Corrina Connor on swimming NZ's Triple Crown, extreme ice miles, and having fun in inhospitable conditions

<p>Corrina Connor is a Wellington ultramarathon swimmer, ice swimmer, musician, and the MC of Wellington&#39;s popular Sea Panels at Te Matapihi central library.</p><p>In this episode we talk about Corrina&#39;s swim journey from a teenager at the pool to setting 20km+ targets in the open water. She swam across the Cook Strait (Te Moana-o-Raukawa) in December 2021, after a thwarted first go in March of the same year. She swam Foveaux Strait (Te Ara a Kiwa) in 2023 and Lake Taupō in 2024. She also completed a circumnavigation of Rangitoto Island in 2025. (You can read her excellent write-ups of her big swims on her blog, <a href="https://gogglesatdawn.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Goggles at Dawn</a>.)</p><p>We also talk more generally about how to stay positive during very long (or very cold) swims, technique, training goals and swim routines, and feeding plans.</p><p>This month Corrina is training for the NZ Ice Swimming Championships in July and is also taking part in Coastguard NZ&#39;s Big Swim fundraiser – you can sponser her via her <a href="https://bigswim.org.nz/c-connor" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">fundraising page</a>.</p><p>Because Corrina has done so much swimming (24km in the pool and sea per week is not uncommon), I asked a lot of questions and this episode is about 90 minutes long. It&#39;s a good one – grab a hot beverage of your choice and enjoy! </p><p><em>The photo shows Corrina swimming an ice mile (about 1.6km) at St Bathans in 2023. (Corrina Connor)</em></p><p><em>*</em></p><p>Visit <a href="https://stokednz.co.nz/SWIMCHATS">⁠⁠StokedNZ⁠⁠</a> for your towelies and get 15% off at checkout with the code SWIMCHATS </p><p>Support the podcast via ⁠⁠<a href="https://patreon.com/SwimChats?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/SwimChats⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a></p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/swimchats" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Swim Chats on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a></p><p>Contact me at swimchatswithshona at gmail dot com</p><p>Hit &#39;Follow&#39; so you don&#39;t miss an episode. </p><p>Thanks for listening! :-)</p><p><br></p>