You’ll meet Lauren Tischendorf on Sparta Chicks Radio this week.
In 2021, Lauren because the first woman to swim around Lord Howe Island - a distance of 32.2km that she completed in 13 hours and 50 minutes.
Lauren’s story is captured in an award-winning documentary called "I Just Went For a Swim”.
Lauren is a school teacher by day and an endurance athlete outside school hours.
An ultra-marathon runner, she started focusing on her ocean swimming about 5 years ago.
The dramatic Lord Howe coastline
Since then, she’s become an accomplished ocean swimmer and is the reigning 5km ocean swimming champion of NSW.
And yet, an off-hand comment made by another swimmer about the fact she couldn’t keep up with them prompted her to ask herself what she was capable of.
The result: a record-setting 32km swim around the shark-infested waters of Lord Howe Island.
Hands tell the story
In this conversation, Lauren and I discuss:
* her childhood growing up in South Africa and the role sport played in her life,
* immigrating to Australia at the age of 16 and her struggle to adjust to her new life and culture,
* the impact of growing up surrounded by the Comrades Marathon (the world’s largest and oldest ultramarathon) and why she felt there was always something missing in her life until she completed it herself,
* the meditative power of ocean swimming,
* the comment that laid the foundations for the Lord Howe swim and why she chose Lord Howe in particular,
* the importance of focusing on what we can control,
* how she trained for the Lord Howe swim,
* the challenges she anticipated,
* what was going through her head as she was looking out the window flying into Lord Howe,
* why she said she “didn’t have a shadow of a doubt” when she was starting at the dock, ready to start her swim,
* how she manages her fear of sharks and how she manages her mindset when she sees one while swimming,
* separating your achievements from your self-worth and
* her experience with the Imposter Complex.
Click here to listen on iTunes.
Notes and resources:
To find out more about Lauren or to say hello, you can find her on Instagram or via her website.