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Welcome to the triswimcoach podcast! This is episode #35 and this is Kevin. Today, I have an interview with a guy named Daniel Smith who I met back a few months ago. I was actually helping out with a video shoot. Daniel was doing the taping for this product and met him along with Sheila Tormina. He was actually helping a friend with a swimming product that should be coming out here pretty soon in the next few months. I’ll have some more details about that. It’s a really cool product. But anyway, I met Daniel there and he’s a great guy and he’s a coach and a triathlete and he’s done a whole lot of really interesting things in his life so I thought I’d bring him on the show. And I thought it would be a great interview and I was right! So, have that coming up in just a couple of minute. The only announcement I have is this: if you are still interested in getting in to triswimsecrets, we’re offering the course for a dollar for 14 days just to check it out as a trial. We’re going to be offering it through midnight tonight so I’m releasing this podcast on February 1st. So, I apologize for the last minute but if you’re getting this podcast and you’re listening to it after the 1st at midnight then you can sign up for the 5 swimming sessions that we’re offering.
You just go to triswimsecrets.com/access and you’ll be able to access those 5 free lessons but you’ll miss out on the $1 14-day trial. If you want to get that, just get right on that as soon as you hear this if it’s before midnight on the 1st. Otherwise, wanted to get right into it. It’s a pretty long interview but it’s there’s some really good information on it. One other thing I also wanted to mention that I did have a mention come in that I wanted to read on a podcast but I don’t think we have time for it on this one since I want to not make this the longest triswimcoach podcast ever. So, we’ll get to it next week. But if you do have any questions, feel free to e-mail them to me and we’ll get to it on a podcast. If nothing else, I’ll at least e-mail you back an answer. So, just shoot me an email at kevin@triswimcoach.com and without further ado, here is the interview with Daniel Smith! Take care and have a great week of training! Talk to you soon!

Kevin: I’m really excited to have Daniel Smith on the show today! Daniel was a USA triathlon coach, photographer, competitive triathlete, personal trainer, high school track-and-field coach, writer and artist. I’m just getting tired even saying all those things. He comes from Vermillion, Ohio and has worked as a US army combat medic as well as a model in New York City, Miami and in Europe. He is currently coaching a triathlon training group back in his hometown while maintaining a healthy balance in the spiritual and emotional areas of life as well. Daniel, welcome to the show!

Daniel: Thanks Kevin! I appreciate you giving me some time!

Kevin: Oh sure! Can you say your blog URL? I didn’t want to screw it up because it was pretty long.

Daniel: Oh yeah! It’s not an easy one to remember actually. Sometimes, I have to look up. It’s @mikephotograpy1 is just to make sure that you get it right. djsmithphotography.blogspot.com. There is a link on there, there are site on there. My problem in my life promoting myself is that I have too many titles and no one can take me seriously.

Kevin: That’s right! Wearing many hats, right?

Daniel: Yeah! I find a good challenge in all of it!

Kevin: Yeah! It’s good you never get bored that way. You’re not sticking with one thing.

Daniel: Yup! I found that it’s actually the best balance I’ve had in my life since my entire life. I feel very blessed to have options and to have to follow a balance and be able to do many things and I enjoy all of them! And to give back and I get back from them as well.

Kevin: Cool! Awesome! So, what got you into triathlons originally?

Daniel: Well, the first time I had actually had 2 go rounds with triathlon in 1981 I was beating a girl who was a serious runner. We were both running a lot of 10Ks and marathons and we had goals of making Boston and I had just gotten out of the military and she was in here graduate program here in Cleveland. And I was running so many 5Ks, 10Ks and training runs and I had no background on running. I know nothing about it. So, I just ran like every typical runner that’s new. Me and myself really grounded and I got so many stress fractures but I literally had cast on both of my legs at one time. And so, I was actually in Spain when I was working as a model and I was training for a marathon and both of my legs gave up at the same time and the coach there who I happen to know through her. She was also a triathlete. I had a coach that was working on around the South of France said “You know, you need to get in the pool and get off your legs for a little while” and I said “I have no idea how to swim”. So, I literally got in the pool with a bunch of triathletes and got my butt kicks. And I was like, “Wow! This is an awesome workout! I should try swimming”.
So, it kind of one thing led to the other and we made it but one night that I wouldn’t be able to finish a triathlon and so when we got back to the States, her and I signed up for a biathlon. We’ve committed to have a swim and since then I got hooked. It really was like one of those things that was like I borrowed her race bike. I was a pink girl’s mountain bike. And I remember the it poured down rain, it was a cross country race and I just went and put it all out there and I just enjoyed every minute of it. I actually got 2nd in my age group and I’d never even been on a bike. I was so stoked. I was like “Oh my God! We are awesome at this!” So I just kind of segue that into like working more on my swim, getting more into cycling. I actually bought a bike and my first bike was like a Nishiki and I think I bought in a line or from a friend at a bike shop up there in Cleveland. One of those bikes that was probably 6 inches too small for me but I raced it anyway. But that’s how I got into it! And then I got back into the modeling full-time. Moved back to the fashion industry and travelled back into some bad habits and get out of a couple years of racing and back into full-time smoking and partying at the clubs with the models. So, that was hard because once you’ve been physically active and then you got back to forgetting about having this alternative lifestyle of mirror athlete.
We refer to it in the fashion world as you only care about how fit you are as how you look in the mirror. So we refer to ourselves as mirror athletes. I sort of got disgusted with it and around 2000, I was living in New York City and I kind of went from modeling to photo shoots and started becoming a photographer myself. And working with top designers and what not and I got really out of shape and miserably fat and I was smoking 3 packs a day by the year 2000. I couldn’t run half a mile if you paid me to. I remember the turnaround was on a New Year’s Eve party. I believe it was the year 2000 and I saw myself polaroid taken at the party and I was like, “Who’s the dude dipping his bear belly in the chips?” and it was me! I was like, “Oh my God! No way! That’s not me!” So, I said the next day I’d get up and put my running shoes on and I started trying to run and it was so hard!

Kevin: Yeah! That’s quite a story! That’s motivation though, for sure!

Daniel: Yeah! I know! It was really hard and the hardest thing was trying to balance two lifestyles because in 2000 I became a pretty well-known model agent. I jumped into the other side of the bandwagon as photographer and I worked for Ambercrombie and Fitch catalogues right at the casting for catalogues. So, I was travelling and scouting models and partying with them. It was a little crazy! Life becomes non-realistic at that point and so giving up smoking was not a reality for me like for my lifestyle at that point. It wasn’t until the end of 2001, a lot have happened, I moved back to Ohio just to find some grounding and I was like I have to give up smoking if I’m going to try and get back into this. I finally got myself to quit by 2002 and had tried my first triathlon again. So, it was my second entry back into triathlon and I decided to get coaching certified and I wanted to help people because I realized at that point how hard it was once you’ve gotten out of it to get back to for the right reasons.

Kevin: Have you run into many other people that have a similar story where they got off-track and maybe gain some weight or got into and unhealthy lifestyle and came back to fitness and health?

Daniel: Yeah! Actually half of my clients have gone through that. It’s fun! There was a guy, I forgot his name, Todd something, he wrote a book. It was about his segue from heroin addiction into triathlon. We actually met at the Cleveland triathlon one year and he’s covered in fats and it was like I looked and I was like, “Dude, I really know where you’re coming from”. He actually has a book out. I think it’s sold on one of the triathlon websites. It’s called “Sparing Over…” something. Anyway, a lot of my clients too happen to be middle-aged guys and girls who have gone through a previous sport and then have had kids and the kids interject this lifestyle of nest-building and eating and being what Europeans like to refer to as “big-boned” or healthy. You stand back and you get a grip back your life again. So, I have a lot of folks who come back to try to train for realistic reasons and that’s what I love. I don’t train the world’s top athletes although my people are doing really well. I look at triathlon training from my perspective as a realistic way to have a balance in your life and enjoy something healthy and try to get back to giving to the athletes something that I’ve learned from it as well.

Kevin: Yeah! Great! What kinds of things are you doing now with your coaching?

Daniel: Because I also coach track-and-field and I do one-on-one lifestyle coaching which is more for folks who just literally have no idea how to eat or how to get in shape and you run into that more in the Mid-West than you would anywhere. And a lot of those people end up turning into triathletes because they love the opportunity to cross-train and try something that they’ve never imagine they could do. So, that’s one thing I do in the track-and-field. I coach long jumps and pole-holds and some of the distance in hurdlers in high school. And then I also have my triathlon coaching team that I have. We have a winter group and a summer group. On the winter group, we focus more on building strength and base building. And we go all about workouts 4 times a week indoors. Here one the East, once the end of April rolls around and the snow stops flying, we get back outside and we go 4 times a week outdoors. We have one night specifically cross-training for strength. One night is swimming, one night is cycling and one night is running.

Kevin: Yeah!
Daniel: So, it’s a challenge having only limited amount of time when you can actually get in the open water. Next thing is we do leave weight about right here on Lake Eerie. So our swim nights are a lot of fun because we get the best open water swimming there is in the Mid-West.

Kevin: Oh yeah! I can imagine as long as the water is clean right?

Daniel: Yeah! The nice thing is that I have a couple of friends who work for the public water safety and I have a website I go to every morning depending on what the surges are and find out what beach has the highest bacterial count. And then I try to avoid that. Actually, the part that we have up here which is Linwood Park, I have an Olympic distance triathlon which was named as best in US last year. USA triathlon races, if you’re interested just type www.hfpracing.com and that’s the Vermillion Heritage Triathlon. But we swam right there at that event and it’s never been even in the near danger level. It’s really clean and it’s country out here so we’re not downtown Cleveland where the river caught on fire.

Kevin: Yeah! That’s right! Good thing! How big is the surf get there?

Daniel: We get up to 8 footers here. It’s not like a that high or anything but depending on the direction of the wind flow, we’re on the shallow end of the lake. I don’t know if anyone knows this but Lake Eerie has a deep end and a shallow end. Just think of it as a giant mud puddle with women where your heels struck at the other end of your flat part of your foot hit where it’s shallow and it never gets any deeper than 26 feet on our end, whereas it gets down to 120 on the other end.

Kevin: Oh wow! I didn’t know that!

Daniel: Yeah, so if the winds blow in from the northeast, then get huge waves because it rolls that deep water comes up and then it causes a big carry-through and then it hits our shore and we even get some pretty rough waves out here.

Kevin: Yeah! Have you surfed out here?

Daniel: Oh no! I’m not that. I love to body surf but no, there are people who do it but I have so much and I’d love to take my kayak out when it’s like that during low wind.

Kevin: Oh yeah!

Daniel: It can get really dangerous. This water up here is really murky when it gets like that. It turns blackish-brown. It’s really disgusting. You don’t really want to get in it. Otherwise, it’s pretty clean. I’m not complaining about it by any means.

Kevin: Yeah! Cool!

Daniel: But some of the things that I do focus on for the coaching groups is something I’ve learned the last couple of months of working with the lucky chance that I got to hook up with Sheila on that book. It really led itself into teaching me a lot as far as coaching and ethics and she was just a quality person to be able to be able to learn from one-on-one.
Some of the things I learned were more about how to train people from the focus outward and a lot of people don’t quite get that and it’s the one thing I’m starting to bring more to my group is that you start by building the basics primarily and then adding the things like the distance to it and then the endurance part of it because if you don’t do the technique correctly, there’s no point of running 20 miles if you run there and the form is horrible. Same thing with swimming or cycling, and so I’m really focusing this year on building perfect quality technique and then adding the distance to it.

Kevin: Yeah! It helps you avoid injuries too which is huge in this sport.

Daniel: And the other thing that I was remarkably honest with her about and a lot of the time she was very much honest to me too is that 80% of triathletes over-train and it’s amazing to me that I was that person as a runner. So, as soon as I got into triathlon, I’d take one day off a month in the last 6 years. Most triathletes are so over-trained and it’s the one thing I have to keep reiterating to my athletes that I coach is your building blocks are when you rest. You’re supposed to become concrete settles and become solid during that rest phase. If you don’t let them become solid and the blocks don’t build them, they start to crumble. She reiterated that to me and how she’s seen her history of training and the pupils she’s worked with, how that is the same in her point of view as well.

Kevin: Yeah! Absolutely! I totally agree with that and even with stuff like weight lifting, I’ve noticed for myself that I’m one of those hard-gainers and I tend to be that way like I want to get back to the gym and keep lifting weights. But I do much better when I’m taking a lot of rest. Like I’ll even take a week off in between sessions and I’m actually making more gains. I think it’s the same thing with triathlon although you can’t really take a week off but it’s just getting that rest is so important.

Daniel: Yeah, there’s a little trick that I realized that I have been doing way too much all of the time so I got into these micro-meso-cycles where I’ll do 3 weeks and 1 week off. And in those 3 weeks, I’ll have a focus. 1 week is just focus strictly on stroke cycling strength and then the rest, my running and my swimming just rolls with it. And on the next week is the swimming strength and I focus on that and the other 2 sports roll with it. And on the third week, I focus just on my running strength and then I start all over again. And then the fourth week is an easy week for everything and then it’s amazing how I’m starting to feel more fresh in every sport. And as you start to build, you make them come a little closer together for you peak race, seems to work so far in the last year that I’ve been trying this.

Kevin: Yeah! That sounds like a good plan! Now what are you seeing in terms of the new high elbow pull that Sheila is helping to bring into the triathlon world both with yourself and with your clients?

Daniel: You know, it’s interesting I have a rare perspective on this because I still feel so grateful having the fact that I was her visual crusader with the book when she wrote it and then we met on Facebook and she’s like “Would you be willing to attempt to do the photos for this book?” I’m like “Oh my gosh! Are you serious? Yeah, totally”! So, I got this lucky break to jump right in there with her and these Olympians and got to see this book created from the inside out. And I was part of it. And then I was even luckier to get taken on the tour with her, the clinic and the coaching tour that followed that she’s still continuing out. It’s back off a little bit. The one thing that I’ve seen that’s pretty exciting is if you focus on the technique and not worry so much about the distance and the yardage. The ego ahead of it is what I like to call it because it’s so funny I have all my friends on Facebook who loved to put on to Facebook “Swam 10,000 yards this morning! 14,000 tomorrow morning”! I’m like “Dude, do you realize none of that matters if you swim like crap”. Take that part of it out of the game and then really look at what you’re doing. It’s amazing how much faster you get!
I used to swim luckily in the 126-127 range. I’m a big guy. I’m almost 205 pounds so I’m pulling a torpedo through the water. Now, I’m under 110s. I think I spend 108s today when I was at the pool. And it’s just been focusing on holding water for the sake of traction. And it’s amazing how that alone, even if you are a big guy, it’s going to give you the speed that you need to take to the distance once they can tie together. It’s the hardest thing to make people understand it and I’ll be the first one to admit. Jill was trying to explain it to me for the first 3 months after she did the book and I was helping her out with trying to do some of these clicks and I was thinking “Power, power, power”! It’s not the kind of power you think that’ not a surge with your arm or hand. It’s your holding the water still while you’re pulling your body over that hand and it’s such a hard thing to get. Until it clicks and you feel it, like “Oh! There it is”! It’s a patience that you have to have of not overdoing it and at the same time you have to be focused all the time.

Kevin: Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you: Is the key to it just being focused? Because when started doing it last, I guess it was last summer when I first started experimenting. I was swimming in this lake and I would get it for a little while and then pretty soon my mind is drifting and then all of a sudden it’s like my hand is dropping and I know I got to go back to it. What helped me at the time was I was doing these deck set-ups like an open water course and I would do these deck-ups and it’s like pulling myself out of the water at each point and it would remind me that’s where I need to be.
Daniel: Yeah, absolutely! I think you told me that when we were at Austin when I met you. It totally made sense! In fact, one of my favorite that’s been working so well for me as having my clients and myself I do just 50s and all I do is I’ll do a 50 of the paddle board drill where you’re working just on entering and the arm angle and then I do a single arm drill where I’m just working on propulsiveness and catch. Then, I do a 50 at where I tie it together both arms and then just thinking of how I’m holding the water still and letting my body come over it and then I do a 50 all out and then I do 15 press-outs and then I do it all over. I do it 10 times. So 1 pull, it’s like a set, and then I’ll do 10 sets of that but you can get out of the water and you can feel your laps, your shoulder… the flexibility is engaged and I really feel like it’s tying it all together to the point where it’s starts to work but it’s exactly what you are doing with the press-out. Reminding yourself that it’s the arm position… if your hand is on the deck, if you’re way down below the deck and you put your hands on the press-out, that is the hand position that you need to carry through the whole stroke.

Kevin: Yeah, awesome! That sounds like a good set!

Daniel: Yeah, it’s actually really tough. I did it today and I was like toward the end, then I made myself do 5 hundreds and whatever pace I can hold. It’s just a way to start to tie the endurance to the– I’m not even worried about rate because if you worry about how fast your tempo is right now, you’ll lose the focus on what your hand is doing. And I feel like if you do anything right now, the focus first should be on the technique of holding the water and that was my big thing. I tried to jump really quick right into the turn over because I was still racing last season. It was funny because the story was at my final race of the year, I raced the master of the elite in the Half Iron Man and as we started out on the race, I’m neck-to-neck leading our group, the male master’s swim, I’m leading with this other guy and I know he swam for Bowling Green State University here in Ohio and I’m like, “I’m going to stay with this guy! I’m going to stay with him”! So as soon as I would look over and see him and think about what he was doing I was no longer focused on what I was doing and he would start totally getting away from me and I would be like, “Oh no”! And then I’d be like, “Focus! Focus!”then I’d get back to my high elbow and hold, hold, hold. And then I would just glance on the side of my goggles and I would see I was totally past him again! And then as soon as I would start focusing on what he was doing, I would start slipping back so it was such an obvious reminder to myself that the focus has got to be on what strengths you have or what you’re doing to become fast and to be able to hold and as soon as you’ll move that focus, it’s no good anymore. So, that’s why we think that tying in the focus primarily is so important.

Kevin: Yeah, it goes back to the intro that I was reading for you- maintaining the healthy balance in the spiritual areas of life because it keeps you present, right?

Daniel: Yeah!If you’re not in the moment, you’re going to be in 3rd place.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly! Now I want to switch gears a little bit to running. I know that you do some barefoot running or meddle-less shoe running and wanted to ask you about that. What do you think about that in term of your training especially out in the cold?

Daniel: You have to be careful with that. I’m a huge believer in the proponent of adding everything that’s been reasoned. I got into the minimalist saying. I like to think outside the box. Anyone who’s ever met me or knows me knows that I never follow traditions and that’ll be the last thing in my gravestone someday. But yeah, I coach pole vault. So last spring, in one of my pole vault sessions, I had them vaulting barefoot just because one of the things in pole vaulting is to get up to speed as fast as you can and have a really good take off from the ball of your foot. I have to figure this is going to help with the vaults and leg speed and feeling the ground under them and it really worked but during one of our sets, I actually was vaulting with this kids and I’m 43 so I shouldn’t have been doing this. But I can down and I busted my ankle in the mat because I had my spike on my left foot and it caught in the mat and it turned my ankles sideways and popped it. I was totally bummed that it was April. I was like, “Oh, my season’s wrecked”! I tore 2 ligaments and a stretch fracture and there was no way I could even walk. I went into the water so that running a little bit just to keep the movement going and within 2 weeks, I started just doing everything barefoot and trying to get some weight on that foot. Within a month, I was running again. Just lately barefoot running and I could not believe how fast it enabled my tendons and my ankle to heal and so it gave me the second to pause and then look at it,” Why is this making me so strong so quickly”? So I got really into making a lot of my clients do like 400 repeats barefoot and every one of them said the same thing. They felt the strength in their hips and in their quads, their hamstrings and calves and the ball of the foot become all one unit again like it felt very dynamic. I think that it’s good once a week. I try to get it so that everyone’s doing a few repeats 1 or 2 times a week but nothing overwhelming because– everybody likes to think that the more you do anything, the better you’re going to be. I just believe there’s going to be a breakdown point in that. So, balance again and I feel a little bit enough to make you feel the training effect and then tie it into your workouts and your training where it fits but don’t overdo it. I really believe in both amazing strength in your legs the way that you can’t put shoes on.

Kevin: Yeah! I’ve had that same feeling when I run. I actually use the star shoes. They’re minimalist shoes. They’re sort of like the Vibram’s Five Fingers without the toe cutouts. I do feel stronger and I actually enjoy running more when I’m wearing those. I pretty much shifted over almost completely to minimalist.

Daniel: Yeah! I run in the Brooks Green Silence mostly. I actually made a 2-pair of the huarache tarahumara Indian huarache sandals from a website I found and I run the most a lot actually. I love them! The only problem is I sweat like a hooker in church and as soon as they get wet and everything slips around, then it’s like trying to run on ice. I actually prefer barefoot “period” at the track.

Kevin: Cool! As long as there is no snow involved, right?

Daniel: No, I mean snow is fine. There’s a guy here locally in Cleveland that’s an ultimate fighter that’s a barefoot runner in the snow. It’ll be 20 degrees outside and he’ll be doing his 10-mile run in the snow barefoot.

Kevin: Wow! That is amazing! As they would say, you lose your heat through your head and your hands and feet, right?

Daniel: Yeah, but if you’re continually moving, the blood flow doesn’t stop. So it’s constantly rewarming and the guy swears that he doesn’t even get that cold when he’s doing it. I am, by no means, that guy. I’m not going to do that. I think I’ve ran one time in the treadmill barefoot and my feet gets so hot. It’s painful!

Kevin: Oh, yeah! It’s brutal!

Daniel: Again, everything in my life is a balance. I’ll do it only until it hurts so bad that I’ll go back to my old ways.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly! So, what is your favorite part of triathlons?

Daniel: As far as coaching or competing?

Kevin: I’d say actually both.

Daniel: The thing that I actually like most about the coaching is that I actually become friends and really close to most of my clients. The nicest thing is that it’s really opened up my friendship base in the fact that there’s so much in common with other humans when you want to open yourself up to it. We’re all the same. We all have challenges and they’re all slightly different. But when it comes down to it, we all want the same thing. We all want to be good at something and the beauty in triathlon is that it’s painful to some degree and overjoying in some other degree itself. You can find that likeness within the pain and the joy that it brings. So, we have a great group of people whether it’s brand new beginners who are just learning how to run or people who are– like I have 2 people trying to qualify for Rogue. They all are in the same level and it’s amazing to me to see the kindred spirit in the athletes and I just feel lucky to be part of their life that way. For me, coaching is a blessing but to compete would still be relative in the sport at my age is awesome and exciting and after everything I’ve been through, I look at having given up drinking. It was 11 years ago and my smoking 9 years almost. I just feel like I have a whole new lease on life and every race is a blessing. I honestly P-Red last year at the half Iron Man and I thought I would never ever see that. So this year my goal is a 445. So we’ll see what happens.

Kevin: Nice!

Daniel: We’ll see.

Kevin: Cool!

Daniel: Yeah.

Kevin: So what else do you have coming up besides– you seem to have a few races scheduled this year?

Daniel: Yeah, quite a few actually. I just signed up for the American Triple T which is 4 triathlons in 3 days totaling an Iron Man and that’s actually in 3 months and made here, I don’t have– it’s amazing race! I invited Lava magazine to cover the race because it is such an experience. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it but it’s one of those on-the-back-burner races that everyone always talks about in the shadows. It’s a tough race because it’s in the smoky mountains. Every race you have to be at Friday night which is the sprint distance, Saturday morning you get up and do an Olympics-distance race and you have an hour and a half off and then you do another Olympic-distance race but backwards in terms of the sports. And then you get dinner and then you get up Sunday and do half Iron Man– is the final race.

Kevin: Wow!
Daniel: It’s a total time and if you do it as a team, you have to start and finish the race with your teammate.

Kevin: Okay.

Daniel: So, it’s challenging in many different ways because it’s an off-road course as far as the run. And it’s a hilly mountain course so it’s exciting in all different areas. That and I’m actually signed up for a long course nationals and some of those were local races that I helped put on was a part of HFP. So that and trying to keep going with the swim clinic thing with Sheila Teramina. She just got hired to be the head coach for the Wounded Warrior Games which is out of Camp Pendleton, the marine base in San Diego. I’m going to be her assistant coach alongside Victor Prado for that. So I’m excited about that more than I can imagine.

Kevin: Yeah, that should be awesome! You’d be out in some nice weather too hopefully.

Daniel: Yeah, that’s what I’m looking forward to.
Kevin: Yeah.

Daniel: Now, how about you? Got any races coming up?

Kevin: Nothing scheduled. People have been trying to talk to me about doing the Trans-Tahoe Relay again. Did that a couple of years ago and it’s a blast but I’m not in great shape right now so I have to think about it and decide what I’m going to do here. I was going to ask you about your photography. Are you active in that and doing a lot there?

Daniel: Yeah, it’s been a blessing because one time I left New York, I swore I would never pick up a camera. I got so sick of models and fashion people and it was crazy. I almost got to the point where I hated photography and I’d never thought I would say that but– so the second time around, having been able to blend the sport and a love of art which is my photography has been a huge blessing to me too! I’ve shot 7 covers this year for sports magazines and some editorials for local magazines here in Ohio. And then I just got a shot in Lava Magazine that’s coming this upcoming month. Actually, I wanted Sheila that I took in, then, hopefully we’ll start to work in a relationship. But then I’d love to be able to shoot some things for Lava Magazine. I’m excited about that because James is a great guy and I just really a big fan of the magazine right now.

Kevin: Yeah! That seems to be where things were going.

Daniel: Good!

Kevin: Yeah!

Daniel: How about you? Have you noticed anything different since you’ve been trying the Chios technique of Colsaert?

Kevin: I got to be dead honest, I have not been swimming. It’s one of the things that really slipped in this whole moving back from Austin and the then holidays and then I had to find an apartment here in San Diego which took a couple weeks. I’m still in boxes now. It’s on the list of things to do is to get back into swimming. So, no, I don’t know. We’ll see. It’ll be good though because I think it’ll be faster in terms of getting back in the shape I was in. I don’t think it will take as long now knowing this new technique and everything.

Daniel: Right!

Kevin: I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to put off. And plus I’m in this path where less is more because I grew up doing the massive yards and even in the last couple of years I’ve done a couple of masters swimming and I feel better when I’m training a couple 2 to 3 days a week doing yoga, doing some weights. I’ll feel better in the pool than if I’m getting in 4 or 5 days a week and cranking out 4 or 5 thousand yards every time.

Daniel: Dude, absolutely! I’m right there with you. I have even put it in my new coaching code of ethics that I hand out. No one’s allowed to swim train more than 3 days a week, no one’s allowed on a bike train more than 3 days a week or run train more than 4 days a week. I just find that’s the healthiest way to perch it and I can’t believe as a 43-year old, 200-pound man, I’ve gotten faster by heads in the last couple of years by doing this and while I was racing my butt off, every weekend, training every day. I’m swimming and biking and running back than I ever did. If you put focus on the pudding, if you don’t apply it, that’s fine. Keep going and we’ll beat you.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly!

Daniel: I really appreciate you taking the time and I wanted to give a shout-out to Yvonne Salcrego who is the head coach for Yvonne Lake High School Track and Field. Someone who dug me out of my rut when I first moved back from New York and really has been more than a friend and a supportive mechanism in my life of getting me back to triathlon and she’s just an awesome athlete herself and has done Wondrous 4 Triathlon and for kids in the sport. So, I just wanted to give a shout-out to her and also to Sheila for including me in her little clinic in the book that is amazing and has changed swimming. I hope everyone gets the change to read it.

Kevin: Awesome! Definitely! I keep recommending it to people and it’s changing the world of swimming and changing the world of triathlon for sure.

Daniel: Yup! I wanted to say one more thing that I found this really working for me and that’s why I started my partner website with my photography site is subaquatic. It’s www.subaquaticimagesandvideo.blogspot.com and the reason I even started doing this is during Shiela and I, when we were on the clinic tour, she offered this where I’d go underwater, shoot these really high-def video of your swim technique. It’s amazing that when you upload it and you can still pause each frame and I’ve been doing this with my clients and myself and a lot of the clients that she had on her tour in the camps that we put on in Mexico. Amazing what you can learn from really watching what you’re doing because being underwater is confusing enough and then trying to perfect something that’s almost intangible… this really helps to get your head in the focus where you need to be.

Kevin: Oh yeah! That sounds really cool. So, it’s a website that you go to?

Daniel: Yeah, I’m actually offering my services. I go around, I help coaches out and we were in Los Angeles, Sheila and I, we had helped some of her athletes and did a bunch of video for them. All the athletes we worked with e-mailed me back afterwards and said, “Wow! I can’t believe that was me”!

Kevin: Yeah.

Daniel: The nice thing when you start to see what you’re doing wrong then you know what you can do to change it and become fast. It helps tremendously.

Kevin: That’s good stuff!

Daniel: I appreciate all the time you put into this too, Kevin!

Kevin: Yeah, not a problem! Thanks so much for coming on the show. That was a great interview! I really enjoyed it! We’ll put all the links in the show notes so people can get to those and yeah, I think that should do it.