Welcome to Effortless Swimming, the podcast for swimmers, triathletes and coaches. Join Australian swim coach Brenton Ford as he reveals the latest techniques and information to improve your swimming. Let’s dive right in. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast. My name is Brenton Ford and I’ve got two very special guests with me today. I’ve got a guest, probably the person who’s been on the most, Chloe McCartles. So welcome Chloe to the podcast. Hi Brenton. And also Murph Renford, who’s the son of the legendary marathon swimmer, Des Renford. So welcome to the call Murph. Hi Brenton, how are you mate? Good, thank you. Now how this all sort of came together is Chloe, you’re going for Des’s long time record of 19 channel crossings, which is the most by an Australian. You’re going for 20 this season. So do you want to talk a little bit about that and what it means to you to hopefully break that record?

Well Brenton, as you know, I’ve got a bit of a love affair with the English Channel. It’s the pinnacle of marathon swimming around the world. And Murph’s dad, Des Renford is one of the people who’s really pioneered English Channel Swimming as a sport in the Australian psyche, which has flowed on to me through his time as an icon in the sport. And with other, you know, marathon swimmers like Linda McGill and Suzie Moroney. So to have the opportunity to even attempt 20 channel crossings and hopefully later this year to grab that title is really special because I feel like I’m a part of this, this legacy of English Channel Swimming in Australia. So it’s very special. I feel like it’s, it’s not really about me. It’s about Australian channel swimming moving forward into the 21st century. And as you, as you said, it’s really become something which is a, which is really well known swimming the English Channel. And you mentioned it.

A big part of that started with, with Des Renford. And, and now I mean, you take a lot of teams over, you take a lot of solo athletes over. So it’s really, at least among the circles that I hang around with, which is a lot of swimmers, it’s, it’s a really big deal and such a, you know, more people have climbed Mount Everest and have swam the English Channel. So it’s, it’s great to see you helping other people do that. And, and Murph, you’ve also swam the channel. What was your experience like in, in doing that? It was fantastic actually. It was a, I know for a lot of people and people like Chloe that it was a lifelong dream for me. It was, even though I had the main renter, it really wasn’t something that was, you know, I guess in the front of my mind and maybe not even in the back of my mind to a certain extent. But circumstances of work and a redundancy in 2007 just opened up an opportunity for a goal.

And I figured if there was going to be a goal, the English Channel was probably the most logical one. And with a bit of hard training and a bit of luck and, you know, a good pilot and everything that goes into getting you from, you know, England, to successfully complete a crossing in 2007. Yeah. And you’ve also crewed for a number of people as well. And you’ve been on the boat with Chloe when she first attempted the triple. So what kind of draws you to, to crewing for people and helping out that way? Oh, look, crewing, crewing is a wonderful thing to be able to put back and, you know, to be able to share your experience, you know, it’s a, it’s a crewing is a challenge itself sometimes. And Paul, Chloe’s husband, you know, he’s the king of crewing having been on more crossings than probably any other Aussie now as well. So he’s got his own, his own record there, probably if you were to dig into the history books as the, you know, the most Aussie to do or support crewing for people.

But it’s a, it’s wonderful to be able to put back into a sport. It’s not a pleasant experience as Chloe knows. I get, I get a little bit seasick, apparently. So, but it’s a wonderful thing to be able to do, to be able to put back into the community of Channel Swimming. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I crewed for one of my swimmers when he swam the channel. A lead up swim he did was Giants of the Bay, which is a swim at Point Port Phillip Bay here in Victoria. And I crewed for him on that. And just to be able to help him out and, you know, and support him and sort of give back that way and help him reach his ultimate goal of swimming the channel, which he did. It’s, you’re right, it’s really rewarding and it’s great to do something selfless like that because while the person in the water, they get that reward of all the hard work and training that goes into achieving that swim. It’s also really good to be a part of it in that, that crewing aspect as well.

Well, it definitely is. It’s a team environment. And, you know, math on swimming is seen to be quite a lonely, masochistic type of sport, but it’s not. It’s a team effort. And unless you’ve got a good crew and a good team around you, the reality is you’re not going to be able to get in the water and do what you really want to do. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to talk a little bit about the, where you feel like your dad’s sense of adventure came from. And same for you, Chloe. Where do you sort of, where do you think that comes from? Because I was reading through the number of swims that Des had done, like a lot of swims around Sydney, multiple crossings of Bondi Beach. I think it was 50 until Chloe came along and did 60 laps of Bondi Beach. He’d also swum from Sydney Harbour to Wollongong. I mean, I drove that two weeks ago and it was a long way to drive. You know, it’s over an hour. And so to swim that took him 27 hours or something along those lines.

It’s just, you know, that’s a real sort of spirit of adventure that I think he must have had. So where do you feel like it came from? Look, I think your dad probably started a lot earlier in life, obviously. Dad didn’t start math on swimming until he was 39 years old. And I think he came from a generation where, you know, he was in his teens, mid-teens, 16, he entered the Second World War, 17 I think he was when he went in in 44 into the Second World War. He came out with a wife and two children, basically by about 1948 when he was discharged. And so he got into a fairly settled, what maybe, you know, hummed up almost through existence. You know, he was a butcher and he was doing a bit of SB bookmaking on the side and to try and make ends meet. But he felt like he hadn’t achieved a lot himself, you know, personally. You know, he’s been a good dad and a good father and husband and all the things and worked pretty well.

But he wanted something for himself. And I don’t think he even knew at that point what that was going to be. And then he fell into marathon swimming by accident in Melbourne in 1968. I think it was when he basically had a beer and a pub found himself entering the Port Phillip Baseline, of which Linda McGill won that year. And so it was a little bit of an accident that he fell into it, but with very limited training. And he almost successfully completed swimming. I think he got about three kilometres from the finish point when he was taken from the water and taken to Frankston Base Hospital. But out of that pain and suffering, he basically realised that if he dug deep and did the work, maybe he could be good at this trade. And that’s exactly why it gets out of hand out. That is awesome. And Chloe, what about you? What about where do you feel your adventure comes from? I think I come from a different perspective.

I swam competitively. I think I swam against your sister Courtney growing up, Brendan. So I put a lot of mileage into the pool in my teen years. But I kind of felt like I couldn’t crack the Olympic level swimming. It’s a very, very competitive demanding sport. When you’re trying to be the best in the pool. And I came back in my early 20s and I knew that, well, I felt like I was destined or at least was trying to aspire to be the best at a sport. And tried triathlon for a few years and wasn’t making the inroads that I was hoping. And then I entered a marathon run in the marathon swim because I felt like the distance event suited me better. And although I love the marathon run and I did fairly well in three hours 37, the marathon swim I did a few months later was only 11 kilometers. But I just really fell in love with how you can connect with nature. When you swim at marathons, you’re completely immersed in the open water.

You’re in this natural environment. You can sometimes have encounters with aquatic marine animals. The conditions are always evolving and changing. And challenges are thrown at you, you know, out of nowhere. So unlike the most traditional sports where you’re in, you know, an enclosed environment, usually an indoor environment. Timings are really important. You’re racing other people. This is more existential. You’re challenging mother nature. You’re challenging your personal boundaries. So when I combined the drive and the ambition that I had with the love of the open water and the love of the challenges that marathon swimming opened up to me and the opportunity to travel overseas to challenge myself. It was kind of like this marriage in heaven that just came together for me. So, yes, I guess I fell in love with the sport. I felt like I started at an old age in my early 20s. But, you know, when Murph says that his dad started his late 30s,

now I don’t feel so old. Yeah, it’s all about putting it in perspective, isn’t it? And yeah, and how you frame it. But I mean, I think I completely get both sides of it. I think that drive to want to push yourself, do more, do better. That’s a real driver. And as well as just sort of getting back to nature and connecting with it that way. I mean, I do the same thing through whether it’s swimming in different places in the ocean or looking to run in different places or surfing at different surf spots around the world. Being able to connect that way. And especially with the water, I think there’s something really special about the ocean that draws a lot of people in. And that’s what can hook people into open water swimming and then going on to those bigger challenges of the marathon swims and the longer swims. You know, a lot of people will start with the small ones and they kind of go down the rabbit hole and look to push themselves that little bit further

and it turns into an English channel swim. What would you say is your hardest earned or biggest accomplishment, Chloe, in terms of what swim do you look back and go? That’s the one that I’m really proud of. Well, I’m really proud of a lot of them because of what I have to put myself through and what my crew have done to support me to get to those places. But the ones probably hurt me the most would be the world record Bahamas swim in October 2014 when I had to swim for 41 and a half hours continuously and being in the Caribbean, I couldn’t avoid extensive burns over my body and then swimming for so long. Obviously there’s a lot of pain involved with that and then getting stung by multiple box jellyfish at night time. It was just an ongoing, torturous experience so I was pretty happy to finish that. But more recently doing the triple crossing last year and being the first Aussie to complete that in 36 hours. That was really special because

the English Channel has such a prominent feature in so many marathon swimmers and open water swimmers’ psyche that it really feels like I’m near the top of history or at least being in the mix because I want to push the boundaries of myself and now I want to push the boundaries of my sport. So to finally get that on my third attempt, Murph was in my first attempt in 2011, I tried again in 2012 and it had been like this monkey in my back and I had gone back last year and just hoping that I’d get the chance to finish this triple crossing. That was super special as well and it hurt but in a different way than that Bahamas swim. The last two years have been really successful I believe in achieving what I want and it’s because of amazing support I have from my husband Paul, from people like Murph and the open water swimming community and I hope to just keep pushing forward while I’ve still got these great opportunities.

Fantastic. And Murph, what do you feel like your dad would say would be the swim he’s most proud of? No doubt because I actually was able to talk to him about it years ago. It was the city the long long swim was one of his most proudest. That was 27, I think it was 27 and a half hours. It was a second attempt so it’s a bit like that satisfaction that Chloe is saying. You have Chloe had two unsuccessful attempts at the triple and then you finally get there on the third one and I guess with dad getting there on the second there is definitely a rewarding feeling when you go back and tackle something that you’ve previously been unable to achieve. I almost think that if Chloe had got in in 2011 and just knocked out a triple and it was all done and dusted maybe there wouldn’t be that same sense of satisfaction because I think sometimes… Oh Murph, seriously. You just wanted to knock it off didn’t you? You just wanted to do it.

But there is a sense of satisfaction about going back and doing something that you have previously been unsuccessful at doing and being able to say guess what it was possible because there are moments when you do doubt yourself when you do something once, twice, three times and it’s not all falling into place for you and it’s only human nature that you’re going to start to think, well, I wonder if this bloody thing is possible and the answer is there was possible. You knocked it out of the ballpark and for me, that’s without a doubt for me sitting for a long way away watching that triple crossing and with dad that Sydney to Wollongong that’s the one that gave me the greatest satisfaction by a country mile. People probably don’t recognise that or think that that would be his all-time favourite swim and the harder swim without a doubt he’s Sydney Wollongong and I think it was about 1975, I think he did that. Has anyone done that since?

Yeah, they have. Shelly Taylor Smith has done it. I think she definitely has.

I think it’s still screaming out. I’d love to see Chloe go and do it. Dad did it in the cage back in those days. We’re a little more fearful of sharks in the 70s. We’ve got a lot better understanding now. I’d love to see Chloe do it completely like a channel-type crossing or a Bahamas crossing and get in and do it and she could do it and I’m sure it might be sitting on the radar there somewhere or it’s not a Newcastle, it’s not a Sydney Wollongong which would try a Newcastle Sydney, I reckon. Yeah, that’d be great. I think especially up that way Sydney is such a beautiful part of the world especially along the coast there that any of those swims along there have just got to be spectacular and it’s kind of a good distance away. I think it’s 54 miles from sort of the harbor to Wollongong there and it’s kind of a good distance whereas it is a real challenge but it’s doable, especially for someone like Chloe so we’re just going to put the pressure on Chloe

until you do it. Thanks, Dad. Well, you’re always looking for a swim so we’ve got to keep coming up with ideas for you, Chloe. Thanks, thanks a lot. Yeah, we’ll be your ideas team and just throw some swims at you. All right, you’re in for crewing then if I do it, both of you. That’s a brave statement having my part at home with my pass record but anyway. Well, I think with, you know, you sort of mentioned the satisfaction that comes from attempting something a second or a third time. You know, you’re almost, with a lot of things, it’s good to have those unsuccessful attempts or those failures so you can learn from them and then grow as a person and then go back and try and, you know, make those changes and corrections that you, you know, things that you didn’t spot that first time so do you sort of feel that at all, Chloe, looking back at, like, you know, the triple crossing attempts, did you learn things that you didn’t know before that

and then did you take those learnings into the next swim? Yes, I learned that I wasn’t handing the cold as well as I should have been. Not a lot, no, not a lot else. I just, I needed maybe more cold swimming and more time in better conditions to just get it done. I probably would be more progressed down my career now if I’d done the triple in 2011 or 2012 because there were a few years where I was just attempting to triple and I didn’t really have any other successes, big successes on the board so really I was just trading water for years and that was really hard to just keep getting up and re-attempting these triples when my main swim for the year is unsuccessful and I’m getting up, trying again the next year and then trying again the next year so I don’t really want to go through that again. I want to hit them all on the head when I attempt these big swims. Yeah, yeah, so it’s, yeah, I mean, obviously don’t want to be unsuccessful with them

but sometimes good can come from it but it’s, yeah, once you do do it, it’s that run on the board and I mean you’ve still got so many years left in the sport as well. Do you feel like if you sort of look back now, how old are you now, Chloe? 31. 31, I mean it’s still like anyone, I think over 40 would say that’s still so young and there’s so much more you can still achieve so yeah, that’s really exciting and what you’ve both got coming up is the International Swimming Hall of Fame so, you know, if you want to talk a little bit about that with your, with Desbyne and stated into the Hall of Fame shortly. Yeah, that was, I guess very left-field and unexpected. That had been in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame since 1978 and the Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame can then put members to the International Swimming Hall of Fame to be, I guess, elevated into the next body. I guess it is the pinnacle of all swimming

whether it be pool swimming, water polo, you know, synchronised swimming, you know, they’re all basically diving. They’re all aspiring or the ultimate is the International Swimming Hall of Fame. We’re lucky enough, I was lucky enough that the Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame said, listen, we put your dad forward. We need to be honest with you. It’s going to take years. And secondly, you know, the greater majority of the people we put forward don’t actually get the nod by the swimming hall of fame. You know, they’re pretty stringent on who they, they let be elevated. So even though they nominated him, they said, look, there’s no guarantees. But they said, having said that, we really firmly believe he meets the criteria, sit tight and we reckon with a bit of luck, you know, that he’s going to be elevated in a few years, saying that he’s going to be inducted. And that’s pretty much how it’s planned out. You know, the email late last year saying that,

you know, he’s going to be elevated and it’s happening late October in Santa Clara just south of San Francisco. We’re very lucky that Chloe and Paul will be attending with us, which is lovely. I’ve got a couple of to it, actually. And Chloe, so you’re being inducted as well at the same time into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. So I will be inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame about a week later. But the going along to Swimming Hall of Fame for Murph Stads post-tumor induction is still really, really special because Paul and I have such a great connection with Murph and the Renford family. We kind of feel like extended family. So we really want to be there to show our support on that night for Murph and his family. So that’ll be really, really special. That’s October 29th in Santa Clara, as Murph said. And people can, you know, book a ticket and come along. You don’t have to be nominated

or be getting an award on the night. You know, if you’re interested in open water swimming and you want to honor Dez’s great legacy and life’s work in marathon swimming, then you’re more than welcome to go along for that event. And same for the Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame that I’ll be inducted into a week later. You know, you can just buy tickets and come along and enjoy the night. And it’d be great to see as many people there as possible. When you read through Dez’s achievements and the things he’s done in swimming, I mean, you look at that and go, there is no way he couldn’t be in the Hall of Fame with the things he’s done. So it’s very well deserved and that should be a great night coming up soon. And Chloe, you’ve got a trip in California starting the next day, I believe it is, up there in California. So can you talk a little bit about that trip and what you’ve got planned? Yes, Brenton. Well, this is kind of all last minutes

in this whirlwind preparation. But Paul and I thought that because we’re going along and supporting the Renfrew family with Dez’s induction on October 29th and that’s in Santa Clara. And then we’re going to be down, further down California in San Pedro only a week later for the Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame induction. We now will make an amazing trip of it and squeeze in as many swims and fun times as we can. And the best way to do that is to bring people along on this journey. So I’ve kind of organized an impromptu let’s go travel California trip together for a small group of open water swimmers. We’ve still got a few spots left. It is fairly soon, it’s the end of October that this goes through for a week. And what we’re doing is the first night at Banquet at the Swimming Hall of Fame in Santa Clara where Murph will be in his family. And then the next day we’re going to swim from Alcatraz to the mainland and swim under the length of the Golden Gate Bridge.

And then we’ll be going on a two-day road trip along the famous Highway 1 scenic coastal drive which is going to be amazing and having swims and stop-offs along the way. And then towards the end of the week people can either do a solo or be in a duo from Anacapa Island and swim all the way into Santa Barbara, the mainland down Lower in California because that’ll be near the end of our road trip. So it’s got a little bit of something for swimmers who, you know, got a bit of confidence they can swim at least 2.5 kilometers an hour and they want to get in at least seven swims have lots of fun dinners, banquets and the last night really let them let their hair down because that’s the Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame banquet that last night so it’s November 4th and that’s in San Pedro and it’s going to be very social lots of swimming, lots of driving along the coastline I’m so excited I’m Californian dreaming of it right now.

It’s such an amazing part of the world there I was there in April in California and it’s just spectacular especially there along the Golden Gate Bridge Alcatraz as well there’ll be some really incredible swims where can people find out more about that tour if they want to inquire about it? Well, I think you’ll be able to put a link up on your podcast, is that correct? Yeah, yep, on our website at effortlesswimming.com So we’ll put that link up and that will go directly to the page on my website which really lists the itinerary for each day so you know what swims going on where we’re going to be where activities are on it’s a full pack really is a full packed week we cover accommodation, all transport during the week so once you jump on the train at the start we just keep going all the way to the end together so it’s organised in that we take the hassle out of a lot of the things you need to worry about when you travel

because they’re going as a small group and moving three things together I’m super super excited I’ve done anything in the US before like this I’ve taken so many people across the channel now and realising solos and this is just really exploring another whole country and starting hopefully something that might be an event every second year and keep doing it if we have lots of fun Yeah, fantastic Well Chloe, thank you so much for putting together this podcast and Murph, thanks so much for joining us and sharing some of the stories and the swims that your dad’s done and also your experience with the channel and I wish you both all the best with the awards coming up and it’s all very well deserved and Chloe, best of luck for your ongoing swims and good luck for getting that record 20 English Channel Crossings, the most of any Australian so guys, thank you very much and I’ll get you back on again soon Thanks, Brenton Thank you for having us, mate

Thanks for joining us on the Effortless Swimming Podcast To get transcriptions, bonus videos and to be the first to hear about new episodes go to SwimmingPodcast.com