Drinks With Michael Renford

In September this year, he completed the Triple Crown of open water swimming, just the 45th person,  to achieve the Triple Crown.

Michael “Murph” Renford represents something of a departure from our regular Drinks With formula. He’s not a household name or a former great or an expert casting opinion - he’s just a bloke with a bloody good story. Without stealing too much of his thunder, Murph is the son of the legendary marathon swimmer Des Renford, who forged his reputation through 19 successful crossings of the English Channel in the ‘70s and ‘80s. In 2006, six years after his old man’s death, Murph decided to honour his memory by crossing the 34km Channel himself. That swim sparked something in the Sydneysider. Three years later, he finished the Manhattan Island race (46km), finishing third behind the Australian pair of John van Wisse and Penny Palfrey. In September this year, he completed the Triple Crown of open water swimming (an achievement roughly analogous to, say, mountaineering’s seven summits) with a successful crossing of California’s Catalina Channel (34km). It’s an exclusive club – Murph’s just the 45th person, and the third Australian, to achieve the Triple Crown. Inside Sport cornered him at a Coogee cafe to have a yarn. His best mate and support paddler, Tony “Bonehead” Johnston, came along to embellish a detail or two. Here’s their story.

As the son of legend-of-the-scene Des Renford, I guess marathon swimming was all but an inevitable pursuit for you?

It sounds weird, but I’m actually an accidental marathon swimmer. Even though I’m Des’ son and there were a lot of expectations on me, I had no intentions whatsoever of getting into the sport. I dabbled in it in the early ‘90s when Dad conned me into a four-way relay crossing of the Channel, but I didn’t really enjoy it, to be honest. But in late 2006, at 45 years of age, on what would’ve been Dad’s 80th birthday, I took a redundancy from work, got a good payout and said to my wife: “I think I want to swim the English Channel.” At the time she was seven months pregnant and I had no job. She just stared at me. So I said, “And maybe after the swim we can live in France for a few months?” She said, “Start training.” She got her villa in the south of France for four months ...

Did your father complete the Triple Crown?

There wasn’t really a triple crown around in those days. It’s something that’s only really become prominent in the early 1990s with the growth of marathon swimming. In the 1960s and ‘70s, when Dad was swimming, I’m not sure he was even considered a sportsman. He certainly thought he was a sportsman, and there’s no doubt he was, but there was a novelty about marathon swimming in those days. Now things have taken a much different direction ‒ it’s even an Olympic sport.

You first had a crack at the Triple Crown back in 2009 with your initial attempt at the Catalina Channel ...

Well, I wasn’t really aware of the significance of the Triple Crown until I’d swum the English Channel and Manhattan Island, and a couple of American friends suggested I have a shot at the Triple Crown. So I started Googling and discovered there’ve only been two Aussies who’ve done it ‒ James Pittar, a blind marathon swimmer, and Penny Palfrey, a remarkable swimmer who’s doing some extraordinary things out in the open water. I thought, “I know these two swimmers, I admire them, and to be number-three behind them would be fantastic.”

So in 2009 I went over for my first attempt in what can only be described as perfect conditions. We were gifted a beautiful night. But a combination of food poisoning from a wild mushroom risotto I ate just before the swim and also a nasty bout of sea sickness pushed me over the edge. I started vomiting about an hour in, after the first feed, and that continued for the next three and a half hours. At that point I made my own decision to pull the pin ...

[Tony interrupts: “But it wasn’t just normal vomiting. It was violent. I’m telling you, you’ve never seen anything like it. It was every third or fourth stroke. Incredible ... ”]

I was disappointed after that, but it was never something that played on my mind. It wasn’t unfinished business; it wasn’t something that was going to sit with me for the rest of my life. But then my wife asked me if I wanted a party for my 50th birthday. Not really ... Then she said, “I think you should go back and do Catalina.”