Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Fred Schuster - World Masters Gold Medallist and Indiana University Alum

It takes a special type of person, to have the motivation and wherewithal to train predominantly by themselves and to be successful on top of that.  My guest on Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast today fits that prototype. Fred Schuster hails from Missouri, swam at Indiana University swimming under Doc Counsilman and now lives and trains in a pool he built at his house in Arizona.

Fred chats to us about breaking his first USMS national record in the 400 freestyle at the World Masters Championships in Doha and winning 4 golds. His story is a testament to the power of self-discipline and his love for swimming. Fred enlightens us on his strategic insights into transitioning from short course yards to long course metres and his meticulous approach to training in various environments. He epitomises the importance of self-motivation and the intricate balance between training and tapering techniques.

Hear how a self-built 25-metre pool in Arizona and the legendary coaching of Doc Counsilman at Indiana University shape a regimen that defies the norms. Fred discusses his unique training methods, from the solitary laps in his desert oasis to the camaraderie of Sunday swims with a Masters Club. Get inspired by his tailored approach to improving swim times, employing clock management and self-written workouts, which echo Counsilman's influence and innovation. 

Fred gives us a peek into his streamlined approach to competitions, revealing a preference for simplicity in training—eschewing drills for the raw essence of swimming itself.  Whether you're a swimmer seeking that extra edge or a sports enthusiast drawn to tales of individual triumph, this episode with Fred Schuster offers motivation and insights into the disciplined heart of a masters swimmer. 

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Torpedo Swimtalk is sponsored by AMANZI SWIMWEAR

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Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:05

Hello swimmers and welcome to another episode of Torpedo Swim Talk podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Spurling, and each week we chat to a master swimmer from around the world about their swimming journey. It takes a special type of person to have the motivation and wherewithal to train predominantly by themselves and to be successful. On top of that, my guest today fits that prototype. Fred Schuster hails from Missouri, swam at Indiana University under Doc Councilman and now lives and trains in a pool he built at his house in Arizona. I give you this background because I think it's pretty special to have the commitment to push yourself while training alone. His determination has certainly paid off with four gold and a silver at the recent World Masters Championships in Doha. This is Fred's story. Hi Fred, welcome to the podcast.

Fred Schuster: 1:07

Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here, Danielle. I appreciate the invite.

Danielle Spurling: 1:11

Yeah, I'm really, really pleased that you're joining us today and I'm really looking forward to hearing all about your swimming.

Fred Schuster: 1:16

Looking forward to sharing it with you as well.

Danielle Spurling: 1:19

Well, first of all I wanted to start with the Masters Worlds in Doha. Congratulations on the four gold and one silver that you got oh, thank you yeah, I mean amazing swimming. Can you tell us what events they were in?

Fred Schuster: 1:31

so, uh, I swam 200, 400, 800 freestyle, uh and 100 and 200 butterfly um 200 freestyle was the thing I got the silver in, but but still happy with all my times. You know, really enjoy swimming long course meters as opposed to short course yards here in the state. So it was a fun, fun meet for me and, uh, you know, it all worked out really well yeah, definitely if you're.

Danielle Spurling: 1:57

If you're doing an 800 in um short course yards, there's a lot of turns there, isn't there?

Fred Schuster: 2:02

oh yeah, well, I'm going down to texas next week for and swimming 1650, which is 66 links, so lots and lots of turns there, which is not really my, my strong suit. But uh, you know, want to, uh, want to see where I'm at. And, um, you know, we have our short course nationals coming up in June here in Indianapolis, so this would be a good kind of litmus test on where I'm at short course.

Danielle Spurling: 2:31

Yeah, are the US short course nationals always in yards?

Fred Schuster: 2:35

Yes, almost all of our winter meets and spring nationals are 25 yard pools, long course. You know there's not a lot of 50 meter pools here, and long course nationals though, which will be end of August, are in a 50 meter pool, and every once in a while we'll get a short course meters meet, but those are. Those are pretty few and far between.

Danielle Spurling: 3:04

It's's so interesting, isn't it, that you've, you've got that whole yard system. We don't even have, we don't even have one of those pools here in Australia yeah, I mean every high school meet NCAAs for college.

Fred Schuster: 3:16

Everything is short course yards. So so like our rarity is to swim in a in a meters meet. So you know it's probably. You know 10 to 1, you know yards meets to meters meets.

Danielle Spurling: 3:29

Yeah, so interesting. Yeah, but back to Doha. You had those great successes, and which of those races were you the happiest with?

Fred Schuster: 3:39

Well, I mean the 400 and the 800, I was very because those were kind of new events for me, you know, usually swimming kind of 50, 100, 200 freestyle, 50, 100, 200 butterfly, and you know I just kind of was training enough that people were like you got to try some distance stuff, and so you know, I kind of picked up on that a little bit the last few years and you know, but this is like it's the first time I've ever swum 800 free in a meet and first time, you know, same thing with the 400 meter freestyle, since I was, you know, a youngster and so, you know, very happy with the times I had there and was actually able to. I broke the US national record in the 400 free, which is the first time I've ever done, you know, any national record. And to do that on the first time I swam it, you know it was pretty exciting.

Danielle Spurling: 4:40

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Fred Schuster: 4:42

That's a big deal to get a a US national record oh yeah, yeah, I mean ecstatic and you, you know, you look on some of the names on there and it's like pretty exciting well, what's your strategy with swimming at 800, like obviously that's on the first day of worlds?

Danielle Spurling: 4:57

do you sort of think about the rest of the events that are coming up after it, or you just go full?

Fred Schuster: 5:03

out. No, I'm, I'm just, yeah, pretty much focused. I mean, the worlds are stretched out enough that, like I don't, I didn't, I don't think I swam the next day, so I knew I had a whole day off and I never had two events in the same day, and so you know it's, it's a a pretty good, you know, time.

Fred Schuster: 5:26

You know, I think I have a pretty quick recovery, you know, one day to the next. You know, obviously you have, you know, 15, 20 minutes. You know that's a different story. But, um, you know, to have that full day, I was, you know, just just focused on that race and really, you know, just wanted to kind of swim pace. Didn't, you know, have any sort of oh, I'm going to take out the first 400 here. It's just like get in and just try to hold a pace and hold that for as long as I could. And if I look at my splits, I was, you know, pretty even all the way through.

Danielle Spurling: 6:04

And if I look at my splits. I was, you know, pretty even all the way through, so more of a sort of like building on each hundred as you went, rather than a sort of a negative split type situation.

Fred Schuster: 6:11

Yeah, I mean, I think it was pretty evenly split. You know, I think it was 448, 450.

Danielle Spurling: 6:21

Yes, oh, quite close.

Fred Schuster: 6:22

For the two 400s, yeah, 50, yes, oh, quite close. For the two 400s, yeah, so I mean, with the start, you know, it's pretty much even, even split, and all the way through, except for that first hundred, the first hundred and the last hundred were, you know, a little bit faster, but all the way through it was, uh, very steady eddie what do you think about when you walk out from the mastering room and you're standing behind the blocks ready to race at the worlds?

Danielle Spurling: 6:44

what's sort of running through your mind?

Fred Schuster: 6:46

oh, just anxious to get in and get, get going. You know it's, it's kind of like, okay, I've done all this, you know, just looking forward to hitting the water. And you know, you know, we all kind of talked about every other guys were like on the bus, people like you still get nervous. You know, I mean, we're 60 years old and like, yeah, I get nervous, I get really nervous, and they're like, okay, good, me too, you know. So it's, uh, it's, it's, it's good to kind of. You know, we had these half hour bus rides from the hotels and, um, you know everybody's talking about their races and you know kind of what they feel like they're going through, and so it's it's nice to hear what other people are going through. But yeah, you know, certainly nervous. But once you hit the water, you know it all kind of dissipates and instinct kind of just takes over and it's like, okay, I'm not going to deviate, just going to keep it steady and swim my race here.

Danielle Spurling: 7:43

Yeah, I think a lot of the anxiety and the nervousness you have before the race is the anticipation of how much you're going to have to hurt to to do it exactly.

Fred Schuster: 7:51

Yeah, how bad is this going to hurt me? That's why I was, like I knew for this first race I didn't want to die and so I was like, okay, if I just keep it steady, you know, don't try to take it out. Super, I, I swam the Nationals this past spring in California and I took out, I swam the 1650 and took that out First thousand. You know, felt great, took it out really, you know, pretty hard, and then I mean just died like a pig and so did not want to go through that again.

Danielle Spurling: 8:20

Yeah, understandable, yeah.

Fred Schuster: 8:23

So that was definitely a a focus of of where will, where will I be by at the end of this race yeah, for sure.

Danielle Spurling: 8:31

And what was the the atmosphere like at in doha? Was it different to the other worlds that you've been to?

Fred Schuster: 8:38

I mean, the only other one I'd been to was in gwangju, down in in 2019 in korea, and I'd say it was, it was pretty similar. You know, there was, you know, a little bit of nuances, but the, you know, the pools were super nice and we were always able. I saw the guys who went to japan, you know they one, one day they'd get us from the nice pool and the next day they weren't swimming in the nice pool. We, thankfully, were able to swim in the nice pool, um, the entire time. Um, so it was, it was, it was great because, I mean, it was the.

Fred Schuster: 9:15

The pool was perfect and, you know, meat was real, you know, really well run and everything just kind of went off without a hitch and so, but I would say it was very similar easy to get to, easy to get back, lots of buses, you know, you didn't have to stress out about oh, am I gonna be late? Or anything along those lines and plenty of warm-up pools and areas to to. You know, they had an outdoor 50 meter pool which was really nice. If you wanted to go use it was a little bit further to walk. They had an indoor 50 meter pool diving well, so lots of options to uh go and swim in a super crowded pool to warm up, if you know what I mean yeah, that's really good to hear because you know I've only been to one Worlds myself, but the warm-up pool was a nightmare.

Fred Schuster: 10:07

Oh yeah, the guys and I was hearing stories from the people who went to Japan and they were like you know, the warm-up was just a non-existent. I mean, you were just so crammed in with so many people and you know this was really nice.

Danielle Spurling: 10:22

That's good to hear and I think that that's what they probably need to look at. Moving forward with Worlds, with the amount of people that go these days to have that kind of facility, they should be awarding it to cities that can offer that.

Fred Schuster: 10:35

Or cut back on the move the entry times a little bit faster, because I think, from talking to people, the Doha meet was quite a bit fewer people than in Japan.

Danielle Spurling: 10:49

I think that they'd be wanting to sort of make back some money for the outlay, though, so they probably do want more competitors.

Fred Schuster: 10:55

Yeah, they could be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Danielle Spurling: 10:58

Yeah, because I feel like the masters on the back end of the elite sort of props up a little bit of the money that they probably spend.

Fred Schuster: 11:09

Yeah, you could tell they spend a lot of money. I mean the amount of these, just the buses. I mean we had a bus at our hotel all the time and you could always get to the pool.

Danielle Spurling: 11:15

You know, every half hour on the half hour it was, it was, it was great tell us how you swim your butterfly races, because that's a little bit different to a freestyle long distance. What's sort of your mindset there?

Fred Schuster: 11:32

Well, again, well, 200 butterfly. I was like, okay, I do not want to die. I haven't swum 200-meter butterfly since 2019. Even in a. You know, when I got to Doha I did a few warm-up 200-meter butterflies. Just I wanted to make sure I could make them. And uh, I was like I'm gonna go the first three laps as smooth and easy as I possibly possibly can, breathing every stroke, not taking a breath right out of the turns, doing all the things you shouldn't do. And uh, then you know, whatever I've got, you know, for the last 50, I'll come home with that. That was the strategy for the 200. The 100, I thought, well, I'll take it out hard but smooth, and then do the turn. You know, just try to come home as hard as I could. Probably, in hindsight would wait a little bit, you know, maybe 15, 20 meters and and then kick it into high gear because I I definitely kind of died in the hundred at the very you know I caught.

Fred Schuster: 12:37

I, I was behind at the at the 50 passed everybody, you know, by the 75, 80. But then as we're finishing they're all like catching back up to me again. I was like, okay, this is good, gotta keep something in the tank to finish.

Danielle Spurling: 12:53

And then you know, for the 50, just as hard as you can go, you know, standard 50 stuff when you have that sort of, you come off the turn in the in 100 and you know that you want to put the sort of put the pedal down. Do you change your, increase your strike stroke rate? Do you increase your kicking? How do you sort of increase the pedal down? Do you change your, increase your strike stroke rate? Do you increase your kicking? How do you sort?

Fred Schuster: 13:11

of increase the stroke rate.

Fred Schuster: 13:12

Yeah that that that, whereas I'm really trying to be long and smooth for that first 50. Um, you know, I'll just try to. I I find that if I, if I dive in and try to increase the stroke rate too much, I just become inefficient. I get more tired and don't go any faster, and so I really just try to think about keeping it long and smooth and making that turn. By then I'm tired enough that I really don't. I think if I increase my stroke rate I'm not going to. I'll be in a more efficient increased stroke rate mode if that makes sense, and so that's kind of the way I look at it.

Danielle Spurling: 13:57

Yeah, I think that's really sensible. That's a good way of approaching it.

Fred Schuster: 14:01

Yeah, well, I mean lessons learned over time.

Danielle Spurling: 14:06

Yeah, and it worked. Obviously did.

Fred Schuster: 14:08

You did so well in Doha yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was, it was uh, all good you know for this meet certainly what?

Danielle Spurling: 14:15

what, if anything, did you come away with thinking that you need to fine-tune it for next time? Was there any lessons that you learned?

Fred Schuster: 14:23

we have our long course nationals end of August in in mission viejo, california, uh, this year. And so you know, place wise and everything I was. I was, you know, very happy with everything in doha but I kind of was a little bit unhappy with some my butterfly times. I I thought I could have gone, I should have gone faster. So you know, the freestyle times were better than much better than I anticipated, but the butterfly times I was a little bit disappointed on where I, you know my times were, I think, and I think I can improve on those. And so you know I've been picking up, you know, more training in butterfly. You know, again I'm swimming in a yards pool. So trying to swim 250 yards, four 250s fly, instead of doing 200 yard fly, okay, just trying to get my body used to swimming that extra 10% that the meters has and mentally just getting okay, you can do this. You know it hurts, but you know you're making these. You can make the 200 fly and be fine.

Danielle Spurling: 15:45

Yeah Well, that's a really valuable lesson and you know you absolutely can make that change, as you say, heading into your long course nationals yeah, and and.

Fred Schuster: 15:57

Again, I was kind of a little bit more apprehensive about some of the distance events because just because I've never done them there, I'm not going to be as worried about those events, because frankly, I don't know if I can really improve too much on those times, you know. But I really think I can improve on that, on the fly times.

Danielle Spurling: 16:16

You just mentioned, obviously, that you were doing more freestyle in your training and you need to do more butterfly. Where do you train and who do you train with?

Fred Schuster: 16:27

I swim by myself all the time. I'm in a little town in Wickenburg, Arizona. It's about 10,000 people here. When I moved here, there was no pool. We built a lap pool at our house, a 25-meter lap pool.

Fred Schuster: 16:42

So, I did go meters. Then there was a golf club that opened with a 25-yard pool over there, and so for the most part I go swim there through the winter. Just, you know it's super expensive to heat the pool here, and so if I've got that other pool I will go swim there. And you know now it's starting to warm up enough here that I'll start swimming in this pool as well. But then in about a month or so I go to Santa Fe, so we split our time.

Fred Schuster: 17:20

Santa Fe, new Mexico, again, swim by myself there in a golf club community sort of thing that has an indoor four lane 25 yard pool, and so. So that's where I swim. So I say I see these beautiful pools that people get to swim in and I'm very jealous. I swim for a team called Phoenix Swim Club, and Phoenix is about an hour and 20 minutes away from where we're at here, and so on Sundaysays during the year, 50 meter pool by 25 yards wide, and so for the most part it's always set up for 25 yards, but on sundays they flip the pool over and put it in 50 meter mode. So I try to get down there, you know, on sundays, if I can. You know that's helpful to get down there, you know, on Sundays, if I can. You know that's helpful to get some kind of 50-meter touches in before you know, like Doha and these other meets.

Danielle Spurling: 18:17

So you do most of your training, or pretty much look 90%, 95% of your training by yourself. How do you motivate yourself to do that? That's amazing.

Fred Schuster: 18:27

I mean I've kind of been doing that. You know, I was in a small town in missouri growing up. There was a swim team when we first started, but then it kind of disbanded, so then I was just going to the y by myself. You know, high school, obviously. You know we had a team um for that, so it was fun to swim with the team.

Fred Schuster: 18:46

College, uh, I went to indiana university so it was, like, you know, really awesome to be able to swim, you know, under doc councilman and, uh, you know, so I mean that was a big reason why I went to school there and to be able to swim for him. And you know he certainly knows all there is to know about swimming and, and was you know all there is to know about swimming? And was you know, big, a big boost for me to, you know, in terms of improvement and kind of setting the mindset that you know I mimic a lot of the workouts that we would do back then and you know that sort of thing. And you know that's been something I've just stuck with. And you know I've got a clock and that's the clock is kind of what motivates me and so I'm just kind of used to it by now. But it certainly is nice on those Sundays when I go down and swim with the team.

Danielle Spurling: 19:39

Yeah, so the type of training you're doing obviously is based on Doc Councilman's work and I know I have his swimming Bible, the.

Danielle Spurling: 19:47

Science of Swimming, yeah yeah, exactly when I have his swimming bible, that the science of swimming yeah, yeah, exactly when I moved to the country when I was an age grouper for a little while, my dad coached me and he got that book and we followed that and I know this the slog that was associated with his workouts, based on Mark's bits. So is that the kind of kind of stuff you still do now?

Fred Schuster: 20:04

I mean some of the stuff, I mean the things that I remember. You know we would do something called a goal set. You know maybe not every week but pretty pretty close to every week, or maybe every 10 days, something like that, and you know it's a thousand. You know high rest. You know 2050s, 10, 100s, five, 200s, something like that, and you know lots of rest. You know pretty much warm up, a little warm-up set and you do that and that's kind of the whole workout. And you know I'll I'll do those pretty much same same sort of thing every every week to 10 days. I'll do a goal set and I try to rotate them. I do the 50s one time, then the hundreds and then the 200s, and always do them fly. That's something that I really take in A lot of descending stuff nine 200s descend one to three on a little bit higher rest. You know slow, medium, hard. Those type of things were really a lot of the, a lot of the type of things that we would do back in Indiana.

Danielle Spurling: 21:19

And obviously you had a head as your coach when you're at college. Now that you're a master swimmer, do you have a coach that oversees your program or you just write that yourself and follow it?

Fred Schuster: 21:27

I just write them up myself. I see other people's workouts and sometimes I'll pick and choose some sets and you know people on on you know social media or something, they'll say, oh I did that, that's a pretty good set. You know, try to work that kind of stuff in. But I mean, for the most part I'm on kind of a weekly cycle and it's kind of the same stuff every week, depending on. You know how close I am to a meet and you know.

Fred Schuster: 21:57

So I have like certain sets that all a lot of people would get like really bored of doing. You know, if I was their coach they'd be like, oh, we just did that, you know. But I just kind of like know what I need to do and those sets seem to fit my, what I'm trying to accomplish and uh, so I, I mean it's it's kind of one of the advantages of swimming by yourself. You know you're not, you know, bounded by what the rest of the, the team, is doing and you can, you know, really kind of cater something to exactly what you want. I mean it's there's pluses and minuses for both.

Danielle Spurling: 22:30

I mean I'd miss the social side. I suppose just having a bit of a chat between you know intervals, I find it very hard to motivate myself to go. I can go to the pool by myself, but I just don't push myself as hard. So I really admire you being able to do that all the time. That's amazing.

Fred Schuster: 22:50

Yeah, and again, I've just kind of gotten used to it. So it's you know, it just becomes second nature and it's you know, I don't really even think about it.

Danielle Spurling: 22:58

Yeah, yeah, well, it's probably good.

Fred Schuster: 23:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Danielle Spurling: 23:02

So, aside from the Sunday when you go down to swim at the Masters Club, how many other workouts do you get in a week in the pool?

Fred Schuster: 23:10

I'm pretty much seven workouts away. I'm every day. Yeah, I mean a lot of times I'll take, you know, like I say I go down on sunday, so saturday mornings I'll do, you know, like a 1500 wake up swim and that's it. But just just because I want to go, because down there you know we're doing long course, it's like you know like 6 000 meters, you know. So it's a, it's a long, proper workout and you know, for the most part, up here on my weekly I'm kind of doing um 40, 4,500 to 5,300, somewhere in that sort of range.

Danielle Spurling: 23:57

Yeah, that's still a lot of Ks that you're putting in a lot.

Fred Schuster: 24:01

Yeah, usually kind of around the 110,000 to 120,000 a month sort of thing.

Danielle Spurling: 24:07

Yeah, that's quite a lot.

Fred Schuster: 24:09

And then I mean I'll miss workouts because of you know whatever, and but but you know the focus I don't have like, oh, I take monday, wednesday and saturdays off or anything like that.

Danielle Spurling: 24:20

It's like so do you include dry land like strength training um in your program?

Fred Schuster: 24:27

I, I started doing a little bit of that this year, a little more stretching. I mean, one bad thing I've had, you know, a lot of calf issues and you know just like off the blocks and you know hard push-offs and you know calves just locking up, and so I've tried to include a little more stretching and, you know, do some setups and some calisthenics. I don't really I don't do any weights, um, but you know I'll do some. I have some stretch bands and I'll do, you know, kind of pulling back on stretch bands and you know the the big rope. I kind of do that um, but but not not weights per se so interesting?

Danielle Spurling: 25:11

because because I talk to a lot of people and they all have very different sort of approaches and one or two you know, like you, I think Laura Val is another one American swimmer. Laura Val, she doesn't do any weights, she just swims, like you do, seven, eight sessions a week, and then other people do a lot less in the water.

Fred Schuster: 25:33

I mean that's the one thing, like like you talk about getting bored and you know, for me, going into a weight room I'm just like in a. You know, I'm sure it'd be a good thing to probably do do some of this stuff, but uh, you know, I mean it's, it's just, you know, I mean I might eventually, I might try it, but it's not not on the uh, not on the docket right now yeah, I also find that hard.

Danielle Spurling: 25:55

I think, when you come from the background of doing a lot of that cardio sort of slog, when you go into the gym you don't feel like you're getting a workout in. That's that's how I feel, and then I think, well, is it worth it?

Fred Schuster: 26:08

well, and like I say that the dry land I do, I you know, I do it for like 15, 15 minutes, 15, 20 minutes, right before I get in and swim, because it just, you know, fits, it's, there's a gym, the gym's right next to the pool, over it, you know. So it's not definitely not like a separate to to do it that way and you know, and that and the gym, probably the gym and the pool are about 15 minutes from our house here in Arizona.

Danielle Spurling: 26:38

Well, it's all very convenient, so that's good.

Fred Schuster: 26:40

Yeah, exactly, and the nice thing is I get to swim outside all winter, but sadly I swim inside all summer.

Danielle Spurling: 26:48

Oh, yes, yeah, okay, that's hard.

Fred Schuster: 26:51

Yeah, and it's like it's kind of the pool in New Mexico is kind of dungeon-ish and so it's definitely more depressing than swimming here.

Danielle Spurling: 27:03

I swim outdoors all year. We have hit pools.

Fred Schuster: 27:07

Yeah, that would be. I'm pushing these guys to try to get they have an outside like oval pool, you know, like a country club type pool, but not with steps at the end, and so they're talking about doing renovations and I'm hoping they'll make it a rectangle and make it some set distance and hopefully, hopefully, 25 yards or 25 meters and in coaching yourself.

Danielle Spurling: 27:34

Obviously, you have to prepare and taper for a race, or races like the worlds, what? What's your approach to the taper that you do?

Fred Schuster: 27:42

I'm kind of a two-week taper guy because I sometimes I was swimming hard, kind of right up to so say I was was swimming 5,000 two weeks in one day. You know, maybe the next day I'll go 4,500 and then 4,200 and then 3,800. And then I kind of get down to a base of about 2,500 to 2,800, just kind of hold that, drop, I drop all the dry land, hold that dry, I drop all the dry land. Just just do a little bit of stretching um beforehand but really just try not to, you know, be in recovery mode and swim a few hard things.

Fred Schuster: 28:23

You know, like today I did, you know, long easy warm up and then kind of two hard 500s, and so that was, you know, basically 1000 yards of something hard, and then that was it. And you know, warm down, you know all for the rest of the week. I mean I'll be bringing that down. I'll probably be doing like one hard 500 or something. You know, something like that. You know really kind of give your body a chance to rest, but not like totally, you know, not jump in and swim a thousand and just get wet, but kind of have a little bit of maintenance that you're still giving yourself a little bit of a push.

Danielle Spurling: 29:08

Yeah, you don't want to detrain yourself.

Fred Schuster: 29:10

Yeah, you don't want to detrain yourself, Exactly exactly, Because I will say which is what we would do at Indiana in college. You would really bring it way down to where you're jumping in, but you had a lot more base. You were swimming doubles and swimming tons and tons of yards, so you know to have a lot more to taper from.

Danielle Spurling: 29:36

I miss those days where you were doing doubles and you did so much work and when you actually did your taper, you felt magnificent oh yeah, you just felt like your arms didn't weigh anything and, oh yeah, that was the best I can't say I I can't say I do enough work at the moment to actually do a proper taper well, and that's yeah again.

Fred Schuster: 29:57

That's where I kind of feel like, you know, the two weeks seems to be kind of a sweet spot for me. That and you and I'm not kind of falling off a cliff, you know, it's more of a gradual down and then flatten out around that of a gradual down and then flatten out around that 2500 to 2800 for, you know, the last week or so.

Danielle Spurling: 30:19

Yeah, and I was just going to ask you a question about indiana I, when I was doing my research, I noticed that you said you were a walk-on at indiana. What is? What does that mean?

Fred Schuster: 30:26

so I didn't. You know, I wasn't a scholarship swimmer. So there's they get X amount of scholarships to hand out to the from the people who were coming in high school. You know, those people, whatever paid for by the school. I was not one of those people. I was somebody who came tried out for the team and then, you know, made the team, but not not somebody who was, you know, on scholarship, right out of the block. I got a scholarship after my sophomore year for the last two years, so you can kind of earn one, but I didn't have one coming out of high school.

Danielle Spurling: 31:05

So you, did you purposely choose to go there, knowing that Doc Councilman was there, or was it because you got in there academically, or uh, I mean both, I, I was.

Fred Schuster: 31:14

I was actually kind of I was going to go to university in north carolina, uh, chapel hill, and um, I, I did go out for a recruiting trip to indiana and I kind of thought you know I was like a okay good swimmer in in high school, but not like somebody that I would think somebody like doc councilman is going to be like, oh you know, and but he was just such a nice guy.

Fred Schuster: 31:41

You know we sat and had lunch and you know I mean he was asking all about me and kind of telling you know what's, what's good about Indiana and this, that and the other thing. And I had a good business school, which is what I majored in, so and I also played water polo, and so you know, those things swayed me to switch from North Carolina and go to Indiana. So it was, and it was a great decision. You know I really enjoyed, enjoyed, swam all four years there, played water polo all four years, good, good business school education, and so it all just worked out fantastic for me looking back now, it must be wonderful to have worked under such a sort of a legend of swimming with doc councilman.

Danielle Spurling: 32:28

What, what's the most valuable thing you learned from him, do you think?

Fred Schuster: 32:31

Well, I mean, I will say yeah, and just the mindset of like sometimes you're thinking, oh, I know better than my coach and you know, I don't know if I should be doing this. Is this the right thing? I mean, is this the right taper, is this the right? Well, you know, with him you just like, okay, turn my brain off whatever he says. You know you're on autopilot to to do what he, he does and and and I, you know, and again, he, he made it, he made swimming funny, it wasn't.

Fred Schuster: 33:01

He was a really always telling jokes in practice and you know he would hand out jelly beans. You know somebody did a, you know a really fast race or something you know he'd run. He'd walk into the office and get a bag of jelly beans and gives, give, give you a jelly bean if you, you know, had a good set or something and people would, you know, go through a brick wall to try to get one of those jelly beans and, uh, you know, I mean it, it. He just gave you a good foundation and kind of what to believe in in terms of you know, especially, like you know, tapering and and that sort of thing. I'd never really had a, a good taper before, because I'd always be in this mindset that, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get out of shape. You know, if I, if I don't swim hard and swim, you know it's just kind of that and then you know that that would be the thing. You know the concept of the taper and the concept of rest and the concept of wow.

Danielle Spurling: 34:02

You can have dramatic drops in your times if, if, if you give your body a chance to rest and you know, I would say that was the best thing and were there any sort of like valuable life lessons that you learned, like in terms of um outside of the pool that you you sort of got from his leadership or coaching?

Fred Schuster: 34:23

oh, I mean they would have like sunday dinners. Everybody go to his house and you know he he, you know, was very focused on you know, everybody doing well academically. If you had a test, you know you can miss workouts. So the way it worked there, you had to make X amount of workouts per week and there were two morning workouts and two afternoon workouts and so you know you might have to make 10 workouts a week so you could go doubles on Monday, Wednesday, friday and Saturday and Sunday. You know you might have to make 10, 10 workouts a week so you could go doubles on Monday, wednesday, friday and Saturday and Sunday. You know you could go.

Fred Schuster: 34:57

I played water polo so I was always gone on the weekend so I had to go basically doubles every day of the week and then and then we have water polo practice at night. So I was in the pool like a lot of days three times a week and I was in and through through the fall, you know, through kind of beginning of December. But yeah, I mean he was, he was very focused on people doing, you know, you know keeping their grades up and you know you're not going to back. Then there was no, you're not going to go pro in swimming and say you know, you know you need to set yourself up for life and you know, just kind of a good sit down talks and having that whole family atmosphere with he and Marge over at his house was terrific.

Danielle Spurling: 35:42

What about when you left college? Did you continue swimming or did you have some time off when you were getting your career sort of up and running?

Fred Schuster: 35:48

I played water polo for eight years after I graduated um. So you know we practiced pretty much every day and you know I would swim on again, off again, not really doing meets per se. But you know, certainly with the water polo I, I think when I first kind of got back into it, they decided to do a team doc. So they got all the, they had somebody compile at a compilation of all the Indiana graduate emails and they sent out an email to everybody and said hey, we're going to nationals are in Indianianapolis, we're gonna get a team together and we're calling it team doc. And it's anybody who swam for doc, you know, be it in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever, or indiana swimmer can, can be on the, on the team.

Fred Schuster: 36:48

So that motivated a lot of people to kind of get back into it and I think you know I was, I was in my mid-30s then and then and then I pretty much stuck with it from from then on. You know, with some years off and a lot of you know a lot of times I'll swim when I'm like 35 or 40 or 45 or right now I'm 60 and so you know, kind of focusing on and you know, next year I'll probably swim in a few meets, but not as seriously, and then probably then kind of go cold turkey until I turn 65 and then, you know, try to hit it hard again. So, but I mean still swimming, but you know not, not to the same extent that I'm doing right now.

Danielle Spurling: 37:33

Yeah, do you think that that ebb and flow is one of the reasons why you've got such longevity in your swimming?

Fred Schuster: 37:40

I think so, because I'm not trying to. It's kind of like this year is kind of a grind and but I'm kind of mentally prepared. Okay, when I turn 60, it's going to be a grind and that's what I'm going to do, you know, and I, you know I'm prepared for that. But you know to try to do it all the time and I'd be like yeah, like I think my wife like when I go to these meets, I go by myself, I don't, you know, don't want anybody with me. I go to these meets, I go by myself, I don't want anybody with me. And so next year my wife and I we might do the Singapore Worlds and go do it, but go out to dinner, and this time I was like eat in the hotel, eat really boring food. Everything was focused on the swimming, not really participating in the, in the, anything culturally going on or any of the sites or anything along those lines. Just okay, swim, come back to the hotel. Swim, come back to the hotel. That was. That was pretty much it yeah, that's, that's.

Danielle Spurling: 38:49

Uh, I can get definitely get into that mindset myself. I understand what you mean yeah, yeah everyone that comes on the podcast. I love to ask them the deep dive five, which is sort of a bit of a snapshot of your favorite parts of swimming. So just tell me the first thing that pops into your mind what's the favorite pool that you've ever raced in?

Fred Schuster: 39:09

well, indianapolis always is my, my favorite pool. Um, I mean, I just it's. It's such a great setup. Um, you know, they had a 50 meter pool going this way and then another 50 meter pool, warm-up pool, you know, kind of just just right down the hall, huge diving. Well, you know, plenty of space, great whiting, terrific for spectators, lots of places to sit, and that was our home pool for meets in college. So it's always, always my favorite place to go. I will say the Doha pool was, you know, fantastic as well. Uh, I, I and it was a pop-up pool. It was one of those Mirtha pop-up pools, which kind of that was the first time I'd been in one of those, and you know I'd heard, oh, these things are great, and I was like we'll see, but it was terrific, it was, it was really nice how about your favorite butterfly drill?

Fred Schuster: 40:14

um. I mean, it's the goal I, it's the goal sets. I do that. I was telling you about those kind of 2050s, the 10 100s um, or the 5 200s, and, in terms of a drill, I I don't even I don't do any drills, I don't do any drills you don't do drills. I don't have a pull buoy, I don't have a kickboard. I'll kick a little bit with fins, but I don't do a one-arm, this, something or other, and I just swim.

Danielle Spurling: 40:47

Well, give us your favourite goal set out of all the ones you do. What's your fave?

Fred Schuster: 40:52

I mean the five 200s are always the you know it's, it's, it's like it's the best of times, it's the worst of times.

Fred Schuster: 40:58

You know it's, it's, it's like you're dreading it going in and but then like when you finish, you know, so I'll do like five 200s on seven minutes, so lots of rest, but uh, like I say kind of hard, hard effort and you know I'm thinking about it the night before and you know then you know doing it and it's like I I keep a log of of all my workouts and what I do in the workout and you know it's always fun to kind of look back over the years and see you know where you're at and you know things along those lines, and so you know it's always fun to kind of look back over the years and see you know where you're at and you know things along those lines and so you know kind of keeping that statistic, that that's a thing that you know I've done over the years. So it's it's interesting to kind of look through and see where I've been on those and and and how do they compare?

Danielle Spurling: 41:51

how about your favorite pre-pre-race snack or meal?

Fred Schuster: 41:56

I'm I'm super finicky on the eating side and I gotta eat like like for this meet in texas. You know I'll I'll be getting up in the middle of the night and I'll eat like these.

Fred Schuster: 42:07

They're called perfect bars and they're like kind of bars but they're. You refrigerate them and it's all like every. Every ingredient is something you've heard of. There are no you know kind of artificial ingredients in them and they're you know, very high calorie. They're like 350 calories. And so you know, because I need like four hours before I, at least before I even warm up, or you know it's just same thing. In college I always had to. I'd have to eat lunch at you know 1030 in the morning to be ready for a three o'clock workout. So I don't tend to eat anything when I'm at the meet, um, or right before. I kind of get my calories in and then just kind of go the rest of the meeting, but then and then I'll eat one of those when I'm finished with my, with my race, or maybe even two of them just plummeting from the, from the race and for just from not eating anything all day. But those are my favourite. It's called Perfect Bars.

Danielle Spurling: 43:17

Well, Fred, it's been a pleasure speaking to you today and hearing all about your swimming journey and wishing you great success in the two US national meets coming up.

Fred Schuster: 43:27

Okay, well, daniel, thanks so much for having me, and it's been a pleasure talking to you as well.

Danielle Spurling: 43:35

Thanks again.

Fred Schuster: 43:36

Okay, take care. Hopefully we'll meet on pool deck in singapore.

Danielle Spurling: 43:37

Absolutely, absolutely okay okay, take, take care, bye now. Bye. I hope fred's story has inspired you to find your own pathway through swimming. Your own training conditions may not be perfect none of ours are but there's always a way to improve. Till next time, happy swimming and bye for now.