think it was in November. We, a couple of friends that I used to used to coach, we did 100 hundreds at MSAC, which is the main pool here in Melbourne. And we didn’t, I think we stopped after every I think it was every 20. So we might have stopped for one or two minutes. And we like, you know, you don’t say much within the space of the 100 hundreds, but it’s just knowing that either people are in front of you or behind you or next year, you just, you peripherals,

you’re seeing them every now and then. And it makes the session go so much quicker, just like when you’re training with a normal squad. So, you know, I recommend it for… Yeah, it’s just a bit of a distraction or rest, isn’t it? Oh, it is. It is. And like, you can get through a solid 4 or 5K squad session and, you know, it can go very quickly. Whereas doing that by yourself can feel like twice the time. So it’s just a swim with a squad or some friends is so much better. And I mean, I travel almost an hour each way sometimes, just go and swim with with some friends. Because I live out of Melbourne now and it’s like, I really enjoy swimming with with a group of people. And it makes me really appreciate it now because most of my swims are by myself. And but when I do get swim with other people, it’s I think they’re a little bit weirded out by how excited I am about training with other people. But that’s right. I’m I’m fine by that.

But so, Vicky, thanks again. And yeah, I appreciate you sharing your story on the podcast. We’ll catch up with you soon. Oh, thanks, Richard. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to