We're joined by the extraordinary Sophie Etheridge from the UK, who's not only an open-water swimmer but a disability advocate. With a vision that transcends the mere act of swimming, she's dedicated to advocating within the aquatic world, where every individual, regardless of their abilities, can plunge into their passion for swimming. Our conversation navigates through her profound initiatives, including the pioneering Adaptive and Disabled Open Water Swimmers Group, fostering a symbiotic relationship among swimmers, coaches, and organizers.
Imagine the sheer will it takes to conquer the unpredictable dance of the English Channel, a challenge Sophie embraced with 29 hours of endurance. Her narrative captures the essence of the mental and physical strength required to face open waters' capricious moods. We share the waves of emotion and the unwavering support of her crew that buoyed her to monumental success. Sophie's channel swim isn't just a record; it's a narrative stitched with grit, an ode to the resilience etched in every stroke.
In an intimate revelation, Sophie recounts how the embrace of water helped her navigate the tides of life post-disability, transforming adversity into a fountainhead of strength and well-being. The chapter of her journey spotlights the significance of community within open water swimming and how it serves as a life raft of encouragement, self-esteem, and collective triumph. You will hear some advice from Sophie to those treading water in their challenges, the initial plunge may be the most formidable, yet it promises a ripple effect of empowerment and solidarity.
Join us as we celebrate the currents of change, the essence of inclusivity, and the undeniable power of water in reshaping destinies.
With love,
Sarah Freeman, Host of RAWW Podcast
You can find Sophie on IG, click here for the link.
PS: I have a new RAWW Mini Swim Retreat on March 9 in Canmore Alberta, click here for details.
We're joined by the extraordinary Sophie Etheridge from the UK, who's not only an open-water swimmer but a disability advocate. With a vision that transcends the mere act of swimming, she's dedicated to advocating within the aquatic world, where every individual, regardless of their abilities, can plunge into their passion for swimming. Our conversation navigates through her profound initiatives, including the pioneering Adaptive and Disabled Open Water Swimmers Group, fostering a symbiotic relationship among swimmers, coaches, and organizers.
Imagine the sheer will it takes to conquer the unpredictable dance of the English Channel, a challenge Sophie embraced with 29 hours of endurance. Her narrative captures the essence of the mental and physical strength required to face open waters' capricious moods. We share the waves of emotion and the unwavering support of her crew that buoyed her to monumental success. Sophie's channel swim isn't just a record; it's a narrative stitched with grit, an ode to the resilience etched in every stroke.
In an intimate revelation, Sophie recounts how the embrace of water helped her navigate the tides of life post-disability, transforming adversity into a fountainhead of strength and well-being. The chapter of her journey spotlights the significance of community within open water swimming and how it serves as a life raft of encouragement, self-esteem, and collective triumph. You will hear some advice from Sophie to those treading water in their challenges, the initial plunge may be the most formidable, yet it promises a ripple effect of empowerment and solidarity.
Join us as we celebrate the currents of change, the essence of inclusivity, and the undeniable power of water in reshaping destinies.
With love,
Sarah Freeman, Host of RAWW Podcast
You can find Sophie on IG, click here for the link.
PS: I have a new RAWW Mini Swim Retreat on March 9 in Canmore Alberta, click here for details.
Welcome Water Women to Raw Podcasts. Thanks for coming back in here and, as always, I'm super excited to share our latest guest on Raw Podcast, Love's Water is a swimmer. But I am not going to do this introduction because I would love Sophie to do this. She's all the way from the UK and she said yes to being on here, so thank you, Sophie, for being here. All right, Awesome, no problem. So the first question I like to ask is who are you? Who are you Sophie?
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't really know how to answer that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who are you? I know you're a swimmer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say I'm a swimmer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a swimmer and, I suppose, disability advocate thought to try and make swimming more inclusive for everybody. Basically, I'm also a musician, oh, I love that.
Speaker 2:What do you play? Like, I run it, I love that. And so how are you? I'm curious to know, as we're talking about who you are. How are you moving that forward to make swimming accessible for everybody? Is there something you're currently doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so at the moment well, there's lots going on.
Speaker 1:Since my channel Swim, everybody's interested, which is great and what I was hoping for.
Speaker 1:I created and founded the Adaptive and Disabled Open Water Swimmers Group I think it was in 2020, 2021, which has now got more than a thousand members in it, and in the group, it's not just people with disabilities, it's for coaches, open water coaches, open water event organisers, someone with a swim buddy that might have some sort of disability, anyone that is interested in trying to make swimming more inclusive. So it's a place where people can come and ask whatever questions they want and actually ask people from the disabled community how they would work best on certain things. I'm also at the moment collecting data and information on accessibility at different events, so different open water swimming events and I'm hoping to put all of them together in a list so that it's much easier for people to find out all of the details they need to know, rather than having event organisers having sort of six, seven disabled people all emailing the same person, saying the same thing, asking the same questions. It will all just be there, ready and they can just check it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing that you're doing that. Thank you, and this is in the UK that you're doing this. This is happening, yeah, and how could people?
Speaker 1:find out more about this. So we've got an Instagram page, which is ados, underscore admin, and there's also a Facebook page along with the Facebook group, so it's adaptive and disabled open water swimmers or ados. There's also I do quite a lot of writing. I've got a blog on my website, but I also write for the outdoor swimmer magazine, so I do an adaptive athlete column for that, and, although what a lot of it is about my own personal experiences, I'm often asking the disabled community what sort of thing would be useful for me to write about. But yeah, it's just getting in touch and joining the Facebook group and being open to ideas and actually coaching someone with a disability.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of teachers and coaches find it quite daunting when they haven't dealt with someone with if someone's got a specific disability. So, for example, for me with my complex regional pain syndrome, it varies from day to day and there are some teachers who are never sure, quite sure how to deal with that situation, because it might be one day I can do a tiny tiny bit of kick and another day there's just no way my legs will move. So it's trying to help people realise how simple it can be to adapt things to make it accessible for them.
Speaker 2:Well, they're lucky to have you out there creating this, sophie, and so you're like I've. I've read a lot about you and I know you've always been a swimmer, is that right, sophie?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, I started swimming when I was a toddler, really.
Speaker 2:Did you just get thrown in the pool, or was it like no? What was the experience?
Speaker 1:So I was only. I was obviously told about this because I don't remember it. But I've got an older sister and I used to have to go and sit and watch her swimming lessons after school because I was too young to get in the pool and join the swim club and apparently I used to scream the poolside down because I wanted to get in the water and eventually the teacher just told my mum to get me in the water to shut me up. How old were you.
Speaker 1:Sophie, I think I was about 18 months old. Oh, you're just a baby. Yeah, I was a little tiny, tiny and yes, so that was how I started swimming. And now I screamed and screamed until they let me in the water, basically.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I love it. Thanks for sharing that. So I mean, and so water has always been in your life and so have you always been a competitive like? Have you been a competitive swimmer since you were young, or did that when you were an adult?
Speaker 1:So when I was sort of under the age of 10, I was wasn't dead set against being a competitive swimmer, but it wasn't what I wanted really. I swam more for sort of the enjoyment of it and having the skills that I was getting. So I went through the swimming teachers association learn to swim program and I got your mentor, I think it was I don't know what it is now, but it was that you normally finish it around sort of age 15, 16. And I was on the second to last award and I think I was 11. And one of the issues, one of the elements of that badge to get that badge, was the time swim and I wasn't fast enough. So to get faster I joined the competitive swim club and then got into competitive swimming through that and just sort of fell in love with it really and I think I swam competitively. I think it must have been from about the age of 11 or 12 to 17, I think, and that was when I sort of became more interested in open water swimming.
Speaker 2:What makes you interested in the open water swimming, Sophie? I'm curious.
Speaker 1:So I was originally part of Hastings Voluntary Lifeguard Club and I was a rookie lifeguard I think I was again. It was probably. I was probably about 12 when I joined and in the summers because I grew up down in Hastings on the South Coast in the summers we would do beach lifeguarding and that was when I first properly swam in the sea. So it always been. I lived by the beach, so you'd go and play in the sea and do a little bit of swimming, but not proper swimming or what I would class as proper swimming, if you like. And when I was 15 the Lifeguard Club decided they were going to do a fundraising English channel Relay Swim and there was a big group of us that all trained together and then gradually people dropped out and things and I was stubborn enough to stick with it and was then picked for the final team when I was and I think it was I was 16, I just turned 16 and got on the boat and everything, all the training being great. I was one of the fastest swimmers, hadn't had any issues when we done practicing with like being seasick from bobbing on a boat and that sort of thing Got on the boat and over and started being seasick before we got to Shakespeare Bay. I was then seasick all the way from Shakespeare Bay all the way to France and all the way back again To the point I didn't actually see France. Oh no, I ended up not swimming.
Speaker 1:So my first ever open water swimming event was an English channel Relay, which sounds great, but I didn't actually swim. I basically it was about three o'clock in the morning and it was coming up for time for my first swim and I was trying having to decide whether, if I got in and swam for an hour and then got out and carried on being a seasick as I was being, would I then be able to get back in, because if I couldn't, then the relay team would have failed because you've got to stick to the order and I didn't think that I'd be able to carry on swimming. So I just opted out and they completed it. They they achieved and did this like the channel relay, but I just didn't swim. So I it was through that I kind of found a love for open water swimming.
Speaker 1:I liked, and still like, how different is every single time you swim, like when you go in a pool. It's yes, it changes with how many people and who's swimming up and down the lane and that sort of thing, and the temperature may vary by a degree or two, but that's about your lot. Whereas when I'm swimming, for example, the main place I swim open water is in the river. It's different every single time because the water that's flowing through is different water. Yeah, absolutely. Nature that's around you is going to be different, it's just more interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and being outside to enjoy it, yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that, that journey, and so just to kind of take off of that, you've completed the English Channel, correct? Solo I have yes, and there's a really I've done it as a real as well, and what year did you complete that, sophie?
Speaker 1:So I did the relay in 2022. Okay, 2023.
Speaker 2:No, okay, so like last year. So congratulations. Wow, do you, can you? What were some of the highlights and the low lights of something solo across the English Channel?
Speaker 1:I don't know much you know about my solo channel swim, but it took me 29 hours and four minutes, so it was the termination or it's the longest ever one way English Channel swim, solo swim. So I got several world records from it. None of it was expected and it was definitely not intended to happen. I was about between 18 to 20 hours and I didn't think I would last any longer than that, and so where I got in just gone midnight, I would technically have been landing as the sun was going down. Okay, so in my head, mentally, I knew that as the sun was starting to set, I was getting closer, and that was kind of how I judged where I was. It was. The training was hard work. So it basically happened that again, it was the Hastings voluntary lifeguards. In 2022.
Speaker 1:They invited me back basically to redeem myself, to do an English Channel relay with them, which we completed. During that relay that I sat and I chatted to the observer and some of the crew as well about the possibility of doing a solo at some point in the future, thinking sort of in four years time when I'd actually saved up enough money to do it, and they said, yeah, I can see, we sort of know and can judge by who does a relay, who's going to come back and do it solo, and I think, out of this team, if it's going to be anyone, it's going to be you. No, I'm right. Okay, and then we were just really happy because we'd done the relay and it was something that I'd literally waited half my life for because I was a kid when I did it the first time.
Speaker 1:It was literally 15 years, and so life sort of just went on. I was then asked to give a talk on accessibility and open water swimming at the swimming teachers Association conference, and it was at that conference that I met the people that then basically said yeah, we'll pay for your channel swim. So, all of a sudden, in November of 2022, I was swimming the English Channel in August 2023. So there wasn't actually that much training time.
Speaker 2:No, it was like pretty much back to back. Yeah, we were just coming out of the pandemic too, right yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was like, wow, so it? Yeah, it was. I didn't expect it to happen how it did the training. I really enjoyed the training and I'm slowly getting back into training now for my swims that I'm planning for this year. But I think one of the things that set me apart from a lot of other people is the determination and the grit to do it Absolutely and the way that when I got on the boat I wasn't in my head mentally. I wasn't going to go and try and swim the channel, I was going to go and swim the channel.
Speaker 1:I like that there was no umming and a ring, that was just a fact. That's what I was going to do. And Lance the bloke, that was my pilot, who was actually my pilot the year before for my relay and the years, 15 years previously, when I was 15 he asked me and everything like how long do you reckon it's going to take you and everything. And I said I reckon between 18 and 20 hours, but I'll just keep going until I get there. And that's what I did, yeah. And when I got back on the boat and he was saying about just like, yeah, that was a ridiculous time, basically, and I said, well, I did say I'd just keep going till I thought about it.
Speaker 1:You did, I did tell you that and he said yeah, but most people say that but not very many actually do it. I admire that and I think it was just the pure determination to go and do it and the reasons behind why I wanted to do it and it meant so much to me that failure wasn't really an option in some ways, and I mean we had challenges through it At one point. One of the issues was so well, the first issue I had was I threw out my first feed, I also threw out my second feed and after that they start getting slightly concerned that you've not got the nutrition that you need to keep swimming. At one point my stroke rate dropped really low but my friend got in as a support swimmer so she swam behind me, sort of diagonally behind me, and because I knew that I had to stay in front of her, it made me swim faster. Funny how that happened. It worked.
Speaker 1:It really worked and it was such a simple thing, and I think that one thing before my swimmer being advised was to not use a support swimmer and I was told that I'd regret using a support swimmer, but I can honestly say I would not got there without my support swimmers.
Speaker 1:No way and it was the way that my crew worked it fitted together really nicely, so I had my sister on the boat and she was the person there to give serious messages. So if something was going wrong, it would be her that was standing there at the side. Yes, if it was a food, it would be Mike standing there with my food. If it was someone just wanting to say something to me, it would be Camilla. So that wasn't planned. That's just sort of what happened. And when my stroke rate was dropping and I got told the support swimmer was coming in, my sister was the one that gave me the message and I was just like, okay, and the whole thing of not having a support swimmer just went out the window and I trusted my crew to do right by what I need them to do and I think that made a real difference, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Like. That's key right Like in doing what you did, sophie is like that's key. You got to trust the team that is there with you. So, wow, congratulations, thank you. And so I'm curious like your sister does she still swim? No, no.
Speaker 1:So she never really swam competitively. She did do and was a member of Hastings Frontier Lifeguards as well at one point, but she's never really been that sporty, not in the same way that I have been. She was always more academic, if you like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're the swimmer and the family, yeah, but the sounds of it Well. Thank you for sharing that. I was like right on that journey, just like everybody else will be when they listen to this. So, sophie, I have some other questions for you that I loved asking other people that come on Raw podcast. So what was one of your best memories that you've had with swimming? And just tell us about that memory. And maybe you just did tell us, I don't know, but maybe you have another memory too.
Speaker 1:That's a difficult one.
Speaker 2:I like to throw those up everybody. Yeah, take your time.
Speaker 1:It's gonna sound really weird. Yes, the channel swim was great and everything and there was no feeling like it at all, just nothing compared to it. But when I was a kid and I swam competitively, I used to do a lot of swimming aulas and things and one of my friends good friends that I trained with and swam with, who was my age group as well, and I used to basically cheer everyone off and we'd always had a laugh and everything. And I don't know if you've ever seen the film Chicken Run yes, but a thing that I don't even remember where it came from. But for some reason, the whole quote with I don't want to be a pie, I don't like gravy sort of became a thing between us and it was one of the things that she would shout when I swam. And I know it sounds really odd, yeah, it doesn't. I love this Because it was so distinctive from what people were.
Speaker 1:Just cheering, I knew that there was that person there and I knew that the team that was behind me was there and it would push me on. So I think I had a lot of fun times when I swam competitively at gala and things. Another one I remember is when we so each swimming gala. I don't know what it's like where you are, but in the UK it tends to be that each club has section of the poolside. If you like, they claim a section of the poolside.
Speaker 2:It seems that way here too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you kind of cheer from that point. And at one of the gala's all of the clubs would fight over this one section of the poolside because it had a flume, so we would all sit in the flume. The flume wasn't running, but we'd all sit and climb up this flume and slide back down this flume when we were waiting to race. So I think it's the small things that have made swimming so just magical and so much fun for me. It doesn't matter how much swimming I do, I still enjoy it. So personally, I think, like as a swimmer, those are the main things, whereas I sort of also see it from the other side, as a coach and a teacher now, in that one of the best feelings in the world is being able to get someone to do something for the first time that they never in a million years thought they could do, absolutely, and that's just if you will reel buzz. So there's kind of the two sides to it.
Speaker 1:It's been on for a while, but there's just so many memories that I've got and all through my life pretty much there were. There were very few bad memories from swimming that I actually have. I mean, being sick for like 15 hours was not a great memory. I like that. That's not a good one. I quite enjoy that very well. I can see why Pretty much all of them are good memories, isn't?
Speaker 2:that interesting.
Speaker 1:Thinking about them makes me smile oh.
Speaker 2:I love that it's. Yeah, I can resonate too, sophie, like I just thinking too on my end, like I can't think of. I think of one memory maybe, but nothing that's like hasn't brought that joy you know, right so yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that. So I have a couple more questions for you and then we'll go into the fast, fun ones. So what has water taught you to infuse in your everyday life like out of the water?
Speaker 1:probably not what you expect. So when I so, I've not always been disabled. I had an accident in 2011, which is what made me disabled, and I now rely on a wheelchair probably 18 90% of the time. I can walk, but only very short distances. So I do have movement in my legs, but I can't put my full weight through them without a lot of pain, and the connections, sort of, between my brain and my legs aren't quite as they should be, so they don't feel how they should normally, so I don't always know what they're doing.
Speaker 1:So in the water, just getting back into swimming, because I had about five, six years where I didn't swim because of all of my health conditions, and it was actually only eight years ago that I got back into the water for the first time. It came up on one of those Facebook memory things. But trying to learn to live completely differently to the way that I had before, I was focused on with all of my health issues. I was still trying to be exactly the same person. I was doing things in exactly the same way that I'd always done them, and I really, really struggled, not just with my physical health but my mental health as well, because I found that things that I could easily do before I suddenly couldn't do so when I got back into swimming. I had a few sessions with a coach and that sort of thing, and I was trying to learn to re-kick my legs, so automatically my legs, I just couldn't kick my legs. It wasn't that they don't do the movement, it's that if I was concentrating on trying to do the correct movement to kick my legs, I forgot about my arms, and I'll never, ever forget it. One of the teachers said to me why do you want to kick your legs, sophie? Why are you trying to kick your legs? And I said because that's how you swim. And she went but your arms work fine. You swim very well using just your arms. And it was almost a light bulb moment Because it made me realise that I didn't need to do things how I'd always done them and how everyone else did them. I just needed to do them.
Speaker 1:So it has helped not just in terms of swimming and my confidence, but it helped me in things as simple as cooking a meal, because to me, when you cook, a really simple example is when you cook a meal, you stand up at the cooker. Why was I doing that when standing up was causing more pain, why didn't I have a breakfast bar stall there? So swimming's not only given me the joy in terms from the actual swimming, it's really helped in terms of managing my health conditions and managing my mental health and my general wellbeing, as well as bringing in that fantastic side of community and the social side from you get from the open water swimming community and all of the good stuff that everyone experiences and I think being able to put those two things together in one place. You can't do that in many places. You don't get that same for me, I don't get the same fulfilment in very many places in the same way. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:No, it absolutely does make sense, but thank you for sharing that and for taking us along on that journey too. I'm going to throw one more question at you because I need to ask you and it's kind of it may pull from what you just said to Sophie. So like, how does water build your self confidence or your self esteem, and what would you tell other water women that are listening right now If they're struggling in the water, the self esteem they're trying to show up for them Maybe they're a mom who's just hasn't had time to themselves or something else in their life what would you say? And yeah, I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1:If swimming is really what you want to do, go and do it it's. I think it depends when and where you swim. As in, you need to work out what you want to get out of swimming and I think once you've realised and actually got back in the water for the first time, you'll know and you'll kind of find your people. It's true, I don't really know how to explain it. So when I started getting back into swimming, I just went to a normal lane swim session and, to be honest, I don't remember anybody that met during it really. But I, to get into open water, I needed a different place and somewhere safe to do it. So I joined a local triathlon club and ever since then, although I'm not as involved in like the running and the cycling and that sort of thing, there's certain people that I now always swim with and that I will have quite happily go and swim for a full day with and have done before, and we don't even have to say anything to each other. She's just, they're just kind of my people and I think unless you take that first step to get into the water, you're not going to find those people. But it's also remembering that it's highly likely there are other people in Timpul thinking and feeling exactly the same thing as you. Yeah, exactly, you're really, really not going to be alone.
Speaker 1:An example was from my swim today. My swim felt absolutely atrocious. It felt like I was drowning in style rather than actually swimming. Somebody actually posted on Facebook and she said, oh, I saw you in the pool today, you look great. And I was like, oh, okay, and it's something as small as that, that sort of makes you go oh, all right, that's okay, that was. I feel better about that now. But, yeah, it's just taking that first step. The first step is always the hardest, but once you're in and you're going and you're in your happy place, there's nothing like it.
Speaker 2:It's so true, sophie, and it's just going back to like the community, like the triathlon, some communities same here, right, like I love watching people, like as a coach, on the pool deck or open water. It's like I love watching the communities that are created, yeah, you know, and they continue off the pool deck and it's it's like we have this special language, it's like it's beautiful. I get goosebumps every time I see it. Yeah, get it.
Speaker 1:It's just someone that just gets you. Yeah, there's a group of I think there's probably about six or seven of us and we don't always swim together. We're all different speeds, um, but we go to events together and we all support each other, no matter how the event goes, and it just kind of is what it is. We're quite happy to spend each other's time with each other, go and do bonkers, stuff, whatever we fancy, and then, yeah, just kind of get on with it. But they're just the community that there is, I think, especially in open water swimming I don't do as much pool swimming normally- I see both here, like both, but I definitely feel like the open water swimming is big, especially in the UK.
Speaker 2:It's huge. We just need an ocean here. Right, we have the glacier lakes, so yeah, we're a bit luckier than that.
Speaker 1:I'm really lucky and where I live, I live literally on the river, so the river is about five minute walk from my front door. Oh, that's perfect, um. So I'm really lucky and there are several lakes locally as well that we can go and swim in Um, so we have lots of really nice places to go and swim Um, which obviously we're very fortunate to have. Um, but the community, it's just the open water swimming community. Um, it's just incredible. It absolutely is. There's no judgment from people.
Speaker 1:No, there isn't at all. No, it's like. The community that I've built in terms of the adaptive and disabled open water swimmers is just the group, and a lot of people on Facebook group, hamphamans and things, have told me about all these issues they've had and they've had to kick people out of the group and all this. The Facebook group runs itself. I don't have to really do anything with it because all that you get is positive posts from people supporting each other, and if someone's had a down day in their posts, someone else will lift them up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I mean like there's no, there's nothing negative to talk about. It's like if it's.
Speaker 1:Someone had an issue in terms of accessibility or something. Then other people say well, have you thought about trying to do it this way? I use this, I do this. This might help you in the future. And if they can't suggest anything, they're there to just say I've been through something similar. Don't let it get to you. Yeah, it's a real community. Every week on a Sunday One thing that I did as soon as I started it and it's carried on the whole time was on a Sunday, we have a sort of a swim of the week day, basically. So everyone posts what their favourite swim or their proudest swim or their best swim was from the past week, and we've had people like that have swum the North Channel and have done relay channel swims or long like late winter, two way swims. And then we also have people that have got in the river and stayed in the river for 10 minutes. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. No, it doesn't. We still congratulate each other and they still say well done, I love that it's the same here too, sophie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're almost like the opposite You're the sea and you have the rivers, and it's warmer here we have getting in the ice like cold, like in the winter, right, obviously it warms up in the summer, but it's like we celebrate no matter what, whatever accomplishment it's been, and that community is so beautiful. So, I wanted to just lean in here just a bit, just to kind of close it off. I have one question for you what is in your swim bag? This is a fast dancer right now.
Speaker 1:Shampoo goggles hat, spare, goggles, spare hat. I have like the I don't know what to call it not workbook, set book. Okay, it's a book that's got sets in it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That I can work from in the pool if I want to. I love it Anything else Hairbrush, hairbrush, oh and a drink, oh, and a drink.
Speaker 2:And are we missing anything else? I don't think so. Okay, and last, to close this off, I just wanted to do you have a mantra or quote that you live by?
Speaker 1:Help people not to limit themselves and to never give up.
Speaker 2:And that's what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're kind of the two things is that you just do? You do what you want to do, what's important to you. There's no point in wasting time and energy on things you don't want to do, and do what makes you happy.
Speaker 2:Sounds that's amazing. Well, sophie, thank you so much for being on raw podcast as a guest. Thank you, have a good night. Thank you, sophie, for being a guest on raw podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to chat with you, to have a conversation and to talk to all things swimming and water. You are an inspiration to the swimming community and congratulations on your recent awards. I look forward to one day crossing paths in the water or off the water off the pool deck.
Speaker 2:Thank you everybody for listening to raw podcast. If you believe a reading or a comment in either iTunes or Spotify, this really helps us grow this podcast and I would love to hear from you too, up next. Well, can't really tell you who that is yet, but that will come soon and I know the next few guests are coming all the way from the UK and I cannot wait to introduce all of them. I love this new podcast, raw podcast. The direction it's going in, all things water, I mean wow, it is energizes me and the guests that are coming on here. Thank you for saying yes. What is coming up in Sarah Freeman coaching? Well, if you haven't heard, we recently launched a raw mini swim retreats. It is being held in Canmore, alberta, and they're about two hours long. They're on our website at sarahfreemancoachingcom for more information. Thank you, everybody for listening to raw podcast. Keeping the Rad Act of Water Woman you are.