Welcome to the two talk try podcast. I'm your host Bella and I'm Sierra and we're so excited that you're here. We are age group triathletes that are looking forward to bringing you tools resources and triathlon stories each week. Most often mom will be hosting the interviews since I'm busy with work in nursing school. But every once in a while Bella will host an interview as well. Either way we are excited you are here. Head on over to our website to genstry.com for all of our free triathlon resources. And now let's start today's episode. Hello everyone and welcome to two talk try at triathlon podcast. I am your host today Sierra and I'm really excited. I'm joined by Katherine who is a swimmer. You guys we are gonna be talking about swimming today which I think everyone is going to be really excited just to tune in and to listen to Katherine tell us about her journey in the swim world. She's a triathlete as well and so Katherine thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me Sierra. I'm very excited to be on a triathlon podcast. Yes this is great so you have quite the resume. I'm gonna read a couple of the things off for people because they need to know that you're a legit swimmer. Your resume includes double or NCAA team titles Pan American golds ultra marathon swim records so this girl swims a long way. And a lot of other individual records overall long distance swimming. You are self-proclaimed lover of cold water and open water. So tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you start with swimming? How did you get into it? And when did you transition into the world of open water competition? Yeah absolutely. So I started swimming when I was four years old joined summer league swim team and loved it. When I was nine I'd asked my mom can I just do swimming and she's like absolutely. And so really just love the water loved the sport of it and that afforded me a full ride scholarship to UC Berkeley. While there I competed on the US national team and our team one two NCAA division one titles. And then after I graduated I still loved the water. I grew up sailing in the bay all around the Pacific surfing. Wishing had always been my happy place. The water had been my happy place and I still love swimming. I didn't want to race swimming anymore. I did not want to look at a black line. I did not want to be tied to these times I did when I and I discovered the Dolphin Club. The Dolphin Club is an open water swimming rowing club based in San Francisco. And I started joining some of their club swims. They're like one to three mile swims usually with the current. They're very fun. And the people there started noticing I was pretty good at swimming but not only that I was tolerant of the cold. I enjoyed the dynamicness of the ocean and the bay. And so they're like you should do the English Channel. And I said that's insane who swim 21 miles. I hated the 5k in college. Why would I ever swim 21 miles? And enough peer pressure and encouragement I decided to go for the length of Lake Tahoe as my first ultra marathon swim in 2017. And I was the first person to break nine hours in that swim. So my first ultra marathon swim I set the record for like Tahoe which was 21 miles. And that started my ultra marathon swimming journey which is kind of now a little bit of triathlon this year. And yeah, I love that. Okay, so there was one swim that I saw somewhere. I think it was on your Instagram. It was 28 miles without a wetsuit. What swim was that? So all of my swims are without wetsuits. Oh, wow. Okay. The rules are we follow English Channel rules in this sport which is bathing suit one cap goggles. I've done a few 28 miles swims around Manhattan. But most recently I swam from the Golden Gate Bridge to Half Moon Bay. And that was a first attempt at that route. And that was about 12 and a half hours down the coast of California. Okay. So tell us I've always been curious about a crew with something like this. So you don't go out there all by yourself and swim 21 miles, right? You have people with you? What does that look like? And how do you find a crew? Yes, crew is so, so important. And I think crew and your friends and your support system for whatever activity you're doing, it's important you pick the right people, people who have some experience in it. I always say don't pick family because I think with family, your filter comes off a little bit like you can be a little bit more testy with family. And but with your friends, you're maybe a little bit nicer, like a little talker and your gentler in your language. So I think people who are experienced, people who have done crewing before, not family. But what the crew looks like for these swims is we'll have a boat pilot. So captain co-captain, they'll be an observer to ensure we're doing that legally following rules. Okay, there'll be someone who is in charge of me and giving me my food every 30 minutes, making sure I'm okay. And then typically a kayak, kayakers. So depending how tough the swim is, what challenges we are foresee taking place, the crew could be anywhere from like five people to nine people. So it is, yeah, I did have my mom on one of my swims. And she was stellar. She did amazing. And she was actually like the only person who didn't get seasick. But it was, yeah, but that's the only time I've had family on a swim. So speaking of being seasick, do you ever get sick when you swim? I've gotten seasick once. I don't get seasick ever. But this swim in particular was Catalina to sure. So 21 miles. And the wind and the waves were going in opposite directions. And it just made for this like weird washing machine. And so I did get a little seasick. But I just pushed through it. And it's subsided. But that's when was part of the uber man. I didn't uber man relay. So the uber man is a swim from Catalina, a bike, 400 mile bike to Death Valley. Okay. And 135 mile run. I've never heard of this. Okay, crazy. So I did that as a relay. And I did the swim portion. And we ended up breaking the record, I think, by 42 hours or something insane like that. That's amazing. Oh my goodness. So tell me what you think of triathlon. You are swimmer by nature. You do triathlons as well. Do you hate? Let me ask you this. Bella would ask if she was here. Do you hate the running? Because most swimmers do not like to run. I hate it. I don't think I hate it. It's definitely the hardest on my body. It's the least favorite where I'm like checking the watch every five minutes. When is this over? Um, it was kind of a mistake getting into triathlon for me. I never thought about it. I mean, it's kind of a long story. I'll try to keep it short. But someone I was dating wanted to do a full triathlon, an Ironman. And so I fully supported it. And I was like, great, let's do one during Thanksgiving. In Mexico, let's do Cosmo make a vacation of it. Yep. Anyways, he was like, well, you have to do it too. And I was like, I don't want to do a triathlon. Like, I'm a swimmer. I don't want to do a triathlon anyways. So we ended up separating ways. Totally good. But he I continued training because I was like, I've already paid for this. I'm going to I'm going to do it like whatever. What was the worst that happens? It's a vacation in Mexico. Um, and so my first full Ironman, really my first triathlon was a full Ironman in Cosmo. I love it. And they canceled the swim. Oh, no. Oh, no. And my bike, some really complicated issue with the di two battery shorting. And so I had no shifting on the entire bike. Okay. Like, what am I doing here? But I put my head down. And I was like, if I can do these swims for 12 hours, like I can be tough. I can be tough today. I know how to be tough. And so, um, put my head down. I pushed way more walks than I meant to. And then on the run, I actually even split my marathon. And that was the first marathon I'd ever ran. And got started and qualified for worlds. And I was like, Oh, well, I guess I'm going to do triathlon next year too. So I've had some fun this year doing 270.3s and the escape from Alcatraz all in preparation for worlds this year. So are you going to New Zealand? Nice. Nice. You are going to need. Okay, that's amazing. I have a fellow triathlete that will be there as well. I'm so excited. I, I qualified and more obey for New Zealand. And I was like, Oh, I wish I could go to New Zealand too. But I can't do that with work. But I'm very excited for Nice. I think the course is similar to where I live in Marin, like a lot of hills. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about the mental toughness, because I think that's really the biggest thing that a new triathlete has to conquer when they get into the sport of triathlon with the swimming. It's scary. And when you go into open water, it's scary. And so you had mentioned, when you got to that first Ironman and everything was going wrong, and you couldn't even start with the sport that gave you confidence, you knew that you could do hard things. And you pulled on that mental file and said, we can do this. So talk to us about mental toughness. That doesn't just happen overnight. What are some things that you do to help yourself be mentally tough? Yeah, I, I first do want to go back to that event. I didn't just say, Oh, this swims canceled. I'm going to put a smile on it. I'm going to be tough. No, I had like felt tears in my eyes. My friend who was there, I said to him, what's the point of me being here? I don't even want to do that. And he was like, Catherine, everything's falling apart right now. All you have control on is what's in between your ears. It's your choice. If you want to quit, quit. But I don't I don't think you do. And so when he said that I snapped out of it, I was like, yeah, like this isn't you. And so then I started biking. And I actually passed one of the challenged athlete partner, you know, and so someone was towing the challenged athlete. And I saw that and I was like, Oh, yeah. Okay, they're inspiring me like you've got this. So I think mental toughness to circle back to it. You're not always tough. And I think that's a that's make pretend to think someone's always tough and always have grits like you're going to have challenges and it's how you overcome it. So how did I get there? I think just as a kid, I add a lot of resiliency and strength mentally, but then I've developed it over the years in my training. A couple things I tell I do coach athletes for ultra marathon swimming. So there's a couple of things I tell them is like, one, don't negotiate with if you're, if this is your workout, if you need to do an hour and a half long run, or if you have to do an hour swim, don't cut it to an hour 15 don't cut it to 45 minutes like, do what you said you were going to do. And it's something I've trained myself to do is if I'm really, really, really don't want to do the workout, I make myself do two or five minutes extra over kind of as like not over till it's over. So don't negotiate with yourself as one. And then the second thing is in training, you have to meet yourself, you have to meet who you're going to be in your hardest moments. And you have to put yourself in really tough training situations. And I have done that I have done back to back overnight, four hours swim from eight to midnight, wake up at six and swim from seven to 11, you know, and 50,000 yards in two days of swimming. And I have done crazy things because I want to know who do I become when things get really tough. And I want to do that during training. And so that when it happens during the event, I'm like, Oh, I've been here. Okay, this is what happens. You get a little upset, you get a little angry, you get frustrated, you think about your training and you pull yourself out of it. So those are my two things, meet yourself. Like meet yourself that you're going to be in your hardest place in training and then don't go shave it yourself. So those are my two big pieces of advice. Yeah, and those are pieces of advice we use every day. Like this is a one time thing, like you said, you didn't get to that race and suddenly be able to draw on something that a reserve that you had never built, you had built that reserve over many years and many moments of frustration being, you know, scared, if you will, tired, anxious, all of those things but pushing through. I love what you said about meeting yourself where you're at. And just understanding that yes, you're going to be frustrated or yes, you're going to have those thoughts that creep in. But you've done it in the past. And so you do those hard things in the workouts when no one's watching so that you know that you can do them. You also mentioned you had a really good friend there. I think that's important that we surround ourselves with encouraging people. So talk to me about what it's like to be an athlete of this level. What kind of people are around you? How do you find those people that encourage you? They know you're a little nuts and maybe they wouldn't do it, but they're encouraging of what you do. My friends totally think I'm nuts. And they encourage every single little bit of it to the point where one of them last week was like send me your training schedule so I can try to come and work out with you because I want to support you. And she's not a triathlete at all. And I was like, that's amazing. So I currently train at the Olympic club, which is a athletic and country club kind of thing in the city in San Francisco. It's the oldest athletic club in the US actually. But they've done a good job building their athletic repertoire of recruiting D1 athletes. So the swim team there and the triathlete team there are very good. And I find that surrounding myself with people who are a little better than me are doing harder things. I start to see that's those sparks of potential within myself. And so we feed off of each other's energy. And so I do think it's really important to surround yourself with with people who are doing similar things, or at least support your support your crazy, your crazy. Yeah, yeah, I think that's so important. You could have had a friend along that said, Oh, yeah, you know, let's just let's just party. We'll just have fun. We'll just watch it. And we all have those people in our life. They're not bad people, but they vision that we do. And so it's so important to have those people that say, come on, come on, Catherine, like, you know why you came? You would not be happy with yourself. Let's go. That's yeah. Yeah. So you coach, I want to talk about your coaching. You coach swimmers. What is your sweet spot or what is your club? Typical client look like? Yeah, so my sweet spot is this. So right now I have one athlete training for her first 10k, one training for a 10 mile swim, 10 mile swim, 10k swim, and then a sprint triathlete who wanted to focus on the swimming. I'm not a triathlete coach. I do not want to pitch that at all. But I do coach athletes wanting to get into marathon swimming, doing anything from a 5k and longer. I coach on training peaks very much like quality over quantity, some stroke work. And I coach in the way that I train in that you've got to be flexible with life. It doesn't have to be rigid and you have to have fun. You have to be enjoying the process or it's it's not worth it. Life's too short to do something for 18 hours a week or 15 hours a week that you don't enjoy. Yeah, so interesting. So if someone came to you and they said, Hey, I really want to do a triathlon. But I'm so scared of the swim. What would you tell them? What are some tips? Yeah, I would tell them to join a master's program or join an open water program. The ocean is scary. Like for a lot of people, the ocean is very scary. I'm fortunate that I grew up and have been a water baby and in the ocean for as long as I can remember. But for people that haven't been afforded that opportunity, the waves, the currents, the sand, the temperature, everything is, it's not consistent. You know, you don't get enough sure you're on the road running or you're on your bike or swimming. It's the ocean is crazy. And so I definitely join a group or have a friend and start small. You do not need to start with a 30 minute swim. Start with 10 minutes. I mean, I even do that sometimes I'm like, I want to go swim 500 yards in the ocean. And that's it. And then the third thing is once you start feel comfortable in the ocean, go body surf. I actually think body surfing is a nominal way to get comfortable with the ocean because body surfing when you actually catch that wave and you ride it, it's like riding your bike downhill, it is so fun. And so now you're feeling joy from the power of the ocean, you're learning how to duck dive under the waves, how to go on top of them. So, um, yeah, go with a friend, start small and try some body surfing. That is such a good tip body surfing. I love that. So, and if you are doing open water swimming in a lake, if that's what you have access to probably just get in and enjoy the water, just making yourself do yeah, like, it does not always have to be a workout, you know, it's I sometimes and I don't want to do a swim workout, I go surf and I'm like, Oh, that kind of counts. I'm moving my arms. So, yeah, you got to have fun with it. I love that. Okay, so what is on the horizon for you as far as competition? We know you have niece. What else? What else do you want to accomplish what's on your athlete bucket list? Yeah, so I have a couple swim races this year, Waikiki rough water swim. Oh, which of that have you done it before? I've done it many years. I would highly, highly recommend it. And it's actually the original course, the original swim course for Ironman came to me. So I would highly recommend it for any swimmers that maybe want to get more comfortable and open water sign up for an open water race, such as Waikiki. And I believe there's a fin division. So even if you don't think you're ready to swim that distance, you can wear fins. That's great. Yeah. So I've got that race. And then the Olympic club team, we have a race on Saturday, Trans Tahoe. That's another fun relay and Maui channel, Ironman Worlds. And then next year, I'm going to go back into my ultra marathon swimming with a pretty big goal. But if people follow me, they'll find out what the goal is in 2025. And then an even bigger insane huge, huge, huge project for 2026. Something that's never been done before. But I don't feel ready to share it yet. But okay, we'll have you talk about it when you're ready. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's pretty exciting. Yeah, that's so great. So world championships this year, some fun swim races for you. And then we're going to be building to some really exciting projects in 2526. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so everybody always asks, what's your favorite part of the triathlon? Is it a given that they could say swimming? Or did you find another part of the triathlon experience that you love? The trial and experience. Let's see. I have really enjoyed lining up at the swim at the start. Again, I am so new to this. Like I've only done three Ironman's events. But at the starts, everyone's been really nice and friendly in the camaraderie's fun. So definitely the swim aspect. I do really like on the run when you're kind of seeing the same people back and forth on the looped courses. And there's positivity there. I think where I'm like a little peeved with triathlon. I know this isn't your question, but I go out of the water first and I'm on a bike and I'm in aero. And every man is passing me. And I'm like, can you please just say on your left? Yes. Let me know you're passing me. But there's a couple guys. Sebastian is, I forgot his last name, but he's like a very good age grouper. And he is, we've done two races together and he is so kind. And he passes me and he's like, Cat, nice job on the swim like, good, keep up the work. So I love that. I love the camaraderie. I want to see more of it. But yeah, I think camaraderie has has been my favorite part, you know, yeah, you know, that's a great reminder, because yeah, you come out of the swim first. And so just to have the kindness of being like, Hey, great swim. I'll see you at the end or you know, whatever. Yeah, you had a long time. Right? Like, I would enjoy that, you know, on the run, because the run so hard for everyone, regardless of their level. And to the day, it's just tough. And when those people that you know are struggling as much as you pass you in, they're like, good job, keep it up. Like, there's just something so awesome about that. And so I think, you know, I try to do that when I'm when I think of it. And I'm not dying. Yeah. But it's a good reminder for all of us, like how that can just give that little energy boost to someone to be like, Hey, I love good job. I say Kristin Jenny connect us. I think so. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So she, I remember when we were at Cosmo, the start was all over the place, right? Because there was no swim. Yeah. And so it's like a time trial starter, whatever it's called. And she flew by me on the bike on the third lap. And I was pushing over 200 Watts. And she just like, I was standing still. And I'm like, who is that girl? Like, I'm so amazing. Yeah, I saw her on the run a few times and on the last loop. And again, I have no idea who she was like, I had never met her on the last loop. I saw her like walking like slow jogging for a second. I yelled over, I was like, you've got this, you have to keep running because you have to run because I need to see running so I can run for myself. Like the whole thing, whereas like yelling at this girl, I don't know because she was inspiring me. And yeah, so then we kind of have become friends. And so I love that. Yeah, I know I had an experience like that at Arizona half 70.3. On the bike, it was one of those where you you're just you get in a group with someone and you kind of have the same pace and you're bouncing. I'm ahead. Yeah, I'm going to get awkward. You're low again. Hello. Yeah. What's your name? Where you from? You know, each time you pass because you're like, I gotta say hi. And then we ended up doing the same thing on the entire run. So I had not trained myself at all to run through the aid stations yet. So I would walk so I was faster, but I'd walk. She would run them. She'd get ahead. We just bounced back and forth. But it was so much fun because she's like, let's go. Or I'd say keep on going. She ended up beating me in. But those yeah, we became friends. We're friends on Instagram now. And that's something that I do love about triathlon. I think there are just those gems of people out there on the course and you meet them. And yeah, it's just fun to encourage. Yeah. Yeah, I don't get that in my marathon swimming. It's very right. It's just me. It's me and my crew and like you finish this thing. You touch the other side of the land wherever you're going. And a lot of times no one's there. It's like, yeah, all right, I guess I go home now, you know, so that that's I've enjoyed. I've enjoyed this a lot. So three questions left for you. The first one is what do you talk to yourself about? For all of those hours in the water? Yeah. Oh, it depends. I think I get very cerebral of how am I feeling? How is my stroke feeling? How am I catching a water or my hips up? When are you eating next? So it's this constant checklist. Okay. I also, I kind of say just blackout, to be honest, like there are portions where I just shut my brain off. And I don't quite know how I do it. But it is, it is off. And I don't remember periods of time. And I think it's an energy saving mechanism, a little bit on iron man. Oh, iron man is a lot of positive self talk because that run is so hard. Yeah, but at least with iron man, like I get a look at my watch and my pace. I cannot look at that when I'm doing ultra swims, no watches allowed. Okay, I did not know that. Yeah. So for the iron man distance and half iron man distance, watching my pace helps kill the time to. But yeah, so kind of self talk body check ins, a little bit of brain blackout. But yeah. Yeah. And that's why you train all of the hours of training because you're training that piece too. So good. Okay, two last questions for you. What's a word of advice or a piece of counsel you've gotten from a friend or a mentor, a fellow athlete at some point that has stuck with you and you use over and over. This one is maybe a little bit more life advice. But my coach in college always said she wanted us to be strong women strong leaders and to have fun. And if you were doing those two things, the results would come. So that has helped me professionally and in my sport is that if I'm being inspiring, or if I'm being a leader, or if I'm being a good teammate, and I'm having fun, the results are going to come. So that one I said that sticks with me quite a bit. Yeah, that's so neat. That she said to be a good leader too. So you're also thinking of others. Yeah, you can invest in others as your home, you know, fine honing your own craft. That's really neat. What's a resource that you'd like to share something that you've used a book or a podcast, something that you would like to share with the audience that they could use to help as they're training. Oh, I don't know if I shoot. I do know my swim pro a lot of people really like that's when okay training on a resource I like this might be cheating. But just my swim coach like my coach and my teammates on using them as resources to ask, you know, being at the Olympic club people specialize in different strokes and different distances and the coaches have coached a lot of people. So watch my stroke. My hands doing something funky. What should I do different? Like, I think even though I've been swimming for 28 27 years, I'm still trying to get stroke work. So my resources would be teammates and coaches I think. That's actually really good and something we forget. So I love that. You know, the people that we're with and that we're paying to help us or the people next to us on the team, we forget that they have a lot of knowledge and we need to tap into that. And so asking questions of the people around us, that's really good. I do have one more question I just thought of this. Yeah. Is your pace different? This I just want to know this. No, this is your pace different for a really long swim like the 28 mile compared to let's say the Iron Man swim two mile. Yeah, very different. Yep. Yeah. I mean, my for the 2.4 miles swim, I'd probably try to be holding like 110s per yard, maybe like somewhere around there plus or minus. And then for my marathon swims, I mean, you're going 12 hours, I think the pace is like more like 130 are trying to do 2000 yards every 30 minutes. Okay, do you break it out like that? Yeah, that's the slowest I ever want to be in my marathon swims is 2000 yards every 30 minutes. If it's slower than that, there's a problem or there's a very strong current. Okay. Yeah, and you can't have a watch, but can people on your team yell out to you and tell you where you're at in the course? Yes, my team can tell me, but then I have to rely on them to tell me the truth. And sometimes crew has a tendency to fib to help the swimmers mental morale. And I always tell my crew, I'm like, you got to tell me the truth because I try to negative split my marathon swims. So I have to know like when to kick into another gear. But yeah, different places. Yeah. So interesting, I could just talk to you because as you're talking, then I have more questions. But we're gonna have you on again, because I want to hear about these exciting adventures you have coming up in the next couple of years. Yes, I will. Where can people find you on Instagram? And you have a website to where can we find you? I do. Yep. So my Instagram is beyond the black line. And there's a little underscore beyond the black line refers to going beyond the black line of the pool going outside of your comfort zone. That's where the name came from. And then the website is www.beyondtheblackline.com. And on there, you can reach out to me for coaching or speaking engagements. And there's a couple blogs on these swims that I've done. So exciting. Everybody needs to know that you guys all need to follow. Because we have to see what's around the corner. We're gonna watch you in Nice. I'll be tracking you. I'm gonna put you in my tracker. I'll be tracking some friends there and a fellow athlete. And I will be tracking you as well. So excited about that. We'll be cheering you on. And then we'll keep following you and when you're ready to share, you let me know, we'll bring you back. We'll do. Perfect. Thank you so much for the chance, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. All right, everybody. It was so nice that you joined us today. And we were able to have a conversation just to talk about swimming. Hopefully, this encouraged you and you got some nuggets that you can take away some bite size actionable steps. Thank you so much for joining us. We will see you next week. Bye for now. Thanks for tuning into today's episode. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at two gens try and visit our website for free triathlon resources at two gens try calm. See you all next week.
