Chris Ballard's Swim Story

Speaker A: Where land meets water, an invitation lingers. Not just between elements, but between versions of yourself. You could remain on shore where it's safe, familiar, predictable. Or you could cross into the unknown. Shannon. I'm Shannon Keegan and this is Stories from the Water where we dive into the courage it takes to begin, the resilience that keeps us moving forward and the wisdom that only emerges in the space between.

Speaker B: Oh, me. Chris, what's your relationship with the water?

Speaker C: I had parents who would take us backpacking when I was young and my dad's unofficial creed was sort of if you saw a lake or a stream, you jumped into it. So I think it began with that. And we happen to live near the coast here in California, so we would go swimming in the Pacific, which can get a little bit chilly in the winter. But if you start young, it's just what you do. So I think I've always felt at home in it. I was never a swimmer swimmer though I always played land based sports. So that's been one of the great joys of reporting this book was, you know, learning more about actually swimming, how you do it, this community, all of that.

Speaker B: Oh, awesome. I love, I love that you had the inbuilt relationship, you know, with the water. But it's so interesting to me just as a teacher and a coach teaching lessons and adults, it's. I, uh, commonly find people like, I'm a strong swimmer, I love swimming and. But then they really, how they carry themselves in the water is different. So anyway, tell me, tell me more. So you, what was it that, how did the research for this book kick off to get you interested into this whole world of swimming?

Speaker C: I, uh, was super fortunate that there's an editor at Simon and Schuster, his name's Tim o', Connell, maybe listening to this, he is a hardcore swimmer and it is, he's sort of midlife, he's got young kids, he's got a high pressure job and he found this cold water swimming community. He's in Rhode island and he totally caught the bug. He was like, you know, we go out in a group, it's our trial, we come out afterwards, we warm up, we have our tea. Whatever it is, it is magical. And I think he saw this happening overseas at the same time, you know, especially in the uk. This had become, you know, wild swimming as they call it there. Um, uh, you know, a bit of a, a bit of a trend, enough that maybe you could get it into consciousness. And here in the us, outside of the swim communities, you know, it's more Cold plungey. There's a bro. Ish element to it. And I think Tim's idea, which he coordinated with my literary agents on, was what if we took this world and tried to find the characters and attach a narrative to it? And so he approached, they approached me about it. And at the same time, I had recently hit a point in my life where I couldn't do the sports I loved as much, which was mainly basketball, to be honest. I had been a low level collegiate basketball player. And I just kept going, like every league, uh, you know, on concrete, on asphalt. Wherever it was, I was in for it. And I'd hit my mid-40s and my body just revolted. It said, you know, you put a lot of stress on these joints. And so I ended up having a hip replacement at age 42.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: And just kept trying to find ways to get on, to keep playing basketball. And so I was originally attracted to the cold water element of therapeutic athletic recovery. And so I had come to it through that lens of, you know, cold plunges and going back and forth with heat as a way to keep me playing basketball. So when these, you know, the editor and my agents approached me and said, what about this idea? Basically Born to Run, you know, that barefoot running book, but let's do it for cold water. What do you think? And I was immediately, uh, intrigued, especially once I started to look at the types of personalities that are drawn to this because they're so passionate. And there's nothing performative about doing something. Like if you're going to be a marathon swimmer, you are doing it for some kind of internal reason, some deep. There is something deep going on there that is not necessarily for fame, for money, for outside attention. And I was fascinated by that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Awesome. That. So cool. So then you, you, you get this idea to do this book and then where does that, where does. What's your first step?

Speaker C: I started in the athletic recovery world. So this was talking to, you know, NBA athletes, NBA trainers, uh, you know, Steph Curry and the warriors were big fans of it. And I'm based in the Bay Area, so it was good to talk to them and get a sense of it and look into the science and the research and you read back and you learn this is something people have been doing for millennia. Right. So we've all believed that that water, and especially cold water was good for us. We just didn't quite know why. And the fascinating part is that there'd been research around it, but it was all about keeping us alive. It wasn't about Benefits. It was like, uh, essentially, please stay out of cold water because it can kill you. And so we had, you know, centuries of research around exactly how it would kill you and how you could keep people from dying in cold water. It's only the last 25 years that anyone has started to study the benefits of it, at least in a. In a scientific way. So my first step was just read everything I could. You know, read the studies, read the books. There's some amazing books out there, as you well know, on. On swimming and. But fewer on sort of the science of cold water. That's been a. It's like a niche scientific, um, community. And there's a guy, Mike Tipton, who you, I'm sure you're familiar with in the uk, who's done a lot of research around this. And then his protege, Heather Massey, has done amazing research around it. And then a Canadian researcher, Gordon Giesbrecht. There's a handful of people who have studied this, but not at the level that hopefully we one day get to.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Did you lean, um, into any of the, like, Nordic cultures, you know, like the sauna culture in Finland and look there at all?

Speaker C: Yeah. One of the great joys of the book was being able to travel to these communities and see how each one embraced it. And so I was able to go to Finland and Norway and Denmark. And in Finland, as everyone knows, uh, this is just something you do. You know, there's like millions of saunas. There's more saunas, or saunas, as they pronounce it, than cars in the country. Uh, and so you'd stay in a hotel, whatever it was. There was a. There was a sauna. And I was able to go to the Finnish Sauna Society, which is the oldest and sort of the most, uh. I would say. Well, hard to say, the most passionate, but a very passionate community of people. And there they have all the different temperatures of saunas. And the one that was most, um, memorable for me was 268 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about where you would, you know, smoke pork ribs. So it was quite, quite hot. And, you know, you're doing it around all these people for whom this is normal. And you're. You're all naked in this case. And, uh, they have men's days and women's days. I was obviously there on a men's day. And then after you get hot enough, which doesn't take very long at that temperature, you walk out down this long jetty and it's winter and it's Cold. The air is cold. But it feels amazing now because you've been in, you've been sweating so much and you jump into the Baltic Sea naked. And that experience was profound in a lot of ways. Like, oh, this is so much better than being not. There's anything wrong with being in like a fitness club and going back and forth. It was so authentic. And you're around other people and even after getting out of that cold water, you were still internally heated to the point where there'd be these men just lined up on a bench outside, looking out at the sea, naked, just having a chat. And, uh, and I got it. I was like, okay, I see why this has become, you know, it's community. It, it's nature, it's stress release. You feel great. Like literally you just want to go take a nap afterwards. So I totally got it.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's beautiful. I remember reading the Finnish Way and they talked about that leveling of the playing field. Just when you're all naked, you don't know who's the mayor and who's the sales rep or whatever, you know, so you can just be people bumping around with people, with other people in beautiful nature. That sounds remarkable, but that. Does that take us. So you started with the Athletic Recovery and I swung you over to Finland. But take us on your journey. So where does this so from m. Athletic Recovery, like, how did you get into more of the. I mean, I know there's some ice swimming, so tell. Take us more into like where this goes.

Speaker C: So then it became, I'm going to report on this world and in particular look into the athletic, uh, competitive elements. Right? Because, uh, I think if you go polar plunging or go for a swim in a lake on a day, on a, on a chilly day, it's a wonderful experience and you, uh, you will enjoy doing it. But it's not necessarily that enjoyable to read an entire book about it. It's more like you do it, you don't necessarily read about it. And you know, Roger Deakin wrote an amazing book, Waterlog, about doing this through the uk. So I was drawn to the different communities. And so I, uh, you know, I went and looked at a community who is using this for mental health, essentially in the uk. And I was curious about the people who were doing this, perhaps to quiet some demons, the people who were the open water swimmers. There's a chapter that revolves around Sarah Thomas and marathon swimming. Uh, you know, amazing competitors like Elaine Hawley and the community element. But I felt like the, the Part that really got at the how and the why questions people have would be the ice swimming, because it is so extreme and it's not something you just do. And I was really curious about what drove people to do it and what they found on the other side of it. I'm always drawn to those kind of stories. And so for that, I started looking into, you know, the International Winter Swimming association, the International Ice Swimming Association. And at first it was all research and doing zooms and interviews. And eventually I got to the point where I was interviewing Joe Zamitis, who is the. Both an amazing marathon swimmer in the, uh, Marathon Swimming hall of Fame, and also had gotten the cotton with the ice swimming. So he's the US National Team coach for the. For ice swimming. And he was explaining to me, look, our. Our first U.S. nationals are coming up. This was in 2024. It's going to be outside of D.C. it's in a pool that's going to be chilled, you know, 40 degrees or so. And, uh, it's actually an open. So, you know, we're trying to encourage more competitors. So as long as, you know, you can pass a physical and you know how to swim, essentially, uh, you could compete. And if you're going to write about this world, you should probably try it. And that, for me was sort of the fulcrum where I was like, okay, he's right. You know, if I'm an outsider writing about this world where so many people have this base assumption that people are, you know, quote, eccentric or crazy, and you come to it and you just stay on the outside, you don't gain, um, authority with the reader, and then the reader can't experience it. So my hope was that by being an outsider who was not a swimmer, I've got terrible cold tolerance. I actually have ray nodes where, uh, your outside circulation in your fingertips and such goes almost immediately. So I was like, I can be this reader surrogate to take people through this. So I ended up starting to do this and training, and then I could explain to people both the benefits, the challenges, and then hopefully some of the psychology behind it.

Speaker B: Yeah, beautiful. Tell us what that was like without giving it all away. Of course we want to read the book, but I guess just in the vein of your swim story, maybe this takes us as a nice segue to where you had this. You grew up jumping in the Pacific. You grew up, um, backpacking and getting in lakes. And then the Raynaud, I think, is an interesting one, too, for I've run into people all the time that's a huge barrier, so maybe some little tidbits.

Speaker A: Have you ever noticed how the water shows you things about yourself you didn't know you needed to learn? My swimbound program isn't necessarily about swimming farther or getting tougher, though that often happens. It's about learning how to stay oriented when things feel uncertain. How to trust yourself in motion. How to build capacity without force. I'm exploring a new swim bound experience experience based on a houseboat on Lake Shasta. A multi month coaching program culminating in an in person swim experience. We'll spend our days swimming, connecting, resting and reflecting. Learning how to listen to our bodies, stay oriented and move with more ease in the water and in life. If this stirs something in you, email me shannon@intrepid water.com and let me know. I'd love to hear what you're curious about.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So I essentially I loved the water and I'd always grown up around the water. Uh, I'd never really done any swimming but I had when I'd have like a, a hip surgery, for example, you go to the pool, like that's where you go. But I never had any training around it. And I'll be honest, it was like a you know, sub, sub, uh, level pool at a YMCA in like 5ft of super chlorinated water with no natural light and you're sharing a lane. And I just didn't necessarily enjoy it. I didn't, I was like, oh, I'm just doing this to recover so I can play the thing I want to play.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: So I loved swimming in Lake Tahoe. Just for fun with your friends, you know what it might be. But I hadn't really connected it. So part of my training was the swimming part of it. And then part of my training was I better start acclimating to this water if I'm going to get into 40 degree water. And those were separate. And because I live in the Bay area, about as cold as it gets here is maybe 52 in the bay. It might get down to about 51, 52 in the winter which is plenty cold as anyone knows. Who's a, you know, if you're going to go, if you're going to try to swim for an hour in 52 degree water and you're built like me, like you're going to feel it for sure. But if you're going to try to swim in 40 degree water, I need to get colder. Um, so I found this like jury rigged cold plunge tub that I could order that's essentially A giant cooler. It's called a grizzly cooler, and people use it when they go, uh, deep sea fishing to keep their fish cold. But these two brothers in Texas found a way to jury rig it and add a filter and a chiller. And so it did the trick. It looks like I'm sitting in giant cooler, but it does the trick. So I could start getting cold plunging that way. And then I would go out at the bay. My daughter joined me. She was very, uh, brave and came along and handled the cold better than I did. And then Tahoe was the other place I could go to get decently cold water. So that was like the cold acclimation. And then the swimming was okay. I realized psychologically for me, I wanted to find an outdoor pool. So there's one around here in El Cerrito. Beautiful outdoor pool. El Cerrito is just a little north of, uh, of Berkeley in the Bay Area, across the bridge from San Francisco. And some of the lanes are deep. It's, I don't know, like 12ft deep. And the sun is out and everyone's out there swimming. And I really enjoyed that. I was like, okay, if I'm going to train, this is where I'm going to do it. I started watching videos from experts. I listened to your podcast. I just consumed as much information as I could about all this. I wanted to learn how to swim in the bay. You know, totally different challenges out there, which is natural for probably most of your listeners by now. But when you're starting out, it's like, oh, tides, current. Are the seals going to bite me? I don't know if they are. They're out there, uh, you know, and you're, and you're sort of figuring out, oh, how to sight, you know, I got to pop my head up. So all this was novel to me. I, uh, you know, I hadn't really done it in competitive way. So that was the lead up to, to sort of figuring out, you know, two parallel tracks, get your body ready for this water, and then learn how to be a decent enough swimmer that I don't totally embarrass myself when I show up at, you know, the US Nationals against people who have swam the Triple Crown. These are legends. You know, there's, uh, you know, Ching Lee, who's a, uh, ice iron woman. So she has done both, you know, an ice smile and, uh, an iron man. She just elite athletes. So that was my mindset going in.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow. Uh, did you, uh. I'm trying to figure out where to dig into this because there's the general prep. But I'm wondering about. So let's just talk about this. So you've the love of swimming, and then there's all these factors to getting in the bay, getting in Lake Tahoe. You know, it's like. But what are you doing to, like, I guess, adapt your semblance of a tech, of a swimming technique to. Are. You said you were consuming a lot. You're just taking YouTube videos and, like, go try that. Is that kind of how you're doing it at this pool?

Speaker C: Part of it. And it ends up being a chapter in the book about this. I also had a bad shoulder from years of, you know, tennis and throwing football, all that. So an arthritic right shoulder. So I found at first I was doing sprint training, where you put the head down and you go into that, you know, that Superman pose, and you just blast away. Uh, and I really enjoyed it, and it felt great, but not so great on my shoulder.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I had to find a way to start logging some more mileage without blowing out the right shoulder. So that was a separate challenge that I entered. So I was doing that simultaneously with just trying to understand, um, uh, technique that, you know, just the. The basic concept that you think kicking your legs a lot is a helpful thing, but it really matters how you kick your legs. And in some ways, if you're gonna do longer swims, you don't even want to kick your leg. All these counterintuitive things that you learn and the history of the crawls of stroke, it was all fascinating, you know, finding that it. A lot of it is about how you move through the water. Watching videos of people who did this. Well, uh, Effortless Swimming, which is a, uh, great, um, podcast and video from a Australian coach. He was super helpful watching it. Uh, I ended up going in training a little bit with Adam Walker, who had a similar experience with his right shoulder. In his case, biceps. Uh, and he still swam the ocean seven after doing it. And he has created a modified stroke that's not too dissimilar from total immersion, if you're familiar with that. Some of the people have come to this on their own. They call it the forever stroke, but it's really around body rotation and sparing the shoulder. And so that was helpful as well. So I'm just, like, consuming as much as I can and then testing it out and seeing what worked for me. And, you know, everybody's different.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's for sure. For sure. Some of the human instincts that we have, though, aren't different and the number of joints we have, you know, so it's fascinating to me, just like I said, as a, as what I run into coaching this stuff and coaching people for longer distances and keeping the shoulders safe and all of that. Um, I'm curious what events you chose to swim for your first national championship that's open to everybody. What did you decide to go for?

Speaker C: Oh, there was, there was no way I was going to try anything other than freestyle. I just didn't have the technique. So I did the 50, uh, free, the a hundred free, and then a couple relays, which were a lot of fun. I didn't expect the relays to be that much fun, but that chance to do an individual sport and have a team element was just. I really enjoyed that. Uh, yeah, so basically short sprints and. But you know, for me, the idea of a hundred meters in 39 degree water, that didn't feel short at all.

Speaker B: Oh, it's not really short for anybody. Yeah, yeah, there's a, there's a lot going on there.

Speaker C: Yeah, the sprint part was going to be fine. I wasn't worried about the swimming. It was just, okay, am I going to start hyperventilating? You know, what's going to happen? I never actually got a chance to swim in water that cold prior to going to nationals. The coldest I got was like 46 degrees in Lake Tahoe in the winter. And I remember it did not go well. I was like, I can't imagine doing this in A. Actually 40 degrees. One of the big differences though is I did that without a cap or goggles.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker C: And so there is a pretty big immediate reaction in the face. Your trigeminal nerve right here, among others. So it does help to have a cap and goggles on.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's very true. Um, uh, so let's backtrack to like. So you've got the open water elements for, for cold tolerance. Mainly the pool is where you're kind of honing your technique. And you mentioned some of the things about getting used to the, you know, like the, whether a seal is going to bite you, like the having to sight, you know, all these things. Were there any resources or consistent, like anything you found that kind of really supported you in that transition from like, okay, I want to do this, I need to get some cool to, you know, it's like. Or, or were you just kind of like, just try it, see what you find out.

Speaker C: So a lot was, uh, finding resources. So, you know, Lynn Cox has got an amazing Open Water swimming book. Uh, you know, Steve Minotona has wrote one as well. That's helpful. Dan Salmonelli down in, you know, so all this whole community that exists and you could find, you know, listening to your podcast, listen, I was trying to learn as much as I could. Uh, and then through the interviews. So obviously I'm interviewing people for the book. And the problem I ran into is when you interview, say, Joseph Midas, he treats this like it's just nothing. It's so easy. He's like, oh. And then I, then I swam 12 hours and I did this and it's like, wait, wait, wait, back up. You know, uh, so we gotta go, you know, micro. Let's go through this step by step. Explain to someone for whom this does not feel easy or familiar. So a lot of my process was trying to slow people down and say, let's return to before you did this. And so I found there was a lot of swimmers who came to this because they just always been in the pool. So they grew up around the pool and this was just something they did. But maybe there was a point where they moved to open water. So that was really interesting to me. Like, what took you from the pool to open water? Then there were people who hadn't uh, been swimmers and found a community where. Or found a late life sport. So they had a different track. And then there are some for whom it was more the. I have done X, Y and Z. I've ticked off these boxes, these amazing endurance challenges. Oh wait, there's something called a nice mile. You know, uh, uh, that's catnip to someone because there's only fewer than a thousand people in the world have ever achieved this. More fail than succeed. There's a personality type for whom it's like I'm in. I got to do that. Um, and there's personality types for whom it's like never in a million years what I wanted to do that probably the majority of, of human beings would have that response. So I was looking for those people for whom it was immediately like, yes, I want to do that.

Speaker B: It's interesting you point out that like tracking back, getting someone who's got all this experience to track back to. Like, but what was it like when you started? Or how do you get someone going in this? Because that in, in, in there. Like you said, Lynn and Steve, there's some great resources out there. But I think it's, it's still, it's hard when even with so much information to figure out like the first step. So how did you decide how much cold tolerance to do, how much pool swimming to do to get yourself to this, this. Yeah. Cold champion open water national championship.

Speaker C: Yeah. I would say the showers are the great start for anyone. You know, maybe you like swimming in a pool and you want to start with cold and the easiest way to do it is to go hot shower and then end on cold.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: If you go read the books that Ian Fleming wrote about James Bond, that's what he does in the, in the books. It's sort of like that little boost you get at the end. So that helps you serve the cold showers. Though interestingly, a cold shower I think is far less enjoyable than actually going into water. Yeah, it's only hitting part of your body. It's just not, it's not much fun, right?

Speaker B: Uh, yeah.

Speaker C: So you know, for me it was like, I'll go in the bay. I like going in the bay already. I enjoy swimming out there. Uh, so that was an easier way to enter. And then I still need to get down to 39 degrees. So that's the cold plunge tub that I got that goes down to 39. But even then you're really, you can't swim in it. You, you're just sort of sitting in there and it's like chilling a bottle of Gatorade or something and you're the Gatorade and so you go in it. Um, but it was combining the two that was the challenge and not being able to predict how my body, my swim stroke might change based on the physiology of getting cold. Uh, and one of the things you quickly learn is that all the usual impediments to swimming based on body type get essentially, uh, magnified by cold. So I'm relatively lean. So my whole fight all along has been keeping my hips up. I'm sinking in the water and in a sprint that's fine, it doesn't really matter. But anything longer, it's keeping my hips up. You know, keeping, keeping the head down, hips up is what I'm always telling myself. Uh, whereas if your body fat distribution is a little more equal, you know, men tend to get it just in their gut, which isn't very helpful. You know, women have a better distribution, so you're more likely to get to the point where you're sort of hidden, buoyancy, helpful, but all that, you know, you get in the cold and you're going to lose that, uh, power in, in your legs pretty quickly. Within you know, like five or six minutes, you're going to lose the feeling in Your fingers. So people talk about clawing up, you know, I'm not sure. I'm sure you've experienced it. Right. Where you. And, you know, and then, and then you're sort of just hoping your stroke looks good. So all those elements came down the line.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's crazy to think about the, uh, your, like for me to think about your, your journey. Do you, uh, want to. I want to. Did you end up. So you go to the National? I don't know if you want to take us there or if that's in the book or, or, or. I'm most curious too, like, have you been continuing on your journey and continue swimming, decide where you want to go from there?

Speaker C: Sure. Yeah. Like that's. I wasn't, I wasn't certain going in whether this would be a project that I took on for a number of years. And I've written about a lot of interesting little corners of the world. Um, uh, I wrote a long 10,000 word story on homing. Homing pigeons once. Right. I just, I'm fascinated by these cultures of people that are very passionate about something. I wasn't sure what it'd be like with, uh, with this ice swimming culture and in general, but I have kept swimming and I now find it is crucial both physically because I can play basketball, but then if I'm doing other training in the water, it's so much easier on my body. Uh, I really enjoy that, you know, moving meditation element of it when you get to a point where you feel comfortable in the water. And even if it's like half an hour, I can just sort of get lost a little bit and get in that flow state. So I enjoy that, uh, I enjoy the communal aspect, being out in nature and then the cold part of it. I really, I start every day in a cold plunge tub. And you know, I know some people love it, some people don't, but for me it really works. It will, it will be like, uh, you know, I've got teenage daughters, you know, they head off to school or whatever it is. You do a, you know, cold plunge, you start your day and that next two hours of work is almost always my most productive because your body is flooded with, you know, noradrenaline and dopamine and basically like opioids, but at the same time you are calm because your resting heart rate has gone down. So it's like a two hour window where I feel great.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So that. Help. I was going to ask what, what do you mean by works? But that helps me interpret that. Uh, I've heard of it. Also some people using it for more of kind of an active recovery, like midday or a reset to like. To like, get another kind of flow block. Have you ever tried it? More than once a day, for sure.

Speaker C: Like, I found sometimes I'm a guy who's literally writing a book about this, and I'll be like, stuck on something or I'll just feel crappy. And I'm like, I can look out my window at, uh. Like, the cold plunge is like, you know, you're the guy writing the book. Why don't you go do it, you know, or just get out of the house and go on a hike helps too. But go down to the bay, jump in the water, go to the pool, whatever it is. Like, hundred out of a hundred times, I feel better. It just. You gotta remind yourself that's how I'm gonna feel. And that's the biggest impediment to most people, I think, with this is it's really hard to predict how you'll feel about it. There's. Some people are like, oh, I just hate cold water, or I don't like swimming or whatever it is. And it's like, you may not like it when you first get in. You may not even love it when you're actually in there. But just report back to me, you know, 10 minutes afterwards how you feel. And if you don't like that, then it's not for you. But for most people, they will sort of grudgingly admit at first that, yes, I do enjoy. I'm glad I did that thing.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Are there people that you talk to who tried, like, some amount of cold plunging and, like, just. It just wasn't for them. There's like. It just. They had to find other ways to kind of clear their head and move forward.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. And I. Part of it. I was always curious about this because it. I'll be honest, the, uh, the cold. Getting into the cold was never that hard for me. I think partly because I grew up, you know, jumping in the bay and part. I don't know, I don't have, like, a really negative reaction to it. I can't stay very long. I'm not. I'm not great. I shiver a lot after, uh. But the actual getting in, I enjoy that. That burst. But for some people, it's genetic, so we're sort of genetically either a warm me or a coldie. And so for. If you are not someone who's genetically predisposed to this, it will be Harder. So it's easy for one person to say, hey, I did this. You know, why is it so hard for you? But they probably feel it very differently than you might. And they may not get the same benefit afterwards because psychologically it was so challenging for them that even though their body feels good, they're almost like psychologically like a tiny little slice of trauma for mystic experience. So when I looked into the recovery aspects with the Golden State warriors, for example, there were a lot of the players on the team who loved doing this. They do hot cold contrast therapy. Uh, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson. This is a few years ago. Uh, but there are two players where the trainer was like, I don't even recommend it for him. Uh, Andrew Wiggins is one and Kavan Looney was another because it was such a negative experience for them that it outweighed any physical benefits they would get from it. Like, it's like a little like shot of trauma in the middle of your day, which no one needs. Like you're opting into this.

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. That the mindset piece of it is fascinating to me. Even when I like started this podcast when it was Marathon Swim Stories, I've always wondered, is it like a switch that someone can just flick? And for some people I've worked with who are marathon swimmers and then they need to build some cold tolerance because they decide to go swim across Tahoe like it. They can just literally turn like a switch. And they hated the cold, they didn't like it. And then they're just able to start doing it and they put it in their routine and it blows my mind how easy it is for them. And then there's. But I know what you mean though. I've definitely met people where it would be more of a trauma, but I always want to track things back to like, but why, but why, why can't we all just mentally. I don't know if you get into any of that in the book. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think it's, it's very similar to. I have friends for whom running is just a really negative experience. They see everyone going jogging. They're like, good for them. But I just hate it. I never get the runners high. I'm never happy afterwards. And I think it's one of those inbuilt things where we're going to self select usually the easiest route. And so your, your choice is. Okay, easiest route might be sitting on the couch and watching Netflix like a, a well heated house. That's probably not good for us. So of the range of things that are going to be physically challenging and beneficial for us, let's pick the one that we also will find enjoyment in. And I think that's where, like the, you know, especially open water swimming seems to be a bridge too far for some people. Uh, and I can relate to this, where you're just like, what's beneath me? You're out there. There's other, you know, as Elaine Howley said, there's things with teeth down there. Uh, and, uh. And so you're. You're like, that part of it may just be a bridge too far, but there's other things you can do. You go swim in a lake, it could be a lake, and then you're perhaps less worried about that. So there's always, I think, derivations off of that. Uh, but I always, I was just curious in part about why it was that people would choose this particular endurance sport. And you can attest to this. I'd be curious your take, because it is such a radically internal experience. If you think about running, you can go with a running group, right? But when you go to a swim group, you aren't actually talking to them while you swim. Not only that, you're staring straight down. And if it's dark water, you're basically staring into darkness. You've, uh, got earplugs in, so you're not really hearing very much. And then if you do that for hours, it just like, there's no, there's no trees, there's no sunshine. There's no, you know, some people listen to music, but I wouldn't do that in the open water, obviously. So it has to be this really personal experience. And for some people that's. That's appealing, and for others it's not. So I'd be curious, your take on this sort of radically internal element.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. I can, I mean, as you're saying that I'm going through, like when I was in Loch Ness and the darkness versus when I swam Whiteu Kabuli was this. The length of this island in the Caribbean where it was more blue. It was like we were just too deep to see much. But, um, I. And I think. Yeah, I think, but. But personally, I'm just a radically internal person. So I like. And I've coached people who are much more social. And for them, sometimes the hardest bit of it is, is to not be socializing, uh, constantly. At the same time, though, it's like I crave the interaction with somebody at a feed time, like as short as it is and as short as you want it to be. Even just that check in. Even if it's. Yeah. Even if it's like 10, 15 seconds. It's like there's just, it's like this little like light of humanity and you're just like oh, okay, we're here, everything's fine. Because even in that 30 minute feed window it's like it goes, you can get pretty negative and just having like a uh, contact with someone else or there's people that'll sit on the boat and they just like look at you and they're smiling and it makes you smile inside. But it is, I think, but the like the peaks and valleys and like the whole experience, it is like uh, if that is what it is for me, like I just, I, I love that and I love how it brings together, I don't know, like the agelessness, quality of being in the water. And it's like the past, the present, the future, everything mixes together and you're just, you're just life. You're like living and watching the earth turn and the sun rise and say, you know, like to me like that's what it, that's what I do it for. Saying all that. I'm like, I gotta go swimming.

Speaker C: Yeah. You know, talking to Sarah Thomas about it, she talked about the idea of like uh, no one can reach me on the phone and there's no email. Like I'm fully detached from the things that might provide little stressors. And at the same time she talked about you know, the mental resilience and the comfort you get with yourself through it. Because she says there's nothing you can say to me that I haven't like thought about myself. It's essentially like years of therapy in the water. I've had the darkest thoughts you can imagine and I've worked them through and you come out the other side. And so I feel like the these swimmers I meet are incredibly mentally strong.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: I kept on being amazed by Jose again as an example. But you know, he's like multitasking. He's got, you know, infant children. He's a nationally king coach, he runs his own swim program in Phoenix, Arizona. Um, he pairs like he never sleeps and he was always here. Like he, I, I described as like an airplane pilot vibe in the book because I think partly because he's done all this hardcore marathon swimming, it's hard to ruffle the guy. Like he's, he's been through it all

Speaker B: that, that's when my kids were little and I was swimming across Tahoe nursing babies and all kinds of crazy things. Yeah, it was definitely like, the swimming balanced me out for the life with. With kids, because it, uh. I thought of it as, like, the bucket that I was filling for myself, you know, so that I could come home and be the best mom that I could be. But. But even then, it's like, yeah, you do. It's hard to ruffle you. You just. You just have this kind of baseline understanding I talk about with my swimmers. It's. It's. It's training, like, the highs and lows that you have in your life is training for the highs and lows that you'll have when you're in the water. So, you know, someone gets laid off or you're pick up a new job or your kid's sick, it's like, it's all mental training. I think, actually, that was from a book Travis Macy, um, he talks about. He has a book called Ultra Mindset. And it's. Yeah, it's all good mental training. And that was. That was, um, a good one for me to be reading when I was. My kids were really tiny. So. Yeah. Middle of the night, wake up. Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah, that was something, uh, Jerry Kennedy, the Irish ice swimmer, mentioned to me is, you know, he had gone through, like, um, you know, divorce, and he had his own hip replacement and sort of these midlife challenges. And his theory sounds like same as Travis's was essentially there. Some of the reasons that, uh, older people do so well in endurance sports is because they've gone through all these things in their life. And essentially, the more hard shit you do, the easier it is to do hard shit. You know, that this is like a muscle that you've built as you do this. And sometimes, you know, obviously we don't want to encourage bad things to. To go through in life or hard things. So that's one of the routes you can do if you're doing a marathon swim or a nice swim or whatever it is that you are. Essentially think of it as, like, training, I suppose.

Speaker B: Mm, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Well, man, I'm. I'm at a loss of what else to ask you, because I don't want to give away too much, and I just can't wait to read the book. But I don't know any other things that. Any other kind of big revelations or what surprised you the most. How about that? About your research?

Speaker C: I think it was the. The power of the community. I guess you sort of naturally think of swimmers as. It's an Individual sport. Right. So from the outside, my preconception was, oh, you know, Michael Phelps, like, these swimmers. And I'd Sure I'd heard of, you know, maybe like Diana Nyad and Lynn Cox, like, very much an outsider perspective where I wasn't familiar with this world, and I thought of people taking on big solo attempts or racing in a pool, and then you're super competitive against the people against you, and then actually come into this world. And it is like the most cohered community, like the group up in Vermont around Memphis Magog that Phil White has helped create. And all those people, oh, my goodness. Like, these people would, like, if you're like, you know, my so and so kicked me out, they'd be like, stay with me for six months, like, whatever. It's like, I have. I have rarely met a group of people that is as inclusive, as welcoming, and it doesn't really matter, like, uh, you're a swimmer. Come on in. Right. Uh, that continually surprised me. I think part of it might be, and you can speak to this far more than I can, but the element of crewing, you know, if you're gonna go for a run, you don't need four other people to go with you while you go for a run. I mean, maybe if you're doing like a crazy ultramarathon, right, you get a support van, but for most of us, you just go for a run and that's it. With a swim, like, you need people there who are selflessly caretaking for you and feeds a boat everything. In ice swimming, you need a second, it's called. And that's someone who watches over you and afterwards is probably going to strip your swimsuit off. Um, and so there's a level of intimacy you get to, like, very quickly, a reliance on other people. And it's like, that's hard to get in our. In our modern life, we're so, like, siloed and. And so that's the part that I was like, I'm coming back for that. Like, this community is amazing and they look out for each other. There's no expectation. You know, I don't think anyone's trying to get, you know, fame or glory out of this. It's just. It's sort of a communal vibe.

Speaker B: Yeah, the word coming to me is like, there's authenticity. Like, I think it was when I interviewed Michelle Macy. She talked about just being, you know, you're half naked, you know, jumping into, like, the. The coldest element, you know, like when she was speaking of, like, the English Challenge, that Means like you're just mostly naked jumping into the elements and the, you know, it's like you're, you're completely putting yourself out there. So people need to respond with kindness and, and openness and, and, and that is. Yeah. That just isn't. There's. There's more facades and other things. So.

Speaker C: Uh.

Speaker B: Yeah. I thank you. That that's my theory as to what builds that community is just that everybody is. We're so vulnerable. We're make, we make ourselves. So that's how I feel. I think in a big swim like that where you're completely trusting these people to look out for you and they're, and they're there because they love it. That not, you know, they're not. Like you said, they're not looking for anything. And it's blown me away at every turn that I've needed a crew and found people at the last minute and, and hardly knew them and. Yeah. And they're, you know, putting desitin on my butt or whatever, you know, before he goes like really? But, but there's nobody, there's just. Nobody thinks twice about it once when you're in it. But it, but it's an interesting thing trying to like, like to, to allow, to allow that right. As a human just, just to allow yourself to be that vulnerable. Yeah.

Speaker C: There are a couple people I met who specifically mentioned that they were caretakers in their life. They cared for others and uh, one of the reasons they particularly liked ice swimming and marathon swimming, but ice swim in particular is you get to a point where you literally need other people to care for you. Like if you were to try to swim, you know, a kilometer in that water and you get out and I, you know, I both witnessed this and experienced it myself. You get on that beach, like if there's not someone to take care of you and you're on. It's the middle of winter and you just got out of a 25 minute swim in ice water, um, you're screwed. And so you literally need these people there to take care of you. And so putting your. Voluntarily putting yourself in position if you care to take further people's where you are receiving care can be very hard to do. You know, it's hard especially in day to day life unless you get sick, which is not something that uh, obviously anyone wants to do. So this was a draw for them was to get to that point where you push past your limits and at the same time you knew people had your back. And it's like. Sounds like a very simple thing, but also a very powerful thing.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think I wrote a post once of like, called I can do it myself, because I've always thought I could do everything myself. And the reason that I keep going back to do really long crazy swims is to remind myself that I need people. I need.

Speaker A: And that.

Speaker B: And that. That I can't. I couldn't literally could not do it without them. I need them to get me, you know, because I, uh. Literally. Yeah. So. But to remind myself that I need other people and to quit thinking that I've got all figured out, you know, like, it's like, it seems obvious, but it. But it's an interesting thing. I think in. And maybe, you know, I grew up in the swimming thinking, you know, I could figure everything out, whatever, as in the, like in the solo sport, even though it's a team kind of mentality of competitive swimming. And it's just an interesting thing to just to try to break out of the thinking that I can do it. Yeah, I just, I'm much. I believe that we're the hive mind, but that doesn't help me in my day to day of thinking that I can figure out what do you think I need to do to whatever, put my podcast, whatever, whatever run my business, you know, so it's, uh, that little reminder.

Speaker C: I wonder if swimming in general attracts do it yourselfers.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, is there like a personality? You know, I. I wonder if that's part of it. And this is forcing those do it yourselfers to like, okay, this is going to be a team effort, even if only a little bit. The rest of your training, you can do it yourself. But, um, for this moment, you need a team.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: I don't know.

Speaker B: We'll have to. I'll be the next book, right? Chris?

Speaker A: Oh, man.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for your time today. I'm so excited to read your book and I really appreciate you sharing a little bit about what's in there. I feel like it's a little. It's a tidbit of like when I started this podcast, it's more like the marathon swimming. Like, why do people swim marathons? And I feel like that you. You're starting to answer that, so I can't wait to give it a. Give it a read.

Speaker C: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on. And also, as I mentioned, this was. This podcast was instrumental early on in helping me understand this world. So thank you for all that.

Speaker B: I appreciate that a lot. Thank you.

Speaker A: Chris, thanks so much for spending part of your day here listening to Stories from the Water. I know there are thousands of things vying for your time and attention, so the fact that you choose to be here, to tune into these voices, these experiences, truly means a lot. Stories help us understand ourselves, connect with others, and make sense of this wild, beautiful world. They're more than entertainment. They're lifelines. They're bridges. And sometimes they're the spark that keeps us moving forward. If this episode spoke to you, if it made you feel something or see things differently, I'd love it if you left a review on your podcast press provider or shared it with someone who might need it too. That's how these stories ripple out and reach the people who need them most. Until next time, take care and thanks for listening.