One of my team mates missed Beijing in 08 for 10k ... did crazy metres. Greg Streppel was a beast winning the 25k in Rome 94.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Ya, that sounds about right for you. Doing some rough calcs based on the 10-hr, 17-hr, and 24-hr totals, Maarten averaged about 1:20/100m first 10 hrs, then about 1:27 next 7 hrs, and 1:39 the last 7 hrs.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Would be interesting to see what's possible with a more conservative start.

That's seems excessively frequent and quite slow refueling to me. Not that I'm at all familiar with this type of swimming, but is that the type of plan he would have likely to have used?

Ya, my thoughts exactly but I think the problem is that he's so fast to start with, e.g., he can swim an OW 10K in 1:50, or about 1:06/100m in open water with no walls. I suspect he could swim 10,000 scm at 1:03/100m, which implies that he prob warms up at 1:10/11 per 100 scm just as realAB does. IOW, it is probably very hard for him to swim any slower than 1:15/100m until he starts to tire. Just guessing but I'd imagine he prob went 1:15-ish per 100m the first 4-5 hrs, then slowed from there. It would be very interesting to see his hourly totals for each hour from 1 to 24.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

From what I've read, refueling every 20 min is commonly used in swims longer than 12 hrs or so. However, I have no knowledge if this was the timing he used. Also, I might be over-estimating at the 30 sec at each break but I would think they might average out to something in that vicinity as he prob had to re-set or adjust his goggles every so often, and maybe even get out for a crap break. I'm assuming he would pee in the pool but not crap in the pool, but I've read that ultra-iron swimmers actually do crap in the pool, or at least one of them did during the deca-ironman a few yrs back, where they swam 38K straight in a 25-m pool. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Can't believe someone would crap in 25 metre pool! Twice the chance of bumping into it than swimming in 50. :-/

Seriously, thanks for that.

I know a few people who have done swims like the Channel and their certainly feeding less frequently, but open water doesn't have the convenience of a pool. One friend generally refueled hourly for his Channel, Catalina and Cook Strait swims.

IIRC, it was Sarah Thomas who said she refueled every 20 min during her 80-mi OW swim down a lake in Utah. And ya, I certainly would NOT poop in the pool but would just get out, which could easily consume 5 min or so. Anyway, perhaps Maarten will post an account of his swim including these details. I notice you post very sparingly on ST, impressed that you would expend 3, maybe even 4, posts on this thread. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

No, we use tumble turns

Back when I used to do this sort of thing, and before I knew about proper nutrition strategy (let's face it, swimmers are behind the curve in anything modern sport-science), I would refuel every 45-60 minutes or so. I would tie a few bottles of water and granola bars to the "no-boat-zone" buoys at my start beach, swim down 1.2 miles, swim back and "refuel" then. On occasion, I'd swim about 3 miles down and 3 back and take in 0 water or calories.

It amazes me that I used to do 4hr saturday practices with ZERO caloric intake. No wonder the last 2-3000 was so sh*t.

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"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5

For those interested spreadsheet with km times etc. Headers in dutch https://docs.google.com/...VRSqY7a8dP4/htmlview


Every 20 minutes Maarten either took a gel or bar and sportdrink. In total approx 48 gels/bars and around 20 liter sportdrink.

LL - Great info, thanks for posting!!! Looking at the spreadsheet was quite interesting; I was able to figure out most of the columns without much difficulty but column I "Gimmedelt" took me awhile but I finally figured it out: it is the pace per 1000 m that he needed to maintain for rest of the swim to break the WR. In the beginning, when he was way ahead of WR pace, the average per km needed for the remaining XY km kept going up, from 14:08 to 14:48, but then at 70 km he started to go above the needed pace as he did the 70th km in 14:55 vs the 14:48 needed. He was slower on km 70 through 73, then battled back to faster than the needed pace on km 74 through 77, but after that it was all downhill. However, he might have been able to sneak in under WR pace if he had not had to take the circa 2 min break at 79 km, two toilet breaks of about 5 min each at km 81 and 88, and then the circa 5 min break at km 95 to have his thump taped. In total, those 4 breaks equal about 17 min, which could have given him another 1000-1100 m.

I would be very interested to read Maarten's thoughts on the swim; I wonder if possibly he took too much food in??? Don't know any exact calories for the gels, bars, and sports drink but it looks like 500-ish cal per hr, which seems like a lot to digest when swimming that long. I also wonder if he thinks he needs to practice swimming slower; this of course goes against most swim training theory but in the case of a super long swim like this 100 km, it might not be a bad idea.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

After approx 18 hours (75k) Maarten knew the WR was out of reach but together with Marcel Wouda he decided to complete the 24 hours. This for me is pure mental strength. Knowing the WR is out of reach and still only be approx 3k short.

Maarten also explained on Dutch television why he hardly is using his legs. Due to the fact he is 2,02 mtr he has a huge lung capacity (12 liters). This keeps his body already high on the water. Also using his legs would force him to put more oxygen into his legs and this does no make him go faster.

I remember Marcel Wouda from Olympics past; IIRC, he was mainly an 200/400 IMer. Did not know he was/is Maarten's coach. And, you're absolutely right that keeping going those last 6 hrs must have been really tough since he knew the WR wasn't going to happen. But mental strength is what champions are made of. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Marcel Wouda is currently National head coach for the dutch men and women swimmers. He also coached Ferry Weertman during his Olympic 10k Rio race.

Thanks for posting, Livio.

It's wonderful to have these insights when the human body is pushed to its physical (and psychological) extremes.

Pushing to the end in a time-based event (as opposed to distance-based) has to be among the toughest mental aspects encountered in endurance sports. At least when racing a set distance, pushing the physical limits towards the end of the event is rewarded with the pain stopping earlier. When racing for a set duration, pushing harder just results in enduring more pain before the clock runs down. :-/

Ya thanks for putting this up in front of us, don't know how I would have even known about this and I kind of follow this stuff.I crew for a guy that has been trying to break the world record for longest ocean swim unassisted. WE hit that 24 hour mark on a day when it was not possible due to currents, but like this guy we kept going to at least get the 24 when we knew at 15 it was not going to happen. Apparently it is a very small list of people that have done 24 hours continuous in the OW following the accepted guidelines.

Nice to come away from the very long and arduous (planning and execution) with some silver lining..