The Morning Swim Show, August 30, 2011: Ryan Cochrane Working Towards Goal of Olympic Gold

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 30. RYAN Cochrane is training hard in pursuit of gold at the London Olympics, and on today's edition of The Morning Swim Show he talks about chasing Sun Yang and his training regiment.

Cochrane doesn't train alone in Vancouver, and he talks about the young swimmers who keep him motivated, and the amount he swims weekly. He also details some of the top swimmers to watch in the months leading up to London. 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.)

Jeff Commings: This is The Morning Swim Show for Tuesday, August 30th 2011. I'm your host, Jeff Commings, and in the FINIS monitor we will talk with Ryan Cochrane, who is Canada's biggest star in the distance freestyle events. Ryan joins us right now form Vancouver, British Columbia. Ryan, good to see you back, welcome to the show. How are you?

Ryan Cochrane: I'm good, thanks for having me.

Jeff Commings: So, two silver medals at the world championships. On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate the meet for you?

Ryan Cochrane: There were definitely some things I was really proud of at the meet and then there were other things which I was hoping could have been better. I think my 400 was all right for about 350 meters and I was proud of that but a little work to do on the last 50. My distance events I thought were good, but I would have liked to have been on top of that podium so that's the goal going into this Olympic year.

Jeff Commings: The last time you were on the show you said your main goal is to break Grant Hackett's world record in the 1500. The world record now belongs to Sun Yang but only a couple of tenths faster. Is that world record still in your sights?

Ryan Cochrane: Oh, absolutely. That's the goal we work for every day and I think the Olympic program is a bit easier for me, having six days off in the middle really helped me. I know at these world championships I was exhausted by the time I got to the 1500, so knowing that in the back of my mind I'll be that much more rested for this year. It's going to be really good.

Jeff Commings: Your time in the 1500 was 14.44.46 which I believe was your best time in a textile suit and only four seconds off the time you went in Beijing to win the Bronze medal. At least in my eyes I think you're going in the right direction in terms of reaching that goal, would you agree?

Ryan Cochrane: Yeah. It's always hard to judge with the textile suits and the body suits and I think last year was probably the best year of training I've ever had, probably since the Olympic year at least, and I was really happy with the work I did the whole year and I knew I could have gotten close to a best time or under. It was just kind of the circumstances which put me at mid-14.40's. I think when you look back in a sense of retrospect it's easy to find four or five seconds anywhere so I'll take that going forward.

Jeff Commings: Well looking back, as you said, you said you were a little bit tired after the 800. Do you think "Well maybe I shouldn't have done the 800 and just done the 400 and the 1500?"

Ryan Cochrane: Going into Rome two years ago that was my idea – to only swim the (400) and the (1500), and then the 400 didn't go so well there so I was like I want to get another swim under my belt just to, you know, make myself feel better, so I swam in three events there. And it was just a program that I think most of the distance guys do and I don't want to, you know, take a chance at missing out on a medal to hopefully get it one place better. I think I can just focus on trying to be better in all my events and, you know, working at being able to do that through an eight-day cycle and I think I get better and better every time I get the chance to do that.

Jeff Commings: So at the world's in the 1500, you're stuck with Sun Yang for about 700 meters and then he kind of picked up the pace that you couldn't hold on to. Were you concentrating on your own race and your own splits or were you actually trying to keep pace with Sun Yang?

Ryan Cochrane: I think my goal going into the race was to actually go harder than Sun Yang, because I know he doesn't like to go out hard and he has an amazing last 100 or 200 meters. So I think if I want to get close to that world record I need to be under the world record pace to the 800. It's what I used to do really well, which is go out hard and try to hold on and I think that's going to be probably my goal for the Olympics – I want to be able to push the pace at the beginning and to see what I can get out of myself for the last half.

Jeff Commings: All right. So you're now back in the pool training hard. Once you get up to the peak training part of the season how many meters do you usually log per workout?

Ryan Cochrane: You know we do about a three eight-week cycle throughout the year. Within that we probably end up doing about 90,000-meter weeks I should say so it's between 8K and 9K a practice. I don't ever do the really heavy meters that some distance others do. I'm really – I focus on my technique – like the little technical aspect of what I can work on so I think between the eight and nine it's really hard to know what's perfect for me.

Jeff Commings: Do you have anybody there on your team who helps you push you through the really tough sets?

Ryan Cochrane: Yeah, we have a fantastic training group. The best distance swimmers in the country are from our club and a lot of them are only between the ages of 16 and 19 so they are proving themselves internationally and I think they're going to be the ones to watch out for, the next quadrennial. They push me every day – whether it's them hitting me when I'm down or when it really hurts to do the hard sets – they're always there to pick me up and make sure that I can do some amazing things and I couldn't do what I do without them.

Jeff Commings: Well tell me about a couple of those guys on your team. I guess we'll probably see them either next year or leading up to 2016.

Ryan Cochrane: Absolutely. Alex Page is one of them and he went a 4:20 400 IM a couple of weeks ago at Junior Worlds so I think he really pushes us every day in the distance lane. There's a bunch of kids that really have to push me the whole way. We have a bunch of boys that go to 15:20 to 15:30 and I think they're going to be fantastic trying to make this Olympic team this year. They're just a couple of seconds every 400 off, so I think they can do it.

Jeff Commings: Will you do another shave and taper meet before the Olympics?

Ryan Cochrane: We're still talking about planning, going into this Olympic cycle; probably Olympic Trials I'll shave-and-taper just to see what I can get out of myself. It's always hard because that's in April and that's where you're on your heavy workload so we'll kind of have to wait and see.

Jeff Commings: I kind of would imagine given the gap between you and maybe second place in Canada – you really wouldn't need to do a shave-and-taper meet.

Ryan Cochrane: Well it's always great to see what I can get out of myself when I am really prepared. I know this past year the only really time that I was prepared was World Championships. It was a long kind of cycle from CommonwealthGgames to world championships and it's nice to break that off sometimes with getting into the prepared state and be able to see what kind of time you can get out of yourself mid-season.

Jeff Commings: I know I understand from your Swimming Canada CEO, Pierre Lafontaine, you guys are going to come down Arizona a little bit before the Olympics. Do you plan to come down to the United States for any competitions like you did the Santa Clara meet this past summer?

Ryan Cochrane: I think so. I think our plan is to go to the US Nationals in December, see where we're at after our first block of training because there's great competition there and then Santa Clara is always a fantastic meet and it's always great to swim outside, and still so close to home so hopefully we'll be doing that this year as well.

Jeff Commings: Ryan, before we let you go I want to kind of get your thoughts on how Canada's doing in the lead up to the Olympics. It seems like for the past three years it's been you and Brent Hayden that have been kind of carrying the flag for Canada and obviously you two are doing very well. But as I said Pierre Lafontaine really wants to win and Canada to win a lot of medals at the Olympics. Do you see anyone besides you and Brent kind of getting into that conversation for medal hopefuls next year?

Ryan Cochrane: Yeah, absolutely. I think our breaststrokers are some of the best in the world. Annamay had the world record less than two years ago so I think she's going to have a great year this year. Martha McCabe on the podium this year, it's really going to be with the confidence racing into the Olympic year. As well as our 400 IMers, Alexa Komarnycky — she just missed the finals this summer but just the way she's training she can do some fantastic things and I'm excited to see where she gets in London; as well as Julia Wilkinson, another one of my training partners. She swims so many events so it's exciting that she's going to focus on two or three events for the Olympics and I think she'll be close to that podium or on it at least.

Jeff Commings: Now obviously you listed a lot of women. Are there any men we should be looking out for?

Ryan Cochrane: Yeah, I think our whole men's team is getting close either making the finals or making a name for themselves in the finals. Mike Brown I think is going to be really great just coming after a year of training after his retirement. I think he's going to be great. He I think just missed the finals this summer. He was so close to it and they were all so close in the finals. I think he's going to probably be looking to improve on his fourth place in Beijing.

Jeff Commings: Well Ryan congratulations again on your medals and world championships and we look forward to seeing you back in the pool at Nationals this December and we'll be keeping track of you on the way to the Olympics.

Ryan Cochrane: Sounds good, thanks for having me.

Jeff Commings: All right, so that's Ryan Cochrane joining us in the FINIS monitor from Vancouver – one of the toughest swimmers in the world in my opinion. That's going to do it for this show today. I'm Jeff Commings, thanks for watching.
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