Open water swimming

And have you always been into the outdoors? Have you always been into swimming? You know, what were your early years like?

No, I've always swum in the sea, like with my family, and back then we just called it swimming, not this wild swimming that we talk about now.

It was just swimming at the beach.

But I've never really got into it in like a swim all year round in cold water kind of crazy way until I was kind of in my 40s really and, and moved out to a small village in the countryside and just got a new, whole new outdoorsy life.

So I think when I found the swimming community and the outdoorsy community in general, I literally had this feeling of, ah, I've found my tribe, because anecdotally I've found a lot of outdoorsy people are neurodivergent because I think being outside just attracts us crazy people.

[laughs]

So take us back to sort of getting into that swimming routine and doing, go, you know, going wild swimming, like your experiences of it and what you enjoyed and what it made you feel like.

I first of all got into paddleboarding, which I think quite a lot of people did during lockdown.

[waves crashing] Welcome to The Science and Art of Open Water Swimming.

Today I'm joined by one of the most accomplished and respected figures in Australian marathon swimming, Barbara Pelec.

Barbara's achievements in the water span more than three decades.

In 1994, she became the first woman to complete a double crossing of the Rottnest Channel, opening the door to what many thought was impossible.

Her swimming journey has also taken her around the world.

Barb was the first West Australian to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, with successful crossings of the English Channel, Manhattan Island, and Catalina Channel.

Along the way, she's completed more than 50 marathon swims without recording a single DNF, an achievement that speaks volumes about her preparation, resilience, and determination.

More recently, Barbara has embraced the challenge of ice swimming, becoming the second Australian female to complete the extreme Ice Mile challenge, proving that her appetite for adventure remains as strong as ever.

All right, let's switch gears entirely.

We're still going to be talking about fast swimming, but not in a pool and not in a normal open water race either.

It's in open water, but you probably know what I'm talking about.

Caeleb Dressel was just on the Blacktip, Blacktip H. There's a capital H at the end of the YouTube channel, and I don't know how that works in the pronunciation.

Blacktip, uh, YouTube channel where he was attached to a harness and varying rods with increasing amounts of drag as he would battle against, you know, the kind of They're, they're providing really interesting commentary on what equivalent of a fish, like what you would use this kind of drag for as they have Dressel hooked up to it and he is just swimming against this fishing rod.

So the thoughts came back much later.

So with, um, with the second wave of swimming competitively as a masters, in a masters squad, um, and then having the experiences of longer swims, of open water swims, um, yeah, so that changed...

I think that changed the approach.

And also, of course, what we both do, the coaching.

[laughs]

Yeah, yeah.

When did you get back in, get into open water racing and things? Was that part of your master's, like, journey, or is that early coaching journey or-

Um, yeah, it start...

And I'm joined this week by Fran Berry.

Uh, Fran is a regular with us at Open Water Swimming at Merchant Taylors.

Um, I hate to sort of summarize-

[laughs]

My mom was always in...

My parents have always encouraged us to swim.

So my mom's a very big swimmer, so she does a lot of the open water swimming.

And she's actually recently, last week, she did her first 4K event, um-

Kingsbarns is, is just a few miles down the coast from, from St. Andrews, the town where I live.

I've been very aware, uh, having lived here now for 40 years, of the enormous, uh, upsurge in interest in wild swimming, outdoor simmings, sea swimming, people call it by different names, which has really taken off, particularly since the pandemic and is seeing the revival of a lot of the outdoor swimming pools on the coast, which were actually derelict for, for decades.

I also begin because, for me, wild swimming is possibly the new British religion.

7 million people are regularly engaged in it around the British Isles, mostly in the sea, but some in, in rivers and lochs and, and lakes.

That's double the number of people who regularly go to church.

And when I have talked to these people and interviewed them, I think a lot of what they say they're getting out of wild swimming is deeply spiritual.

They talk about connecting with something bigger than themselves, feeling they're part of a, a much wider universe, feeling they're connected to other creatures in the sea, uh, feeling they're very much living In the moment.

And also, if they are grieving, um, that actually they're able to let their tears mingle with the salt water.