The Morning Swim Show, Nov. 4, 2011: Arthur Frayler Discusses Racing at Altitude, Choosing Florida

PHOENIX, Arizona, November 4. ARTHUR Frayler joins today's edition of The Morning Swim Show after winning a gold and silver at the Pan American Games.

Frayler talks about winning the 1500 freestyle while swimming at altitude, and remembering Germantown alum Fran Crippen during the 10K swim in Mexico. He also talks about venturing away from the family legacy of playing football and why he chose to attend the University of Florida. Watch the full show in the video player below and visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Show Transcript: (Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: This is the Morning Swim Show for Friday, November 4th, 2011. I'm your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS Monitor today we'll talk to Arthur Frayler. He just won the 1500 at the Pan American Games. Arthur joins us right now in the FINIS Monitor from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Hey, Arthur welcome to the Morning Swim Show. How are you?

Arthur Frayler: Hey, how is it going? I'm pretty good.

Peter Busch: Good. Congrats on a great meet in Guadalajara.

Arthur Frayler: Thanks so much.

Peter Busch: 15:19 in a mile is good regardless but at 5000 feet, I mean that time converted to sea level is breaking 15 minutes.

Arthur Frayler: Yeah. That's something me and Shoulberg were talking about but, you know, we don't wanna say, oh, I won under 15 minutes. I went 15:19 and I mean at altitude which I'm not too good at, I'm really happy with it.

Peter Busch: Could you tell the difference? I know Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, is not exactly at altitude. Could you tell a big difference there?

Arthur Frayler: Yeah, I could. I mean, I could tell mainly off the walls, when you're holding your breath, it's much harder. But even when I was swimming, you could tell the breathing wasn't as easy as it usually is.

Peter Busch: What do you mean off the walls? Explain that again.

Arthur Frayler: Usually, if you, like, when I'm at altitude , and I think a lot of other people can say the same thing, holding your breath underwater for a long period of time is the hardest thing to adjust to. So when you're pushing off the wall and you're streamlining, it's harder to kinda stay under longer. I'm not too good off my walls. I'm working on it. But I could feel it.

Peter Busch: Now, you train in Germantown with Dick Shoulberg, you just mentioned. You're going to Florida next year. You've already signed up to swim there or you're — you've committed to swim to Florida?

Arthur Frayler: Yeah, that's correct.

Peter Busch: Did Teresa Crippen recruit you there?

Arthur Frayler: I've definitely talked to her a lot about going to Florida. I don't think she necessarily recruited me, but I think Shouldberg kinda, you know, recommended Florida a lot with a few other programs, select few, but Teresa was definitely part of the reason I went there. I talked to her a lot about everything.

Peter Busch: What was is about Florida that enticed you?

Arthur Frayler: One is the training there. It's one of the closest things you can get to Germantown, which is usually known for high intensity, high volume. I train a lot more that a lot of other people do and, usually, the Florida program is known for that as well.

Peter Busch: Now, a lot of times people swim, you know, maybe longer distance events in high school and kinda shorten enough as they get older and maybe more powerful. And a lot of guys were great 1500 guys but maybe like the 200 more in college. Do you like swimming shorter events or do you really, really just want to swim longer events?

Arthur Frayler: I mean, I love swimming the shorter events in high school. I mean, when I get to sprint at 200 or even a hundred in a relay, it's fun. It's definitely much different than a 1500 or even a 10K. But, I mean, right now, I can definitely see myself in college swimming the mile and the 500 and, hopefully, maybe by the end, be fast enough to compete in the 200; something I can see myself doing.

Peter Busch: You mentioned the 10K. We should know that you were second in that at Pan American Games as well, so successful in and out of the pool. Question, the day you swam the 10K was, I don't think it was the anniversary, maybe one day before the anniversary of Fran Crippen's death. Was that on your mind at all or I'm making too much of it?

Arthur Frayler: No. It was the day before. The race was on Saturday. The one year was that Sunday where we actually had a nice memorial for him down at the beach. But, yeah, I mean, Fran was in my mind not just in the 10K; in the 1500 as well. I knew going to the Pan Ams that the last time he won a gold medal in the 10K really was that people know him for was at 2007 Pan Am Games. So I definitely, you know, had it in my mind that in the 10K, I wanted to go after the gold. It was just a tad bit short. But I think it he'd be pretty happy with me in the 1500. I came home with the gold. So, and I mean, I tell people that a lot of that swimming was for Fran.

Peter Busch: You mentioned the memorial on that Sunday, what was that? Tell us about that.

Arthur Frayler: Just, you know, a lot of us met down there at seven in the morning and we went down to the beach. We had our USA gear on. And, you know, we kinda just — Eva Fabian played the national anthem with a violin, which Fran always loved hearing. We had some, you know, white roses everybody threw into the water, talked about memories of Fran, just good times with him, you know, just a moment of silence, and we had a big flower arrangement made and we set it past the break. We looked out on the water and just watched it float out for a little bit. And, you know, it was just a morning to remember his death and his life.

Peter Busch: Wow, very nice. It's great that you guys did that. Now, your family, are you the only swimmer in the family? I know — I heard your dad played football, right, and you've got several brothers.

Arthur Frayler: Yeah, I'm the only swimmer in my family right now. Hopefully, that will change. Hopefully, I can influence some other people, like my brother's kids, swim a little bit. But my whole family is mainly football. I have, you know, all brothers on my dad's side — he was married before. I have two sisters right now. And my dad played football at Miami back in the day and since swimming is definitely something that my family doesn't know too well. It's a little — I'm the different child.

Peter Busch: How did you find out — how did you find the pool and figure out that you're so good at that when you're probably playing plenty of backyard football as a little boy?

Arthur Frayler: Well, to be honest, I, actually, was just talking to somebody about this today. I did play some other sports when I was younger but I was really bad. Kept scoring on the wrong side in basketball, couldn't hit a baseball, couldn't catch because it hurt my knees, I couldn't bend down. And my dad was the coach for at least the basketball team and he was just like I don't think this is the sport for you. So I was a fat kid and we had just moved to Pennsylvania. I was probably around first grade. And there was a small summer club around the corner from us. So they had a swim and dive program, and I started out as a diver and I was pretty good at it, but then I had to learn how to do a flip and I did a back flop so I said I quit coz it hurt too bad. And then became a 25 breaststroker and just kept with swimming.

Peter Busch: I wonder how many swimmers have a similar story that just they weren't great on land but you sure are great in the water. It's fun watching you at the Pan Am Games. It's gonna be fun watching you as we build up to Olympic Trials.

Arthur Frayler: Yeah.

Peter Busch: Well, Arthur, thanks for joining us, appreciate it.

Arthur Frayler: Thank you.

Peter Busch: All right, that's Arthur Frayler joining us in the FINIS Monitor today from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. And that is it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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