- What were the emotions that you felt,
that you cycled through?
(whooshing)
- This is where she gets the tears.
- They're coming.
(whooshing)
The entire swim is a bathroom break.
As far as I'm concerned. - Right, well.
(whooshing)
- In a fascinating turn of events Trainiacs,
No Triathlon Kim suggested that
I'm always up here yapping away,
and I might not be so very good
at communicating the vulnerable stuff.
And, as you might know, she is a former reporter,
so is good at asking the cut to the bone questions.
And since she suggested that she interview me
about the long swim, et cetera, et cetera.
So, uh, that's what's gonna happen today.
Alright.
Let her rip.
- Um, Okay. Where to begin.
Um, turn off the ringer. (cell phone ringing)
That's where to start.
- Always.
- Now, really, where to start?
I think, the key thing that I thought was maybe missing
from the long swim video,
and your day after long swim video,
was talking to the Trainiacs about the emotions
that you felt while you were swimming,
because you didn't just paddle for 10 hours
and then you were done,
you go through a lot during those 10 hours,
so, what were the emotions that you felt,
that you cycled through?
- Started out as, excitement in the first few hours.
The first two hours was, it felt easy,
in the video, I made a comment that
it felt like walking. - Felt like walking.
- And, I knew that around three and a half hours,
it would get tough, and it did,
but I didn't really realize the extent to the toll
it was gonna take on my body.
I knew that I was gonna be in pain,
and that there was gonna be a bunch of mental chatter,
but it was actually like,
it was so far beyond that pain and mental chatter that
I think the cold,
it basically skipped me through that elation and excitement,
and went all the way through pain, like, right away.
And, I think my body started actually shutting down,
and, before I could even really feel pain,
my brain started shutting down.
Like, I swam a ton of it with my eyes closed,
not because of any reason besides
I just couldn't process visual images very well.
I couldn't process people talking to me very well.
- And then something you said
in one of the radio interviews that you did,
was that you, that range of emotions included,
despair, sadness, fear, loneliness,
I don't think people necessarily think about that.
They just think about, "Okay, it hurts,"
and you're trying to say to yourself
"Keep going, keep going,"
but those, those were a totally different range of emotions
than I think people would expect you to feel.
- It was loneliness, it was sadness,
because I wasn't able to swim with Pat and Jacque,
and the whole point of this was to do it together,
and because my brain wasn't working,
I couldn't process "Okay, when I stop,
I know that I start getting frozen,
and I can't tread water for more than a few seconds
without having to keep going."
I was just upset at them,
because I thought that they abandoned me.
It's not a rational thought,
it's just, your basic emotions are happiness,
anger, sadness is maybe like a mixture of those two,
and you just take the most basic emotions that I had,
and that's all the thoughts that were going through my head.
It was never fear.
I don't really know how to describe it.
It was just a feeling of being alone.
- Mhmm. I think that's important to point out,
because when you listen to interviews with the pros
after Kona, and you ask Mirinda Carfrae,
"What was it that allowed you to make that amazing comeback,
and win the race?"
And she goes into sort of a pat answer
about just pushing through and other people
having a great race, and the motivation,
but you never hear about like, "I wanted to cry."
"It hurt. I felt lonely. I felt sad that
my teammates abandoned me." - I cried.
- Yeah, so, I think that's
important to hear, - I cried in my goggles.
- from someone like you,
because a lot of folks watching your videos
are trying to get motivation.
37 kilometers is an amazing feat, yes,
but he is still just like you guys,
and going through those emotions.
Cause a lot of people in the comments
were talking about, like,
"I'm gonna do 1,000 meters, and it's scary to me like that."
You might go through those same emotions too,
but you can push through, and that's important too.
- It wasn't that long ago that,
when I started originally swimming
with people like Pat and Jacque, and more elite triathletes,
that I realized how much further
in their training lifespan they were than I was,
and it was five or six years ago,
I ended up just completely dismantling my swim,
and swimming in the shallow end of the pool
for about three months.
Then it wasn't a matter of,
"Okay, I'm struggling just to stay afloat,"
and that was the biggest thing
that I had to be able to get over too.
To contemplate doing something like this,
and then once you do that, it's not a matter of like,
fear of water that I've got to overcome,
it's how far can I push my body.
- Pat had to pull out because he knows his body so well
that he knew hypothermia was setting in,
it was getting dangerous,
he couldn't even do the strokes anymore.
We could even tell from the boat it wasn't good.
Cause Pat's a machine.
One of the best triathletes in this province ever.
And to see him struggle, we knew something wasn't right.
So, he knew to pull out.
For you, you didn't have that,
you weren't going through that,
but you were going through,
"This is terrible, this hurts," et cetera,
what allowed you to keep going,
and bring that back, of course,
to the amateur triathletes here,
who might have trouble completing that sprint swim.
- So really good question
that I don't really have a great answer to.
The only thing that was going through my head
was such a basic thought of,
I recognized that it was difficult,
but there wasn't such a huge range of challenges.
I knew it was basically just me against me.
I wonder if the meditating that I've done over the last year
has helped simplify a lot of the variables and challenges
that could come into my head, because I remember,
the last long swim that we did,
there was so much chatter from all different sides of like,
pain, difficulty, - Quit, quit, quit, quit,
- fear, quit, nutrition, - quit, quit, quit.
- stomach. In this case, I tried to just break it down to,
"What are the things that I have to do to finish this?"
And it was putting one arm in front of the other,
and not stopping.
- But, I think a lot of people will ask you,
"Okay, that's great.
That's lovely to say 'Just don't stop.'"
What advice can you give to people, I guess,
is what I'm trying to ask,
who are saying "Okay, that's awesome,
how can I not quit like you didn't quit?"
- That's really tough,
cause I think that it's different for everyone.
I think that everyone has to find their reason to not quit.
A charity, or whether it's your family,
or whether it's your kids, or personal satisfaction.
In my case, it was having thousands of people
all around the world that I could motivate,
and celebrate with,
and that sense of accomplishment that I could
share with a lot of people. - Too many people to let down
if you stopped.
- No, it wasn't so much that.
It's not that I didn't want to let people down,
it was, I wanted more people to succeed.
(cheering)
Now, you and Melissa craftily edited this out,
but when you got out of the boat,
your mom was the first one to come and give you a hug,
and both of you started sobbing.
This is a man, in all the years I've known you,
I've seen you get teary, like twice.
- This is where she gets the tears. They're coming.
- Um. So, your mom hugged you, and you sobbed.
- That happened when I hugged her, and when I hugged you,
when I hugged my dad, um, pretty much everyone.
That collage of so many emotions, of happiness,
of having no reason to be afraid anymore,
I don't know what is the one thing.
It's overwhelming and uncontrollable at that point.
- What did it mean to you, though,
to have all those people on shore waiting for you,
your aunt and your cousins showed up,
and your mom came towards the end
to make sure to be there for the finish.
And really, having your dad and brother with you for,
almost all of the day, cause they ran the support boat,
and gave him his nutrition every thirty minutes.
They were his boat.
We were ahead with Jacque and Pat in the other boat,
and I was doing all the shooting.
They were in a smaller fishing boat,
so there wasn't really room
for me and all the vlogging equipment.
- Having your parents there, I mean,
years and years of memories
that all bubble to the surface during times like that.
It's overwhelming to have parents there,
to have my brother there,
who hasn't really ever been a part of anything
that has been triathlon or endurance related,
it's not his bag.
And have him to share that with, that was really cool.
Pregnant sister.
- Mhmm. Waddled along the shore. Poor Kara.
- Waddling along the side of the shore.
You there supporting me.
That flood of emotion that you get to share that experience
with the people that are closest to you.
I mean, that's part of the why.
Knowing that I wanted to have that feeling at the end.
You don't get that with a win at work,
or a promotion, or an awesome phone call from a client,
you get that from coming from the lowest lows
and getting to the highest highs
with the people that are most important to you right there.
Like hell yeah, I'm gonna cry.
- It's funny when you told me after,
that Barry, your dad, and Jessie, your brother,
were both, "You got it! You're doing great!"
every time you went up for nutrition,
and you were like "Yeah."
Cause you just don't have - Yeah.
- the brainpower to sort of process,
or respond in any other way, and hopefully,
I would think everyone on the boat sort of understands
that you don't have much to give back,
even when we're cheering you on "You're doing awesome!
Not much longer!" Whatever, and "Mm." Is the answer.
- Yeah, that's about what you can give at that point.
You don't have anything besides
the energy to focus on the next swim stroke.
And even eating is difficult. Those treats that I had,
they were good, they tasted good,
but getting the brain cells around "Okay, I have to eat,"
like, you're not even there to enjoy it.
So, it's hard to enjoy - Mhmm.
- that time with your family while you're going through it,
and it all builds up, - Mhmm.
- in a big bag of tears at the end.
- Mm. Couple of quick questions,
what part of your body was most sore during,
and what part of your body is most sore after, now?
- Most sore during, was back of the neck,
from looking up and sighting, constantly.
It was every, early on, just kind of naturally, I sight
every about, three or five strokes.
And then, towards the end,
because I was swimming basically with my eyes closed,
it would be every tenth or twelfth stroke.
And it hurt a lot.
Right now, - Oh yeah, you've talked
- this. Wrist. - about the wrist.
- I think wrist is sprained. - And we don't know why.
- Yeah. Don't know why.
- You also said though,
your abs are sore from all the kicky kick.
- Yeah.
- Kicky kick. Technical term. - Yes.
Abs aren't bad right now.
- Oh no? - They were kind of crampy,
more just fatigued, during the race.
- There are a lot of questions,
and they were asked on the radio as well today,
about bathroom breaks.
There were no bathroom breaks,
this was a continuous swim - The entire swim
is a bathroom break - Right. Well.
- as far as I'm concerned.
- But you didn't use your wetsuit as a diaper.
- Jacque did.
- No, Jacque didn't. - Oh, right. (laughs)
- Jacque peeled his wetsuit off.
But anyway. While swimming. Never stopped swimming.
But what happens? Like, how?
You didn't need to empty your bowels, basically.
So how does that happen?
- Like when you pee?
- No, I know what happens when you pee in a pool.
How is it that your bowels,
that you ended up going 10 hours without needing to.
- Because so much of your blood flow is in your arms,
and your legs, keeping them mobile,
there's not enough blood in your stomach,
in your digestive system, to push anything through.
And because you are fueling on liquids already,
it wants to come out as a liquid.
- Why then, does this happen
to long distance marathon runners,
where often, their bowels release at the end?
- Gravity.
- Oooooh, gravity. Interesting.
- Don't have gravity, swimming.
- Okay, how did the water taste?
It was quite dirty as everybody could tell.
- Taste like a lake. Taste like a lake with a bunch of dirt.
- Yeah. Cause it's a clay bottom.
That's why the water looks that way,
the red river in Winnipeg has a clay bottom.
- Jacque and I, we both looked blue after,
as a combination of being really cold and actually blue.
But also, having, like gray clay in our face.
- Mhmm. Don't have any other good questions.
Anything else you'd want me to ask you?
(mumbles)
They were asking about wet suit stuff.
- Chafing on the wetsuit happened there,
and I think back there.
- Yeah, no, you've got one little.
- Oh, that's actually not too bad. Oh and here.
- Oh yeah. Right there. Ooh, it's quite eh.
- Did you chafe? Yep. How do you deal with it?
Lots of BodyGlide and just accept that it's gonna happen.
- Well yeah, they BodyGlid?
- BodyGlid.
- Glid up quite substantially before they got in the water,
just running those. - Oh yeah.
- People were asking about your next big adventure,
you talked prior to the race about it usually
being about a three year cycle,
that you're not gonna want to do anything
this painful for another three years.
You guys have joked about like a long bike ride
to a really far off location in the province,
but what, actually, would you wanna do for a next,
for an encore?
- The absolute next thing I wanna do is a half IronMan,
just get back to being a triathlete,
maybe end of October, beginning of November?
And next big thing, I don't know.
It actually does not seem like
it's gonna be three years away.
- What is that supposed to mean?
- That means that I'm actually kinda feeling very empowered,
and motivated to do something sooner
than three years from now.
- We're gonna have to have a chat about that.
- That's a good place to end it!
Hopefully I'm here tomorrow
for another edition of Triathlon Taren.
Thanks, Trainiacs, and thank you, N. T. K..
- Bye.
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