- Stay tuned for tears.
- So she's actually the celebrity.
- It's these yahoos.
- Morning, Trainiacs!
As you might be able to see from these old,
what is that, radio?
Who does radio anymore?
You know who does radio?
I do radio!
After yesterday's long swim,
heading to our national CBC radio station morning show,
I think they wanna hear who the yahoos are that
decided to swim in the Red River.
It's these yahoos.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Swimming against the water or?
- Oh, no.
Thank goodness, no.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Triathlon Kim used to be in the media
so she's actually the celebrity all-around.
Even though I'm on the radio.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Did you ever have one of those friends
that says hey, we should do this.
Well, it started as a crazy idea and then it got serious.
Yesterday, after months of training,
three men accomplished their goal of swimming
37 kilometers of the Red River.
Taren Gesell, Pat Peacock, and the CBC's own
Jacques Marcoux swam from the south perimeter
to the north perimeter.
So how is Taren Gesell feeling
after more than nine hours in the water?
Well, he's in studio this morning.
Thanks for coming in after your day like that.
- Thanks for having me.
- How are you feeling this morning?
- Sore.
Very sore.
- Yes, and?
Accomplished?
- Yeah, a little bit.
It's a bit surreal.
I was saying--
(upbeat electronic music)
- His friends and fellow athletes, Pat Peacock
and the CBC's very own Jacques Marcoux.
I don't know if Jacques's in the office or not today
but we better get a kick.
Thank you.
Super fun, yeah.
I love listening--
(water running)
- That is that.
I'm gonna have to vlog left-handed today.
This hand, of all the things that are sore,
that wrist, that wrist is by far the worst.
And, as they say in there, alright, what's next.
Well, what's next is an enormous breakfast at Stella's.
Or Clementine's.
It's gonna be big, I'll tell you that much.
Yeah, coffee would be great.
Yes, yes, yes to all.
(upbeat electronic music)
(groaning)
Soreness and fatigue is setting in.
So things from yesterday that are worth note.
Yeah, that hurt a fair bit.
My jaw did not hurt that much.
My forehead, right here, from the big goggles,
that hurt quite a bit.
There's just constant pressure right there.
The most painful thing, like painful structurally, was here.
Right there and then on the inside 'cause as you're treading
water you're kinda kicking that way.
But right there, that core from just constantly kicking,
the abdominal muscles got really tuckered out and the cold.
The cold, the cold, the cold, the cold.
Pat pulling out at 27 k, I wasn't there to see it
and the guys actually decided not to tell me
because I was about a mile behind
and it was so cold that the guys, normally they'd swim up
at every nutrition stop, they'd wait for me.
They couldn't tread water.
You stop, you instantly started shaking
so you had to keep moving and then
even as you were moving, you're cold.
And Pat just being so damn fit with an eight-pack
and having no body fat, he froze.
It was so cold that I was expecting a whole lot
of internal mental chatter of Taren versus Taren
with Taren saying no, stop, stop, stop, stop.
You shouldn't be doing this, get out,
boat's right there, shore's right there, you can stop.
And then other Taren saying shut up.
Shut up, shut up, no.
I'm gonna finish, just gotta finish this,
this is a very big day, focus, focus.
This Taren and this Taren basically went away.
The entire day was almost being brain dead.
That people would talk to me and I don't know
if I answered many questions like what do you want?
They would maybe bet one word answers.
There was one time when my dad asked me, "How do you feel?"
I said, "So, so cold."
And he said, "Is there anything I can do?"
There are a million things that he could probably do
and my answer?
"No."
And then I just kept swimming.
Time started going by, when I had two hours left
it seemed like nothing, like I was basically finished.
But time just started going by like (snaps) half hour,
(snaps) half hour, (snaps) half hour, (snaps) half hour.
I think it was because my body was basically shutting down
and putting as much effort into just turning over
my arms as possible and keeping going.
And I actually swam the last third of it
basically with my eyes closed.
So yeah, I'm egged up.
I am toasted up.
I am coffeed up.
I am chia puddinged up.
Back to real life.
(groaning)
Hey, Trainiacs.
As promised, we--
you are so crooked.
We'll answer, your open water marathon swimming questions.
What did I use to stop chafing?
Body Glide, lots of it.
What kind of watch do I use?
A Garmin 920 XD.
Yes, it is tri-friendly.
What water pree--
Pee.
What water-proof music device do I use?
I use the Finesse Duo.
How did the wetsuit hold up?
Let's go see.
(laughing)
Awful.
Look at that.
This is this wetsuit's last dance anyway.
When the water temperature is hot enough
that you can choose between wearing a wetsuit or not,
when would you go for just a tri-suit to save time in T1
or would you always go for a wetsuit when I can?
Yes, I am not a very strong swimmer.
If you don't have a swimming background
a wetsuit helps because you're more buoyant,
you stay higher in the water, you go faster.
What is the hardest thing I've done in my life,
including non-Triathlon events.
We're talking endurance events, probably yesterday.
How much of that truckload of candy did I end up eating?
Lots!
How long did it take me to train for this?
Three months of very specific training,
eight years of building up the base of fitness.
Did I have a stroke-rate I was aiming for?
No, but I held 27 strokes a minute.
Did I swim with the current?
Yes, and what speed was the current?
Standard open water swimming speed is somewhere
around three k an hour.
We were going, at times, 5.3.
How could hypothermia have been prevented?
Most open water English Channel swimmers
will actually put on 40, 50, 60 pounds
before doing the open water swim and they'll cold train.
50 km swim next time or is 37 pushed to the max?
I don't know yet.
The thing about these long swims are that
right past 3 1/2 hours, it's all painful.
You just kinda keep enduring.
And you could probably endure for days on end,
you just don't want to.
What entry-level wetsuit would I recommend?
An Xterra.
How should they generally fit?
Tight in as many places as you can except for the shoulders.
What's my take on the report that you read
about a sewage dump that occurred a few days ago
in the Red River?
Yes, an Olympic-sized swimming pool worth of sewage
was dumped in the Red River four days before we did this.
Media sensationalizes everything and they use big numbers
like 2.7 million liters of sewage,
an Olympic-sized swimming pool amount of sewage,
but compared to the amount of river that we swam through,
it is 1/1,000 the volume, if that.
And it's been pushed away for four days.
Also, Jacques pooped in the water so.
How many calories were burned?
I worked it out to about 6,000 not including the heat loss.
The heat loss probably amounted to, I don't know,
another two, three, four thousand.
So nine, 10,000 calories.
How do you spot whilst swimming a long distance?
We would just look for corners and bends in the river
and then we would swim tangents from one corner to the next.
And that's it.
We blasted through comments that have built up
in just a couple, that's like two hours since uploading
so thanks for getting into those comments
with all of your questions.
Fun thing that Kim just came up with as an idea,
she said that I might not do the best job
of communicating all of the despair or the sad things,
the challenges that happened yesterday
and I'm just all happy-go-lucky.
She is a reporter and is very good at asking
cut deep to the bone questions.
So tomorrow, we're gonna have a no-Triathlon Kim
interviews Triathlon Taren about the long swim.
Stay tuned for tears, Trainiacs, stay tuned for tears.
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