The way Keri-Anne Payne tells it, endurance swimming doesn’t sound much fun:
“The last 1,000 metres of a 10km swim is just agony,” she says. “Your
stomach feels like the worst stomach ache you’ve ever had in your life. Your
arms are aching, and your fingers, because they’ve been held in the same
position for so long, and your feet are numb, and I can get headaches from
where my goggles dig into my head. But I like to think my pain threshold is
quite high. And you can always see a doctor at the end of the race.”
Payne is Britain’s preeminent open-water swimmer. She famously missed out on
gold in the 10km open-water swim at the Beijing Olympics by just 1.5sec
when, having led the race with her British teammate Cassie Patten from the
beginning, she was pipped at the post after two hours of hard slog by a
Russian rival. Today, she is philosophical about the result and happy with
her silver medal, giggling joyfully as she recalls the moment she realised
it was hers.
There are times, though, when the 20-year-old has regretted agreeing to her
coach’s suggestion that she “have a go” at open-water swimming. Having grown
up competing in clean, chlorinated pools, she has found herself in the past
couple of years dodging dead dogs in a mucky Chinese river during a training
swim, wrestling with jellyfish off the coast of Australia and keeping a wary
eye out for sharks in Hong Kong. “I didn’t know about the dead dog until
afterwards, or I’d have been mortified,” Payne says. “But we swam past some
pretty dreadful smells, past shanty towns where the river is used for, well,
everything. After that we went to Repulse Bay [Hong Kong], which was
beautiful, but we did wonder why the course was laid out on the wrong side
of the shark nets.
“The jellyfish were possibly the worst experience of my life. That was at the
world championships in Melbourne in 2007. They called them ‘jelly blobs’ but
they were massive. There were boats out chopping them up, but they still
sting you if they’re chopped up. The little bits were going down my costume
- it was horrible - there were hundreds and hundreds of them. I finished up
covered in jellyfish stings.
“My heart is still in the pool,” she concludes, understandably.
Payne lived in South Africa until she was 13 and has loved swimming “since I
was pretty much born”. The youngest of three siblings, she was often taken
to watch her elder brother and sister at the local pool in Johannesburg. “My
mum used to let me run up and down the side while my brother was swimming,
and I was like, ‘This is really cool’,” she says. “Then one day they said,
‘Why don’t you get in?’ and I just jumped in, in my clothes, right then. I
was only about four. I just thought, ‘Good idea, let’s go!’”
By the time she was eight she was beating all her peers and was moved up to
swim with the 10-year-olds. “Then I started beating them as well, and they
didn’t know what to do with me,” she says with a laugh.
Her parents, who had moved to South Africa from northwest England 25 years
earlier, brought the family back to live in Heywood, Greater Manchester, in
2001. The next year Payne won gold in the world schools championships in the
400-metre freestyle, a result she repeated in the European championships in
2004. The following year she slipped to 17th in the event and she lost her
way for the next couple of years before switching to the individual medleys
(where swimmers compete in four swimming styles) and then agreeing, despite
mixed emotions, to try open water. “I was kind of doing it as an extra event
at the Olympics, focusing mainly on the medleys, but now it’s
becometheevent,” she says.
Thanks to success stories such as Payne’s, in the run-up to 2012 British
swimming will benefit from extra national lottery funding. With access to
the best coaches, Payne is hoping to go one better than in Beijing. “I know
I can beat her one day, definitely,” she says of Larisa Ilchenko, the
Russian who won gold this summer.
Rivalry in open-water swimming can be intense and messy. Competitors swim as
close together as possible because, by positioning themselves so that they
are almost touching the person in front, they can save themselves the extra
effort required to cut through the water and store vital reserves for the
thrash to the finish. Along the way, they have to round a series of “turning
buoys”, where flailing arms and kicking feet can become dangerously
entangled. Payne has been pushed underwater before in the frantic jostle for
position.
“A lot of it is accidental,” she says, “but every now and again you can feel
that it’s deliberate.” After the open-water final in Beijing, Patten
complained her ankle had been pulled back - deliberately, she thought - by
Angela Maurer, a German competitor. “Cassie still came third and the German
girl came fourth,” is Payne’s verdict now. “Cassie was really angry at the
time, but I didn’t want everyone to think it was a catfight!”
Payne is up at 5am most days for training, swims 70km a week and gets to see
David Carry, her boyfriend and fellow Team GB swimmer, only at weekends. She
says the fundamental requirement for long-distance swimming is “mental
toughness”, but more important than that for Payne is that, dead dogs and
jellyfish aside, she enjoys it. “We had a woman come to speak to us from
China,” she recalls. “She’d been to a swimming school where the pool wasn’t
heated in the winter, so it was absolutely freezing, and they had to just
keep swimming and swimming and if they had an injury they’d just swim
through it. They didn’t have a physio. China only got, I think, one
[swimming] gold medal in the pool.
“Basically my tip is to make sure you’re having fun.”
KERI-ANNE’S PERFECT SWIM
For a 10km open-water swim, Payne needs to keep up with the pack and navigate
the course, while making sure to reserve as much energy as possible so she
can keep going for two hours and still have enough left for the final sprint
to the finish. Here are some of her tips.
NAVIGATION “I look up to check my course about every six strokes. Any
more and it slows me down; any less and I’m likely to veer off in the wrong
direction. I lift my head when my right arm is making the stroke, just
enough so my goggles are above the water.”
DRAFTING This means swimming close behind or alongside another swimmer
so you’re saving energy by swimming off their wave. Swim close enough to
touch the feet of the swimmer or, if you’re at someone’s side, keep your
hand level with their knee.
TURNING BUOYS Most courses are rectangular, with a turning buoy at
each corner. You need to turn around the buoy and get in as close to it as
possible. “I freestyle up to the buoy, then flip onto my back for one stroke
as I turn, then go straight back onto my front.”
- Mental toughness during the two-hour race is the most important
characteristic of the long-distance swimmer, according to Payne
- To conserve energy long-distance swimmers use their upper body more than
their legs, so Payne has strong arms and powerful back muscles
- She was due to have keyhole surgery yesterday to repair a problem with
her left knee, which has prevented her from doing breaststroke
KIT BAG
DIANA CONQUEROR GOGGLES £15 from www.simplyswim.com
If you are swimming in dirty, open-water conditions, goggles are essential.
This Diana pair has curved lenses that are said to offer better peripheral
vision to help you navigate an open-water course and avoid stray elbows more
easily.
LUCOZADE CARBO GEL SACHET £1 each from www.lucozadeshop.com
When you feel your legs going limp during a race, wolfing down carbohydrate
gel can provide an energy boost. Stash one of these in your swimsuit.
ARENA LADIES’ POWERSKIN SWIMSUIT £190 www.arenapowerskin.com
On a long open-water swim, you will need a well-insulated suit. This
lightweight Arena suit is made from one piece of fabric and is designed with
no seams on its front to reduce drag from the water.
THE REGIME
5amI have toast and jam, then head to Grand Central Pools in
Stockport.
6amI start with a 10-minute run in the gym, followed by some core
stability work using a medicine ball - working the muscles around my abdomen
- then a 45-minute circuit, with sit-ups, press-ups and weights.
7amMy first hour in the pool - a hard, fast-paced session. We’ll
usually swim about 5,000 metres.
8amI have a cereal bar, then back to the gym for a 10km run or a
cycle. Then more circuit training, with more weights, sit-ups and chin-ups.
1pmA couple of sandwiches for lunch, then a banana or pear, before
heading back for the afternoon session at 3.30pm.
4pmWe have half an hour for stretch work and to work on injury
prevention; then it’s back in the pool for two hours.
7pmI head home for a dinner of pasta or steak and potatoes, sometimes
chips. I don’t worry too much about my diet.
