The Morning Swim Show, Sept. 16, 2011: Improved Cardiovascular System Has Helped Alex Kostich Keep Pace With Younger Open Water Swimmers

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 16. ALEX Kostich joins today's edition of The Morning Swim Show to talk about his recent successes in open water swimming.

Kostich was the winner of last weekend's La Jolla three-mile Gatorman swim, and paced with top swimmers in the Waikiki Roughwater swim. He describes how his endurance and speed haven't improved, but how he's been able to swim well with a better cardiovascular system. He also talks about a new movie opening next week, which he is promoting in his job at Sony Pictures. 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, September 16th 2011. I'm your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS monitor today we'll talk to Alex Kostich. He just won the La Jolla Gatorman 3-mile swim and celebrated with some fish tacos and Coronas. The last part I made up, but you know what I'm saying. Alex joins us right now in the FINIS monitor from his office in Los Angeles. Alex, how's the movie business?

Alex Kostich: Hey, it's doing pretty good. A lot has changed since the last time we talked. It's been a while that I've been on the show. I'm assuming it must be a slow week if you've got me back but it's nice to be back and I just finished working on a project called "Moneyball" with Brad Pitt that opens on September 23rd and I think a lot of your viewers will find something to relate to in the film because it deals with sports. Unfortunately it's not swimming, it has to do with baseball, but it's an underdog story, kind of like "The Blind Side" meets "Social Network." Anyway, that's my plug for movie business.

Peter Busch: You're very good at it. That's actually a movie I'm definitely looking forward to seeing, I love baseball, I know kind of the story behind it, I can't wait to see it on the big screen. And the last time you're the master of product placement. Was it 2012 the poster you had behind the last time we had you on the show?

Alex Kostich: It was, it was "2012" if I remember correctly which I actually pitched as a great movie for open water swimmers to watch because as the polar ice caps melted and created disaster around the world it was a chance for people to kind of see that open water swimmers had an advantage in a situation like that because they could actually swim and stay afloat while cities around them crumbled and became submerged. So there's not much of a direct link to that and Moneyball but at the same time, like I said, it's a universal story for everyone and I think athletes especially are going to really enjoy it.

Peter Busch: Well the way that you're swimming these days you're going to be leading the pack when the apocalypse comes upon us.

Alex Kostich: I don't know but like the cockroaches I may still be around.

Peter Busch: Yes, you are swimming great. You look like you're still in college. You're swimming like you're still in college. You're winning open water races that are nationally known. You just swam the Waikiki Rough Water Swim, hung up there with some great swimmers.

Alex Kostich: Don't stop, tell me more, it sounds good. Yes, I live for open water swimming and the Waikiki Rough Water swim is near and dear to my heart. I've done it for 18 years in a row now since graduating college just about and I haven't missed a year but I really enjoy it and it's an excuse to get out to Hawaii and meet up with some fast swimmers and the field has only gotten tougher as I've gotten older I guess. This year we had a contingent from Australia about – the top five finishers actually were Australian and members of the National Team so it was an honor and a privilege to swim against them and try to hang on.

Peter Busch: Jeff Commings thinks you could still swim with the best of the Americans in the 10K.

Alex Kostich: Well Jeff gives me the benefit of the doubt every single time I talk to him and I'd like to think I could still be competitive. It's just hard balancing, the work scenario here in Hollywood but I do my best and I have a distinct advantage of having a pool across the street from my office, so every chance I get I'm over there in the morning doing laps.

Peter Busch: How do you train?

Alex Kostich: I basically train every morning consistently. I think consistency is key. I think as you get older – there was just a recent article on the LA Times this week of course bringing up Dara Torres as an example. But it mentioned that as you age your cardiovascular capacity actually increases and improves.

And so I find that as I'm losing my speed and possibly some of my endurance I'm making up for it, gaining my ability to keep my heart rate down but operate out of pretty highly competitive level. I really – the article really struck me because it spoke to me and made me realize that this is probably what I was going through because there's no real reason I should be keeping up to and staying competitive with some of these kids but I really feel that 18 or 20 years of experience matched with my consistency in the pool and the cardiovascular base that I have has helped me kind of stay in the game.

Peter Busch: So with that theory in mind what's the perfect distance for you because you said endurance is maybe not what it once was, speed isn't your forte? Are we talking like 5K? What do you think is perfect for you?

Alex Kostich: Well given that my time to train is limited given my day job I think the kind of base that I've done is probably adequate enough for a 5K but my comfort zone is really probably in the 10-15K. And three weeks ago I just swam a race here in the LA County region. It was a 12-mile Ocean Swim from Manhattan Beach to Venice Beach and it was the longest race I had done in a while, it was 12 miles which equals almost 20K. And I actually found that I got better as the race progressed and towards the end I ended up third behind the Grimsey brothers, these two Australians who are I think that country's hope for the next Open Water Olympic Team. But towards the end of the race I started closing the gap but they came and opened up on me halfway through. We were all kind of swimming as a pack for the first six miles and then they got ahead of me and right towards the end I started kind of closing the gap a little bit. So I feel like had the race gone on to maybe 25K I might have been able to reel one of them or at least gotten closer. In answer to your question in a roundabout way I think anywhere from 5K to 10K would be my comfort zone but I've never really done anything much longer than that so I'm kind of curious to see where I'd fall if I actually competed in a longer event.

Peter Busch: Do you ever think about doing one those crazy 100-mile Open Water Swims through jellyfish and sharks trying to chase you?

Alex Kostich: Well I don't know about that. I think I don't want to bite off more than I can chew and definitely 100-mile swim is probably beyond my capabilities right now given how much I'm training. But there's no reason why I wouldn't maybe say yes to that later in life or something. People always ask me if I'm going to swim the English Channel and I say "Look I swim because I like it and I enjoy it and I think the minute I would spend a couple of hours in the middle of the night in pitch black and sub-69 degree water I'd stop enjoying it so why would I want to swim the English Channel?" But maybe with global warming and stuff things will change and in a couple of years I'll be ready to swim in slightly warmer conditions.

Peter Busch: Was that another movie plug?

Alex Kostich: Not at all but it's a good idea for one. What do you think?

Peter Busch: We can work on that together. I'll send you over my screenplay and we'll see what we can do.

Alex Kostich: We hold pitch meetings every Friday so come on over.

Peter Busch: Are you going to swim in the Tiburon Mile this weekend?

Alex Kostich: I really wish I was. Unfortunately I have another commitment. My company, Sony, recruited me to do the Malibu Nautica triathlon so I'm actually going to do the swim portion on a team and it's for a really good cause but I committed to that and it's only an 800-meter swim so for me it's going to be an all-out sprint but I'm missing the Tiburon Mile which is only the first time I've missed it I think in six or seven years so I'm heartbroken about that because it would be sort of a reunion of sorts with all the guys I know within Hawaii. But I'll be looking forward on your show and online for sure.

Peter Busch: Well good luck with the race this weekend, good luck with the movie launch. I can't wait to see it.

Alex Kostich: Thanks, you guys are great, I tune in all the time and I'm flattered to be part of the show so keep up the good work.

Peter Busch: Someday we'll make a movie about behind the scenes at the Swimming World offices.

Alex Kostich: I assure you it's more exciting than the behind the scenes in the movie business.

Peter Busch: Thanks, Alex, take care.

Alex Kostich: Thanks a lot.

Peter Busch: All right, that's Alex Kostich joining us from LA. 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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