Photo courtesy of Hardcastle Film and Photo and APEX Coaching, Hardcastle Film and Photo, Boulder, Colorado.

Grant Holicky arguably has the greatest scope of athletes of anyone on the USA Swimming national coaching staff.

A retired professional triathlete, he coaches many successful cyclocrossers from the amateur to elite professional level as well as triathletes, cyclists, multiple American Olympic Trials pool swimmers and a national open water swimming champion (Christine Jennings) and a professional marathon swimmer (Joey Pedraza).

He is currently the Director of Aquatics at RallySport Health and Fitness and the head coach of Rallysport Aquatics (RACE) in Boulder, Colorado. He gave a wide-ranging interview with Robbie Dickson on Swimming World Magazine here where he answered the following questions:

* How, if at all, does training differ from training a miler than a 5 or 10 km swimmer?
* Do open water swimmers require a different dry-land training from their pool teammates?
* Some critical parts of an open water race are feeding and finishing, how do you prepare your swimmers for that?
* How does a swimmer get ready for the bumping and jostling that takes place throughout the race?
* What are the final days before a Nationals like from a training standpoint?
* Is it possible to be a good open water swimmer without access to a lake, river, or ocean?
* How would you like to see U.S. open water swimming develop over the next four years?
* How do you prepare your athletes mentally for swimming two hours straight?
* When arriving at the venue, what is the general routine for your athletes pre-race?

For more information on Coach Holicky, visit Apex Coaching.