Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Masters Pool and Open Water Swimmer Jay Prchal

We are joined on Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Jay Prchal, who is a Western Australian masters pool and open water swimmer. Jay is a veteran in the sport and has spent four decades honing his skills in the pool. He takes us on his personal journey, highlighting how swimming anchored him during troubling times and how he carried this passion forward by mentoring others in the sport. Among other achievements, Jay played a crucial role in helping the Ocean 7's conqueror, Andy Donaldson, achieve his swims.

Jay speaks passionately about the community spirit in open water swimming and the profound satisfaction he derives from inspiring the younger generation to stay active, competitive, and engaged in the sport. His love for the sport is contagious and is sure to spark inspiration in every listener.

Finally, we'll journey into a myriad of discussions surrounding open water swimming, from the iconic Busselton Jetty swim and the Rottnest Channel swim to Jay's favourite mid-swim snack. Hear about his favourite freestyle training set and all about the kind of sessions that power those open water distances. 

So, whether you're a seasoned swimmer or a newbie in the pool, this is a conversation you wouldn't want to miss!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Swimming Journey
• 8:42 Swimming Training for Open Water
• 18:50 Marathon Swim Challenges and Strategies
• 31:18 Supporting an Ocean Swimmer Challenge
• 44:13 The Power of the Swimming Community
• 54:48 Open Water Swim Conversations

Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:36

Hello Swimmers and welcome to another episode of Torpedo Swim Talk podcast. I'm your host, danielle Sperling, and each week we chat to a master swimmer from around the world about their swimming journey. We speak to pool and open water swimmers on this show all the time, and today's guest, jay Prchal, does both of those, as well as mentoring, supporting and motivating other swimmers to conquer their marathon swimming dreams. He helped the Ocean 7's conqueror, andy Donaldson, through each of the seven swims, and he recounts what goes into that kind of coaching with someone like Andy, but also shares his own swimming tales as well. Let's hear from Jay now. Hi, jay, welcome to the podcast.

Jay Prchal: 1:19

Hi, thanks, danielle. Pleasure to be here. I'm excited. Don't get too many things very often.

Danielle Spurling: 1:25

I know it's actually really nice to sit down and just talk about swimming with someone, because probably other people in your life get a bit bored of it.

Jay Prchal: 1:31

Oh, absolutely. I try to avoid the topic wherever we're around the table because I think everybody gets a little bit sick of it. I had friends give me a birthday card one time and it said eat, sleep, swim, repeat.

Danielle Spurling: 1:44

Yes, that sounds like a really good lifestyle to me.

Jay Prchal: 1:48

I love it. I'm happy with it. Yep, I'm happy with it.

Danielle Spurling: 1:53

Let's start off by chatting about your own background in swimming. How did you first get involved?

Jay Prchal: 1:57

in it. Yeah, look, I've been swimming for a long time. I mean I suppose I'm 47 now. Gee, it's 40 years I've been swimming almost. There has been a break in between. I think most swimmers go through that period.

Jay Prchal: 2:13

But look, I started swimming when I was roughly six or seven, just like every kid does here in Australia that they go to school, they learn to swim. My parents put me through swim schools to learn how to swim a little bit better outside of the typical school scenario. Then from there, one thing led to another and I ended up joining squads at a relatively young age, got better and better, found that I kind of had a bit of a natural ability for swimming and continued right up all through until my probably late teens, early 20s, where I got to a national level. I guess at that point I had a bit of a break. I'd had a bit of a gutful.

Jay Prchal: 2:52

It was one of the scenarios where I'd been training so hard, been doing all these sessions seven, eight, 10 sessions a week, as a lot of people do, probably doing somewhere between 50 to 70 to 80 kilometres a week, which is a fair amount of mileage. I couldn't put it together on race day Like I'd get to these big meets and usually a couple of weeks before where we had those taper weeks, I'd end up getting ill or something would happen and I just couldn't put it together on race day. I suppose by those late teens, early 20s, I'd just had enough and I thought you know, what I've got to do something else.

Jay Prchal: 3:30

I'm spending all this time in the pool and I'm not seeing the results. That was it. Took a bit of a hiatus from the water for a little while, went and did life as most people do, got a job and, you know, earned a living. It wasn't until probably my mid-30s where I got back into water. That was through some personal struggles of my own. If I go back a step, one of the things that swimming did give me through that time was it gave me a purpose, it gave me some structure, it gave me some discipline. All those days I was all those days in the water and doing what we do. When I went through those struggles it was I'll be open, it was a marriage breakdown I was going through. At the time. I probably did what every male does and ran away a little bit and didn't face those issues.

Jay Prchal: 4:24

One of the things I wanted to do, or had to do for my own well-being, was just to get back into a routine, get back into some form of a structure. I ended up going down to one of the local pools and started swimming again, just on my own, just doing basic sets, nothing more than an hour. I'd go on a regular basis and it served a few purposes. One was obviously that structure and routine, as I mentioned a moment ago, but also just getting fit, getting mentally healthy again, physically healthy again.

Jay Prchal: 4:55

Yeah, I worked my way back into swimming and I got to a certain point where I wasn't really progressing anymore. I was enjoying myself, getting fit, but I was swimming on my own. Then I realized I need that structure of a squad again to push me a little bit further. When I was swimming on my own I would cheekily swim alongside some other squad members that might be training at the same time and tend to pace myself a little bit with them just to see if I still had it there and had the performance. I cheekily raced with them whilst they were training, but I knew I needed that extra bit of motivation. With that club scenario, I ended up joining a Masters club West Coast Masters, here in Perth. That was actually a little bit of an excuse to spend a little bit more time with my father as well. I've served at a Jultberte.

Danielle Spurling: 5:54

Oh nice.

Jay Prchal: 5:55

Yeah, he was one of the early original members of the club. Many, many years ago He'd given swimming away as well, just to I don't know do whatever he was doing. He was getting a little bit older, so obviously wanted to do something else Get him back in the water, get him swimming again. It also helped me because I didn't know any of the members there. I was a little bit shy. Yes, I thought I'll drag him along because at least that'll be a nice easy introduction. Then from there I just got back involved in a little bit of competition, which I realized I had missed.

Jay Prchal: 6:29

That was the one thing I really enjoyed when I was a lot younger was racing. I don't think we did it often enough Found that I still had a bit of speed. I didn't have the endurance that I once had. I think life takes its toll in that regard, but the muscle memory was certainly still there. Thankfully, I still had a bit of speed with me, yeah, and then enjoyed it. Then I got involved a little bit in ocean swimming. I suppose I should give a bit of context too. When I was younger, my forte was really sprints. I was a 50 and 100 sprinter. That was predominantly what I would race in.

Danielle Spurling: 7:10

What times did you do back then for 50 and 100?

Jay Prchal: 7:14

Oh, do you know what I don't really want to admit, because I actually think I'm a bit quicker now.

Danielle Spurling: 7:18

Oh, really Isn't that interesting, that's unusual.

Jay Prchal: 7:24

Oh yeah, Look, I got into the 25s for my 53s. I wasn't the best of the best, but I was okay. Hundreds were around the 56, 57, that sort of mark, maybe 55s from memory, I can't remember. The while ago I was okay, but I wasn't one of the elite guys. Do you know what I mean? Interestingly now and this is what really surprised me is when I got back into that water and started doing some events, I wasn't too far off, Considering I'd aged 30-something years. So the speed was still there. Everything remembered what to do. Just the endurance 50s were okay, but the back end of 100, I was hurting.

Danielle Spurling: 8:08

Had you stayed fit while you were out of the water, like, have you been lifting weights? And things like that.

Jay Prchal: 8:13

No, not really. I just got involved in life and work. I looked back at some old photos of myself sitting on a couch and I had some chubby cheeks and I had a little bit of a belly. I certainly wasn't overweight by any stretch of the imagination, but I had a few extra kilos. So yeah, I was not what I would consider fit, not from my perspective anyway. But yeah, the body certainly remembered.

Danielle Spurling: 8:39

Fantastic. What does a training week look like for you, with your master swimming in the pool? We'll touch on the open water in a moment.

Jay Prchal: 8:49

From a master's perspective and bear in mind that this has changed a little bit over the last couple of years, but prior to that, really, it was probably four sessions a week. Yeah, with West Ghost Masters we would do a Monday session in a 25-meter pool, which I really love. I love working on my turns, having that pool background and being a sprinter. I just love hitting that quick turn and pushing off again. So that was great for me. And we do a Tuesday, a Thursday and a Saturday morning session, and now I've gotten involved on a Sunday morning going down to the beach and doing a bit of a beach swim. But that's not a training session per sweat, per se. It's more of an excuse to have a coffee.

Danielle Spurling: 9:28

Right.

Jay Prchal: 9:30

But those master sessions are typically only about an hour long and we'd probably do anywhere from two and a half maybe to three, three point two K in a session.

Danielle Spurling: 9:42

What's the best race that you put together when you've been back at master swimming?

Jay Prchal: 9:46

I think with a bit of a shift in my training. Probably one of the better ones was one of the 400s. I think even a 200, 200 and 400. Because, like I said, typically I was a sprinter. So that's still there, but it was the longer distances that would kind of challenge me a little bit. And this leads into the open water stuff as well.

Jay Prchal: 10:06

One of the things I really struggled with being sprinter was learning how to hold back. I take off from the blocks or take off from the beach, whatever it might be, and my natural instinct was to just go. So learning to pace myself a little bit was a challenge and a good learning experience, Coupled with, you know, doing a bit more open water swimming. I started doing some longer distances in the pool and the 200 and the 400s yeah, I had a bit of fun doing those because it was it was more about consistency. It wasn't about overall speed, you know, it was trying to get those splits as consistent as you could, rather than, as I would probably do, is go out hard and then try to hold it coming back and can't do that in the 400.

Danielle Spurling: 10:49

No, you certainly can't.

Jay Prchal: 10:51

Not at our age anyway.

Danielle Spurling: 10:53

That's right. So how now you're doing a little bit more open water? How has your training changed over the last few years? So what does it look like now?

Jay Prchal: 11:04

I was never really interested in the open water. I would go down to the beach and, you know, swim like everybody else does on a warm day, and but that was about it. But it was through work one year where a colleague of mine was going through cancer treatment. So as part of that a group of us decided to enter the Brocknest Channel Swim as a group, as a force them to do the event but also to raise a little bit of money for charity. That was kind of my foray into open water swimming. So as a result of entering that I thought, well, you know what, I probably should get a little bit of experience doing this sort of stuff before we jump in. So I started doing some of the local open water swim series that they have here in Perth and we're quite fortunate that there's lots and lots of events on this. There's almost an event every weekend, if not two. And I started doing some of the shorter ones, which were about the 1.25 kilometer mark, and got involved doing those. We did that Brocknest Channel crossing. I subsequently ended up doing a couple more in teams and as a result, started doing some of the longer open water events here. So my graded from the 1.25 to the two and a half. And then I guess my my perspective shifted a little bit too with training, because I was missing a training session to go and do some of these open water swims on a Saturday and I figured well, there's no point doing 1.25 or two anda half Like I'm missing an hour's training session to do these events. So I up the distance once again and started doing five kilometer swims because that was at least an hour in the water. So I guess gradually my perspective and my distances and my level of awareness and all that sort of stuff shifted and my training had to shift also. And it got to a point where, Because I'd been doing these rockness swims and doing them as teams incidentally, I would also help other people who were doing solos at the time. So I would. A friend of mine luckily has a boat and you know we got involved with helping some of the club members who would like to do solos find a boat, because that was an easy thing and he was generous enough to give up his time to do that sort of stuff. So I helped a number of the club members do solos and as part of that I was doing a similar sort of role to what I've been doing with Andy Donaldson and his Ocean 7 challenge and helping these guys put together a bit of a plan, helping them on race day, getting them, you know, from the start to the finish, all that sort of stuff. I've done that numerous times and always loved getting to the other end to rockness, sitting down having a bit of a beer and a bit of a chat and, you know, reliving their stories and their experiences of the day and seeing the joy in their faces.

Jay Prchal: 13:47

One particularly, you know what. I should probably give this a go myself, and once I made that decision, I consciously decided that you know what. I've got to be smart about this. It's a long way. I know what's involved and I suppose one of the other factors that came in too was that I was still a competitive guy. Like I didn't want to just make up the numbers, if that makes sense, like I want to see what I can do and I'm not silly either. I know I can't compete with the likes of the 20 year olds and whatnot. I mean they're far more capable than I am at this age anyway. But you know I'm still looking to compete from an age category perspective.

Jay Prchal: 14:30

So I changed up the training a little bit and this is actually how I knew Donald. We had known each other from the local scene anyway and seen each other about, and we'd spoken a few times and just general conversation. And then I'd mentioned to him about my ambition to do rockness channel swim and he said oh well, why don't you come and swim with us? You know it's a great club. You need a little bit more distance. It's probably a good training regime to do that.

Jay Prchal: 14:58

I tried to stay with my master's club as much as I could, but I ended up moving over to the Perth City swimming club, which is where Andrew trains and I spend most of my time there now. So my training has changed quite a lot since I was younger to what I do now. So you know, now I'm swimming every day. I've just come back from a bit of a stint over in Europe, just a bit of a holiday and some other things that were going on, so I'm only being back in the water about six weeks. So at the moment I train three times a week with that particular club. In between, on the Tuesdays and Thursdays, I do my own thing, utilizing some of their training programs as well. And then I swim Saturday with my master's club and then Sunday on down the beach doing a bit of a beach swim as well.

Danielle Spurling: 15:44

Wow, that's a big week.

Jay Prchal: 15:45

Yeah, and you know what my body takes a toll. It's hard work. I'm not 20 anymore. I need my rest. So I find that after training I'm ready for a nap.

Danielle Spurling: 15:56

Yes.

Jay Prchal: 15:56

But yeah, everything's just increased the volume and especially when I was training for Rotnest, I was doing more than that. So this was Rotnest with last year that I did that. So my training regime was even more so I was doing five, six sessions a week with Perth City and I was back a couple of those doing Monday morning and evening. And geez, that was difficult. That was like I'd been hit by a truck Right Trying to do, trying to back those up. But it was all in aid of really getting my body used to having to do those distances and having to swing the arms over that many times. You know in a go.

Jay Prchal: 16:36

And it paid off. You know, my Rotnest Channel swim was good and incidentally I did two last year. So I did the Rotnest Channel swim and then three weeks later I did the Port de Pub, the 20 kilometer event at Port de Pub, and that was almost always my focus was the Port de Pub event. So Rotnest was actually a training swim for me, Rotnest Channel swim, Because I had watched many, many people kind of fail and trip at that 10 to 15 kilometer mark.

Danielle Spurling: 17:06

Why do you think that was? Why do people fail at the 10 and 15?

Jay Prchal: 17:11

I think there's a couple of reasons. One is the training that they do. I don't think enough people spend enough time in those lower aerobic zones. They focus a bit too much on going hard and trying to keep up with everybody effectively and not building the engine, so to speak. So I think that's one factor they just fatigue. And the other I really noticed was the nutrition. A lot of people were relying on the same nutrition for the whole race.

Danielle Spurling: 17:43

Right.

Jay Prchal: 17:45

So they wouldn't mix it up. So a lot of people utilize stamina and if anybody hasn't seen it, it's a, it's a powdery kind of electrolyte energy mix and it's lime green in color and when it comes out it's lime green in color. So I'd seen quite a number of people, kind of you know, get to that stage and I think having the same food in your belly and getting tossed around in the ocean especially, just really can upset your stomach and these people would just throw up. And for anybody that's that's been seasick, and especially when you're swimming, you just lose all energy and it's hard going.

Danielle Spurling: 18:22

Yeah, that's not good. What were the highlights of the swim for you? Because you obviously didn't have the seasickness and you finished the whole thing.

Jay Prchal: 18:30

Yeah, you know what I think? I just really enjoyed the day. I didn't have any expectation going into the event and I think that was a major factor in how much I enjoyed it. I only had one expectation, sorry, and that was to get to the other side. I didn't care about where I came, I didn't care about how I did.

Jay Prchal: 18:50

It really was a training swim because I wanted to see what happened after 10 kilometers, because up until that point the longest swim I had done was a was a 10 kilometer swim, because we have to do that as a qualifying swim for rock. I didn't know what happened to myself and I was worried about getting seasick. I was worried about, you know, would the water temperature affect me? I was worried about what I throw up, you know all these sorts of things, or even if I would make it, because I hadn't done that much before. And you know, after doing 10 kilometers I was feeling a little bit sore, but everything else was okay.

Jay Prchal: 19:25

I got past the 10 kilometer mark, was feeling good, everything was going to plan, got to the 15 kilometer mark and I had energy to burn and I'm like this is really good. So thankfully there was a couple of people still in front of me. I was kind of up the front of the field but there was people in front of me and which was nice because then I had something to catch. So I put a little bit more effort in and started to catch some of the people who had been in front for a little while and overtook a few of those before I got to the line and then cut the dolphin dives on the sand before we run up the ramp at the end, at the end of Rotnest, and I was feeling great.

Danielle Spurling: 20:00

That's awesome.

Jay Prchal: 20:01

I really, really enjoyed the day and, as I said, I had no expectation and I really believe that that was a real reason why I enjoyed so much. And everything went to plan because it was just. I actually didn't care what happened, because it was an experiment to see what would happen and, thankfully, everything went to plan. What to pub, on the other hand, that that didn't get planned.

Danielle Spurling: 20:23

No, what happened there?

Jay Prchal: 20:25

Oh look, I was being a little bit strategic in my in my planning there and you know I opted to do the 20 kilometer event more so than the 25, predominantly because a lot more people go in the 25 kilometer swim. It's a bit more prestigious, you know, as part of the triple crown as well the Australian triple crown and I thought, look, I've got an opportunity here to kind of be up front somewhere, knowing you know who had entered before and who was likely to enter again. So my focus was on just doing that 20 case swim with the, I guess, expectation of being at the pointy end somewhere, and went into, went into the swim or actually I'll go back a little bit post Rotnest. So there was three weeks in between the Rotnest channel swim and Port to pub and after Rotnest that 20 case swim. As much as I felt good, my body was suffering a little bit. So the arms were a bit fatigued and sore and and the shoulders and delts were a little bit were a little bit fatigued. So in the weeks in between I was kind of struggling a little bit to get the power back in the water. Everything was just tired and sore.

Jay Prchal: 21:34

So as part of that I was taking a little bit of pain medication or anti inflammatory medication as well and I was quite concerned that I wouldn't be ready for Port to pub. And I had tried some of the pain and anti inflammatory medication in training and that was fine. It was all working good. But I'd had a conversation the day before and I preempted or yeah, I suppose preempted is the right word so in my feed strategy I had it in there to take some pain medication before starting and that should be fine. But after about four hours that was likely to wear off and I knew I'd probably be about halfway through the swim at that stage and the thought was well, look, if I'm taking some pain medication or whatever's going on in my body is gonna be masked by this pain medication. So there's a real chance that this pain will come back somewhere between halfway and three quarter marks through that swim. So I'd planned in another dose of pain and anti-inflammatory medication halfway through my swim but unfortunately that was to be my undoing. So up until that stage, you know, I'd taken off from the event.

Jay Prchal: 22:49

I got in my head a little bit at the beginning because I saw a few people take off and they passed me and my initial thought was oh, okay, well, I'm not gonna be where I wanna be because these people have just gone. So I thought you know what? I've still got 20 kilometers. You know well, 19 kilometers to go. I can't win this in the first one or two kilometers. I just gotta see. I just gotta keep going and I just gotta see where I'm at at the end and make the best of it. So about four or five kilometers into the event, I was just easing into my race and the same people who were in front I started to see them drop back and I thought, wow, okay, I wasn't expecting that. I'm actually feeling really good, like I can do this all day. So that was a nice boost to the confidence you know.

Jay Prchal: 23:35

Going through that first stage of the race, and consequently by you know that seven to 10 kilometer mark, I was leading and I was like, wow, this is not what I was expecting and I'm still feeling really good, awesome. Come to the 10 kilometer mark, or the two hour mark into the race, I had planned this feed with the medication in it and within about 10 minutes of taking that feed, I felt the effects of the medication and my energy levels just sunk, I started feeling a little dizzy. What had happened was, I think, that first dose of medication that was in my body hadn't exited, so a second dose actually just had a compounding effect and it really knocked me for six and you know, my pace went from about, you know, 4.5, 4.6 Ks and now right down to about three and a half or less, and I can do nothing with it. I still had energy, but I couldn't do anything with it and I just felt disorientated in the water and dizzy and terrible really. And I remember looking up at the crew who was there supporting me at the time and you know what I think the thing that went through my head was I'm not actually angry, I'm not disappointed, I'm not upset. You know, this is just something that's happened.

Jay Prchal: 24:59

But I looked across and I could see their faces and you could just see that the energy level had just dropped and their faces sunk and I felt more for them than I did for myself and I was okay, I was safe, I was listening to my body and I knew that, despite what was going on, I was okay and I could still push through and get to the other side.

Jay Prchal: 25:18

I just wasn't comfortable. But yeah, for those guys, I really felt for them because I think certainly they could see where we were in the field and the big scheme of things and it would have been quite exciting from their perspective to be in the lead of a race like this and for then everything to go a little bit pear shaped and watching everybody else go around and not being able to do a lot about it. That would have been disheartening for them and for me as well, of course. But I wasn't worried about myself. It was just what turned into what was meant to be kind of a fight for a win ended up being a fight just to finish. It was a tough day in the office, that one.

Jay Prchal: 26:01

So, I'm not gonna make a mistake again. And I had a bit of a debrief with the coach afterwards and when he had this conversation and he asked me what happened, and he said you know what, jay? He goes the good news with all this. He said 99% what you'd write. You just changed one thing, and that was your undoing. And he was right. So the plan was solid. I just made a slight error, and you know what? It was the thing that I always taught myself, which is never do something new on race day. And I did, and it was my undoing.

Danielle Spurling: 26:34

Yeah, but impressive that you were able to acknowledge that that had happened and still turn it around and finish the swim, because I think at that point a lot of people could throw in the towel. So what sort of mental strategies did you use to push through that?

Jay Prchal: 26:51

Yeah, look, I think one of the things that I have been doing for quite a while is I look at things from a different perspective. So I try and acknowledge what all the potential outcomes could be and, be them good or bad, I work through those and I get to a point of acceptance. So sure there's a reality that I might. Sure there's a reality that I might finish somewhere in the middle of the field. And you know what? There's an absolute possibility that I might not finish at all. So if you can come to terms and accept all of those positions, it kind of takes all the well, not the pain, but it takes all the challenges and difficulties away from when that situation occurs, because then you can look at it from the perspective of well, do you know what? This was a likely outcome and it's occurred.

Jay Prchal: 27:43

And there's always something to learn from any situation, be it a win, be it a loss, it doesn't matter, there's always something to take away from that. So I look at the positives, not the negatives, and really look at well, what have I learned here? What could I do differently next time? What have I learned about myself? And in that specific instance there was many things that I learned. One is don't change anything on race day. But the other one was also how I reacted to the situation, which was a nice surprise too, because I think my situation would have been quite upset and potentially angry and, you know, not at anything in particular, but just more so at themselves. But I'd already accepted the fact that you know I might not get there, so anything above that is a win in my book. And then I just looked at well, what can I take away from this? And, as I said, there was many things I took away from that.

Jay Prchal: 28:38

So, I guess that's how my mind works, maybe a little bit differently to some others, but you know, I have this perspective of where it is good, there's bad. Where there's light, there's dark. There's always two sides to the coin. So as bad as the situation is, there's actually something to gain from this. There is something good there. You just have to look for it and you have to find it, because it exists, it's there. So training not only your body but training your mind to think that way, I think has a profound sort of impact on how you perform and how you view life, really more than anything.

Danielle Spurling: 29:11

Yeah, I think you've got a very healthy outlook to all those kind of obstacles that you come across and swimming open water in a lot of ways sort of mimics life that we lead. So being able to deal with those kind of doubts and turn them around is such a skill and obviously you take that into your own life.

Jay Prchal: 29:33

Yeah, well, I suppose when you look at it I mean you talk about open water. I would take it one step further nature, right, we look at nature and everything that occurs in nature, like there's the laws of nature. So don't fight those, they're there. You can learn so much from nature just by watching and observing what goes on. So even when you talk about open water, swimming, you look at the ocean. There's a pattern. You know there's things that occur. The swell comes in patterns, the waves come in patterns, you know there's the flow of current under the water. There's all these things that can occur, which you can learn if you're prepared to.

Jay Prchal: 30:13

I guess, stop and think. Most people are very busy these days that they don't have that level of awareness, if that makes sense, but it's nice just to be able to stop, think, feel what's going on not enough people feel what happens to them or what's going on. And listening to your body. That's another thing that I feel people should really be focusing on a little bit more too, because we think a lot with our heads, but we don't think a lot with our heart and even our stomach and our body.

Jay Prchal: 30:44

We're getting a little bit deep here but, there's elements of that where I think if people you know immerse themselves in nature a little bit more, they can take away a lot from what nature has to offer.

Danielle Spurling: 30:57

And you mentioned Andy Donelson just before and I know that you've worked with him through his Ocean, 7 record-breaking swims this year. Tell us what you do with him that helps him along the way. Give us a bit of a snapshot of your work with him.

Jay Prchal: 31:11

Because we've been swimming at the same club. You know I had my own things that I was doing and consequently we're all swimming and training together. You know, after training, every so often we'd sit and have a bit of a cup of coffee, and one particular day he was like Jay, if you've got a few minutes, I'd actually like to run something by it. And so we sat down, had a cup of coffee, told me about this plan to do the Ocean 7, and I thought, oh, ok, this sounds pretty cool. Yeah, send me through some information. And the next day I see this email come through with a bit of a summary of you know what the plan was, and I thought, oh, wow, ok, this is really intriguing. I like the sound of this, I'd like to find out a lot more.

Jay Prchal: 31:53

So we had another conversation and, consequently, he told me that he had everything sorted out. You know everything from how to book it, his training plan, his nutrition, all the finances, all the strategic element of what was going on. And he sent me through a detailed plan of what he was trying to do. And in comes this I don't know if it was 12 or 14 or 15 page document of the Ocean 7 adventure and I was like holy crap, this guy's actually thought about what he's planning to do, like this is good. And I was sold at that point and we had a bit of a conversation and I knew he had people like Shelley Taylor-Smith on board. He was helping him. You know, from that perspective, obviously, the coach that we had on Carol there he had his strength and training guys and his nutrition sorted out.

Jay Prchal: 32:44

So he kind of had everything planned and I asked him one question. I said cool, looks like you've got heaps of people in your corner, so who's going with you? And there was a bit of a blank stare and he went oh, I'm just going on my own. And I said what You're kidding? I said you're gonna go to all these locations, You're gonna try and tee up all these things with all these people, which you can do absolutely on your own. But I said, when you get there, who are you gonna talk to? Who's gonna be in your ear or who are you gonna be able to, you know, offload to? And he kind of again looked at me blankly and went oh no, I'm on my own.

Jay Prchal: 33:24

And so it was at that point that I said look, if you have me, I'd be happy to come along and I'm happy to try and commit to all seven, if and where that's possible.

Jay Prchal: 33:32

So that was kind of how the whole story came about and how I got involved, and part of that, from my perspective, was knowing that, yeah, okay, there's the event to do, but there's all the before and all the after.

Jay Prchal: 33:45

That can be a bit of an issue, or at least it's good to talk to somebody, offload, bounce some ideas off, all that sort of stuff.

Jay Prchal: 33:53

So I guess, in terms of the Ocean Seven and what I had been doing for Andy, if I talk about the simple stuff first, which is, you know, event day. So on event day, really it's a lot of helping make sure we've got everything that we need, you know, just planning for that particular day, making sure that all the nutrition's there, we've got enough water, we've got all the supplies that we need for that particular event. And then, when we're out on the water, a lot of it is about preparing the feeds, delivering the feeds, making sure that the schedule is adhered to. Another big part of the on event day is the messaging and the communication. As you can appreciate, you know, when you're in the water you can't generally hear a lot, and Andy wears earplugs as well, so he's even less so. From that perspective, a lot of the communication tends to be one way he will shout out, shout out occasionally when something's going on or he needs something or, you know, whatever might be occurring just to get our attention and then we react accordingly.

Jay Prchal: 34:58

But a lot of the time the communication is one way. So he's a very analytical kind of guy. He likes to know where he's at, he likes to know how far he's traveled so he can work at his distances based on how many feeds he's had, because he feeds every 20 minutes, so it's nice and easy to calculate for him. So a lot of the information that goes through is things like stroke rate, how he's going, like I said, very analytically knows where he's at based on his stroke rate and the pace that he's doing, and then he then takes that into account with the distance that's been traveled so he can work out whether he's on target or behind or in front and so forth. So stroke rate, distance covered. And then of course there's the important things like just the psychological messaging you know how are you going, where are you?

Danielle Spurling: 35:45

at you know.

Jay Prchal: 35:46

I can see if he's struggling and vice versa, just by, you know, looking his face, or it might be a little grimace or a smile or a laugh, so we'll send some jokes across accordingly and make him chuckle, just to get out of his head a little bit, especially in a bit of a rume, or might be stuck in a little bit of a rut. You know, you've got to keep the swimmer quite positive through those long events, because some of them are, you know, upwards of 10 hours or more. You know the short ones are not so much of a problem, but the longer ones are where you can really find someone drifting away. So that mental aspect is really important. So I guess, from race day that's kind of what happens.

Jay Prchal: 36:27

But then outside of those times, there is, you know, the preparation and what goes on. How's it looking? You know, andy, what are you feeling? You know, are you feeling okay? You're feeling down, you're feeling sick? Are you feeling energetic? You know, whatever it might be. So really what I'm doing is just listening to the conversation and just seeing what I can pick up from the conversations and trying to help him navigate that and trying to get him to see a different perspective if, for some reason, he's not feeling great. So Sugaru was a perfect one and I think you know you spoke with Andy a little while ago and he relayed some of the concerns about what was going on there in Japan and we had you know, there's a lot of political issues in terms of the swim.

Jay Prchal: 37:13

You know there's some political things going on. There had been the situation where nobody that season had successfully gotten across. So he was feeling quite anxious about the whole event. And I remember we had a conversation about this and I guess I tried to change Andy's perspective a little bit and said look, okay, here's my view on the whole situation. If you get across, awesome, brilliant, like it's gonna be such an awesome story because nobody's managed to get across yet. So that's one aspect. And I said but the other term, the other side of the coin, is what if you don't get across? I looked at that and I said to Andy I went you know what? I actually don't think that's a bad thing. I think if you don't get across, it just adds to everything that's going on and I look at that as an amazing story in itself. And so for me I see this as a win-win. I don't think you can lose here. Whether you make it or whether you don't, it's gonna be a win. It's just gonna be a different kind of win. So tried to get into understand that. You know, any scenario that occurred was actually gonna be a good thing, but for different reasons. And you look, he still had the mindset of wanting to get across, but I think it elates some of his fears and made him feel a little bit more at ease going into the event. And, of course, everybody was saying different things to him. You know all the other people that he had in his corner all saying something slightly different, but I kind of feel that a different perspective from somebody like myself was something he hadn't considered. So it's just opening up that opportunity to think about it in a different way. Yeah, so that was one of, I guess, many conversations and then, as we know, he did successfully get across. So it was fantastic.

Jay Prchal: 39:05

But you know, even during that particular swim, there are lots of moments where, you know things were not looking good and we were watching the time and we were watching the conditions and it was a really, really tough day out there for both of us. You know it was pretty full on and there was a lot of messages going through about. You know, just keep positive, you know, think about the next feed. And at one point and this probably this will be the first time it's actually been mentioned probably three quarters of the way across, when we knew we were, when we knew we had a pretty good chance of actually getting there because there were lots of eddy currents and currents that were fighting. So there was a chance that we might not actually get into shore at one point because we were getting caught up in a bit of a current. But once we knew that that was kind of not an issue anymore.

Jay Prchal: 39:57

I remember writing on the whiteboard a little message and all it said was first person to cross Supergroup. And that was a good mental thing for him because, you know, obviously nobody had made it that particular season. So so for him to see that message was a real kick which was come on, you know, we haven't got far to go and I think we only had about three or four kilometres to go at that stage. So you know, I think for him it was a nice, a nice ego boost and a nice energy boost just to get to the end at that stage. So it was a cheeky little message and one that probably could have gone wrong if it was delivered at the wrong time, but it was delivered at the right time. Do you know what I mean?

Danielle Spurling: 40:38

Yes, yes.

Jay Prchal: 40:38

So and that's part of the part of the trick of doing some of these support roles is is knowing when to give a message like that, because you can give a message like that way too early and it just has all the wrong effect. And sometimes we even tell little white lies when we're, when we're messaging as well, just to, I guess, get the right reaction out of the swimmer. Things like some distances, we might alter them a little bit and I know it's probably not the dumb thing to do, but it's all in the purpose of psychologically getting that person in the right frame of mind so that we can get them to the end. So that's the whole reason why we do those things. So lying and whatnot I don't condone, but there's, there's method behind that madness, if that makes sense.

Danielle Spurling: 41:21

And aside from Siguru, which which I know from Andy, which one he thinks is the was the toughest from your perspective, what was the other? You know, the toughest from seven.

Jay Prchal: 41:30

Yeah, look it would be. For me would be a toss up between Siguru and Hawaii, for different reasons. I think you know Japan was certainly that, just had every element thrown in it and it was. You could write a book just about Japan on its own, because you know the, the currents, the lead up to it, the weather on the day. We actually had a little storm cell that we went through at one point and then I remember Andy yelling up at one stage saying where are we going? And the response was we're actually going in the same direction we have been before. You just can't figure. The water is going the wrong way. You know, just because of the cross currents and all that sort of stuff, it really was. It's swim.

Jay Prchal: 42:11

Hawaii was another one that was quite tough. It started off really nice and it was a beautiful evening when we started. But we didn't know at the time, but the weather forecast was wrong and we were actually swimming into a storm effectively, so that the following morning, you know, the sun came up, the wind started to come up a little bit, the swell started to pick up. So you know, we ended up. As we got closer to to Oahu, the wind had picked up to about 30 knots, with gusts higher than that, and then we had swells of three, I reckon, sometimes close to four meters swells, and it was. It was not good. We ended up having to put in the kayakers at one stage towards the end because they just couldn't keep up with him. It was actually better to be in the water than anywhere else because the wind was so strong so that the kayakers we had to bring them in because they just couldn't keep up with him anymore and effectively we had to let Andy follow the boat at that stage and just try and get towards the end. But the currents were quite severe there too.

Jay Prchal: 43:17

And look, I actually, you know, been on plenty of boats and what not through my time, but that's the first time that I've actually been nervous being on a boat. I was quite concerned that there might be, you know, that rogue wave that comes along and maybe tips us over, because a couple of times, yeah, we couple of times we did have water come over the side and you know it would all exit the boat again. But it's just that feeling of a wave coming in the water, coming out of the side and the Eskies and all the food and everything just got washed to the back of the boat and it wasn't a nice place to be. Trust me, I was. I was very happy when we got to dry land. After that I yeah, I think for about at least a day I had the you know the motions of still being on the boat, even though I was on dry land.

Danielle Spurling: 44:04

Yeah, I hate the way that happens. It's all.

Jay Prchal: 44:07

I know you're standing in the shower and you got to put both hands on either side of the wall just to stabilize yourself, otherwise you'd fall over.

Danielle Spurling: 44:13

Yeah, and after being on the boat for those seven swims, do you think you go and do any of those yourself? Have you got any plans to do any of those?

Jay Prchal: 44:22

Hell, no, danielle, no way. And you know what I'll never say, never. I say that a little bit tongue in cheek because I guess, going back to my rotten story, I had said that I was never, ever interested in doing one of those. And I've now done two and I'm going to do a third one and I'm going to do a fourth one. But look at this stage, no, it doesn't, doesn't quite interest me. I'm happy to be there in the background a little bit and helping support some of these people do events like this.

Jay Prchal: 44:54

I feel I've got a lot of knowledge from my own swimming and supporting others and now supporting Andy as well that there's a lot there to give back to the swim community. And as I get a little bit older in life, I do feel like it's my time to give back. Now I'm not in an age where I'm going to be an outright winner in anything and all those sorts of scenarios. So I think, as much as I'm still competitive and I like to be competitive I feel that I've got more to give back. And in saying that, one of those aspects is showing the younger generation what you can do when you're older. You know, still mix it with the 20 year olds.

Jay Prchal: 45:31

I quite like I don't need to be first, I'm quite happy being in that, you know, in that top 10 or whatever it might be, because it gives this younger generation, you know, a bit of an insight as to when you get older you don't have to just sit on a couch. You know you can still be mobile, you can still be active and still be competitive. So I like that aspect of it. So so for now, no but who knows?

Danielle Spurling: 45:54

maybe, who knows, because you did the, you did the 33.3 Ultra swim Montenegro and you know that 33.3 is, as far as the crow flies, the English Channel.

Jay Prchal: 46:06

It was easier.

Danielle Spurling: 46:07

It was broken up. That's true. Yeah, was that a? Was that a nice adventure?

Jay Prchal: 46:12

Yeah, look it was. And I was quite fortunate and and thanks, I know you had Mark on not long ago. Awesome guy, awesome event. Really really well put together event and hands down probably one of the best events I've ever been to. It was certainly a world class event from my perspective. I was really lucky that that one came together just through some conversations and we just I happened to be in Europe at the time, so I was.

Jay Prchal: 46:40

I was traveling around on holidays after finishing all the stuff with Andy, so I thought, you know, I've been away enough, I better take my partner along to to some of these you know some of these places and at least have a bit of a relaxing time with her. So we were in Europe at the time and it just happened to coincide with roundabout when I was due to leave Europe. So I stayed on an extra, an extra week and went to Montenegro. But fantastic event. I love the format in terms of yes, ok, the, you know the theoretical distance or the total distance is 33 kilometers, but broken up into what was, I think it was a four and a five kilometer swim on the first day, a seven and a half at 10. There was a couple of other swims in there, short ones just to kind of make up the distance, but we're not timed and then on the last day another five kilometers swim. So, yeah, really really well put together, I think.

Jay Prchal: 47:32

From my own perspective, I was probably a little nervous how I would perform because I hadn't been in the water a lot, because I had been traveling around with Andy and I just spent the last six weeks in Europe, so it's not really conducive to good training regime. So I was a little bit nervous at the, especially the 10 kilometer swim, because I thought I'm going to struggle. But the format actually worked really well and, surprisingly, when we're at the swimmer briefing, mark actually did make that comment that it was designed specifically to encourage people and prepare them for that longer distance. So the shorter swims that we just get the feel for what's going on. You've then got the seven and a half, which challenges you a little bit more, and then, of course, the mindset is well, I've done seven and a half.

Jay Prchal: 48:15

What's an extra? Two and a half? Not much. So you know, then you're at the 10 kilometer swim. So it worked out really, really well. So I enjoyed it. The water was a nice temperature and Montenegro. If you haven't been there, go. It stunned me completely. I was not expecting to fall in love with the place, but it's such a beautiful, beautiful location and scenic location and just so much history, so it was quite pleasant from that perspective as well to not only swim there but kind of, you know, look up as you're swimming along and seeing the mountains and whatnot.

Danielle Spurling: 48:50

Yeah, it was absolutely stunning.

Jay Prchal: 48:53

I'd love to go back there, so hopefully that will happen. Yeah, yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 48:58

Yeah, I mean, I'd love to do it too, but 10 K is just, I think, too much for me.

Jay Prchal: 49:02

But do you know what and this goes for swimming in general the community is what brings it all together and the community is what encourages you. Would I go and do 10 Ks on my own? No, but with the whole community there. You know, there's people and this was the beauty of that swim as well, or that event was there's people from all walks of life. You know there were some elite swimmers, but there are also some swimmers that had never swum in the ocean before and here they are attempting a 10-pound swim or attempting 33 kilometer swim. So the range of people there was so impressive and that was what I found inspiring. Like, don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching the elite swim, it's nice to watch, but I really get that inspiration and feed off those people who are trying these things for the first time.

Jay Prchal: 49:54

And, like I said, there's a handful of swimmers there that hadn't swum in the ocean before and some that had never swum those distances before and were really nervous and I had a bit of a chat with some of them before we started them and just ask them what are your fears? And some of them were are we gonna make the distance? Or what about my feeding? What about? There was all these questions, and some of them had a fear of deep water and some of them just had a fear of the ocean in general. So trying to help them allay some of those fears was good as well, again giving them a slightly different perspective about what they were about to do. And some of these other people were thinking that they're not gonna be able to do the whole distance. So most of them did, which was really pleasant to see.

Jay Prchal: 50:45

And do you know what? The other thing about that event too and this goes to show the strength of not only the event, not only the event but also the community is when you get a group of people together. There was, I think, 120 odd swimmers, so there was probably about 150 odd people there, if not a few more. There was not one negative comment all weekend. Every comment was positive, and I was expecting to hear a few just because of the size of the community there, but not one negative comment all weekend, and that was brilliant. Yeah, that was what blew me away.

Jay Prchal: 51:21

That was my main takeaway from that whole thing was the productivity that everybody had and everybody was so happy by the end of it and we all encouraged one another. You know there was lots of hugs and high fives at the end of the event, and just especially at the end of that 10K just everyone giving each other a bit of a high five and a well done. So it was a brilliant atmosphere and one that I think is reminiscent of the whole open water, if not just swimming community. I mean some of the events that we have here in Perth. We can get up to a thousand people, if not more, so that's a lot of people that are out there just enjoying the water and life and the sun and all the rest of it so it's a fantastic community to be in and the Masters community, I feel, is fantastic and there's so many people with so many stories, it's an endless source of inspiration from my perspective.

Danielle Spurling: 52:21

Yes, yeah, I agree, I love being part of the Masters swimming community and, like you, I was a swimmer when I was age group and gave up when I was about 20 and I had 25 years out of the water and when I came back into the water and discovered Masters, I just I'm just so in love with it, so passionate about it, and I think it's that community.

Jay Prchal: 52:40

It is a family, isn't it?

Danielle Spurling: 52:42

Yeah, yeah, it's the family and I couldn't swim. Probably, like you, I couldn't just go and swim by myself. I find it boring and then I just would not do it. So having that squad and a club is really important, and being around those like-minded people is amazing.

Jay Prchal: 52:59

Yeah, and look, and even for me it kind of hit home when my father passed away a few years ago. Obviously we were both members of, or we are both members of, west Coast Masters swimming club, but when my dad passed away, I'm actually I'm an only child, so I don't have brother and sisters, and my mother's passed away also. So when my father passed away I felt very alone, not lonely, but very alone. And after he had passed away I took a couple of weeks off swimming, just to you know, just to get myself back together again. And I went back to the club and I realized how much of a family feel that has and that's yeah, and for me that was a real eye-opening experience to have that feel, especially after he had gone. So you know, they then became my inherent family or my pseudo family.

Danielle Spurling: 53:56

So yeah, yeah, it's such a great community. Now, jay, everyone that comes from a podcast and if you've listened to ones before, you probably know that this is coming up, but I like to ask them a bit of a deep dive. Five questions. It's a bit of a snapshot about your swimming. So what is your favorite open water swimming location?

Jay Prchal: 54:13

Oh look, do you know what? I recently just went down to Dunsbury and we did an event from Dunsbury to Busselton. So it was an event that used to be held quite a while ago which fell by the wayside. That's been reinvigorated. So I was down there last weekend. So I would have to say that Dunsbury, Busselton, that region, like the water there, is beautiful, the crystal, all the white sands, generally it's quite nice and calm. So it wasn't the other weekend when we were down there, unfortunately, but yeah, I would have to say that Dunsbury, Busselton region.

Danielle Spurling: 54:47

Nice. Yes, I really want to do that Busselton jetty swim one year when I get around to it.

Jay Prchal: 54:53

Oh, absolutely Good luck getting in. It's pretty hard. It's on a better oh, is it? Yeah, it's a better system now. So you're gonna be lucky and I'm luckily in again this year, so we'll see how that goes.

Danielle Spurling: 55:04

Okay, what month is that running? February?

Jay Prchal: 55:07

Yep, february Kind of earlyish February, around mid-February, and then two weeks later they have the Rotnest Channel swim, so it's usually two weeks before that.

Danielle Spurling: 55:14

Right, Okay, I'll keep that on the calendar for obviously not next year but another year.

Jay Prchal: 55:19

Oh, it's a great iconic swim. I mean, how often do you get to swim around a structure that's one mile out to sea?

Danielle Spurling: 55:24

I know.

Jay Prchal: 55:25

And they have something like I think it's maybe three and a half or four and a half thousand people, I can't remember. There's lots and lots of people. It's an awesome day.

Danielle Spurling: 55:33

Yeah, similar to our. We have the Peer to Pub down in Lawn. I don't know whether you've ever done that, but they have about 5,000 people doing that over the day in all the different age groups. Yeah, awesome, that's a huge swim. How about your favorite mid open water swim snack?

Jay Prchal: 55:47

It's got to be the flat Coke. I mean, you can't go past the flat Coke halfway through a swim, I think. I mean I don't drink a lot of Coca-Cola anyway, but just that there's something about that flavor that's just addictive. And when it's when it's coming you know it's coming it's kind of a bit of a boost.

Danielle Spurling: 56:02

Nice, I like that. Get rid of that salt water taste. How about your favorite swimming pool?

Jay Prchal: 56:07

I think I'm going to pick two. One from a scenic perspective and that's the Scarborough Beach Pool down on the coast in Scarborough, here in Perth. But then, from a nostalgic perspective, beattie Park. Beattie Park pool is where I train with the Perth City swim squad, but it's got a lot of memories for me as a kid because it's still got the old grandstand erected there and it brings back a lot of memories of when I was a kid and doing sprint series, competitions and things like that, and the smell of have you ever heard of Goanna Oil?

Danielle Spurling: 56:41

Yes, I used to use it all the time, love it.

Jay Prchal: 56:44

I'm glad you must have heard of it. It just whenever I smell that it's like a Denkerub kind of smell. Whenever I smell that it just brings me back into being at the stands at Beattie Park. So yeah, that's from a nostalgic perspective.

Danielle Spurling: 56:58

Yes, I love the smell of Goanna Oil. I don't think you can buy it anymore, but it's probably got all these bad chemicals in it.

Jay Prchal: 57:04

I don't even know what it was, I just remember smelling it and everybody lathering themselves up in the stands before the race.

Danielle Spurling: 57:12

How about your favourite freestyle training set?

Jay Prchal: 57:15

Oh, I think at the moment I'm really enjoying some of the slower, longer distance swimming sets, so like I just did one this morning where it was a, I guess, a pyramid set of 1,800, 600, 400, 200, but at slightly different heart rate zones. So I'm enjoying that. But I'm going to be a bit of a glutton for punishment. And there was one that I did the other day that I really really loved and for all the wrong reasons we were using bands and I hate using bands Terrible, like pull only. Like with a pullboy I'm good, but with bands I'm terrible. My feet and bum just sink and it's all over.

Jay Prchal: 57:58

But for whatever reason, this particular set I really gelled with and I loved it and it was a set of 60, 50s. We did 24 with bands only, so just bands around the ankles we did, and that was on 55 seconds. We did 20 with a pullboy and bands and that was on 50 seconds. That was a little bit better. And then we did 16 of those with paddles, bands and a pullboy and I thought it was going to be really, really tough but I enjoyed it. I don't know, maybe it was a good day, who knows, but I quite enjoyed that particular one.

Danielle Spurling: 58:31

Yeah, I'd love to do a set like that. And how about the swimmer you most admire, past or present?

Jay Prchal: 58:37

Who was the butterfly that was in the 88 Olympics, or was it the 84?

Danielle Spurling: 58:42

John Saban.

Jay Prchal: 58:43

That's it, thank you. Yeah, I remember the paddles that he would have with Michael Gross in those fly events and I used to love watching those back in those days and they really meant something to me. And now that I'm talking about it, the other one that really springs to mind was, I guess, kieran Perkins, and not any's hate day. It was actually. I remember, that swim that he did when he kind of came back out of retirement. I think he'd had some personal struggles and he did the 1500 again and wasn't tipped to really perform that well and even though the time wasn't one of the best times, it was such an emotional swim and I know when he finished he had tears streaming down his face and his wife at the time also did, and it was just a really, really emotional swim. So I guess from my perspective, there are a couple of people that I remember and I kind of look up to for different reasons.

Danielle Spurling: 59:41

Both absolutely superstars of Australian swimming. I love them both and what they did.

Jay Prchal: 59:46

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. And we've got so many. We're so fortunate in Australia that we've got that many, that many swimmers to pick from. So it's actually a really hard question. I could be like everybody else and say Michael Gross, but you know, and I admire him as well, you know like he's got some awesome achievements and mentally a really credible person.

Danielle Spurling: 1:00:07

So yeah, I'm loving Kaylee McEwen. I'm loving her as a backstriker only I'm a backstriker, but I just I'm loving what she's doing and I don't think she's getting enough kudos for it. I really don't just because she's a form swimmer, but she's blitzy. She's got four world records at the moment.

Jay Prchal: 1:00:25

I know, and it's unfortunate, it's usually the freestylers that get all the attention right. And you know, there was people like Nicole Limston who obviously was good at backstroke and that gave backstroke a bit of a profile. But you're right, some of the I can't even name any you know great form or medley swimmers and it's hard because they just don't get the attention they deserve. But they put in just getting on more hard work than most others. So yeah, it's a tough one, yeah, it's a tough one, isn't it?

Danielle Spurling: 1:00:53

Well, Jay, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been lovely chatting to you about your swimming career and all the help that you're giving to all those open water swimmers. And have a very merry Christmas and we'll catch up with you very soon.

Jay Prchal: 1:01:05

Yeah, thanks Danielle Very much. I love the, I love the conversation and love the podcast. So, yeah, thank you very much for having me.

Danielle Spurling: 1:01:12

You're really welcome. Ok, see you later. Bye, bye, bye. Thank you, bob F***. Thanks for listening into the podcast today and thanks to Jay for sharing his story with us. Today's episode is proudly brought to you by my favourite swimwear brand, amandzi Swimwear. Check out the new season's colours and patterns at amandiswimwearcom. Till next time, happy swimming and bye for now.