In the wake of his Olympic heroics, Daniel Wiffen has been enjoying life away from the rigours of the training pool, although the Armagh man is cranking up his regime after a well-deserved break.
Wiffen capped his annus mirabilis with a gold medal in the 800m freestyle at Paris 2024, adding a bronze in the 1500m freestyle for good measure, while he became a double world champion and a triple European short course champion earlier in the year.
"I've done a lot of holidays. I've had a good time. I'm ready to start back training, but my favourite part was obviously going on holiday to Bali with my training partner and Nathan, my twin," he said.
"I had a really good time surfing and I'm ready for LA Olympics to start surfing!"
Wiffen returned to the pool five weeks ago, but revealed that his swims have been comparatively leisurely.
"I still swim. I just don't have that competitive mindset," he explained. "I just go in for a little paddle, like a normal granny would every morning.
"My mum does a hundred laps. I would do a hundred laps in the pool."
Returning to the subject of his Bali holiday, Wiffen said: "Nathan and my training partner Lucas, they're the exact same as me. They all want to be in the pool.
"So we made sure every Airbnb we stayed in had a swimming pool. So we'd have our early-morning swim.
"Surfing kind of helped because we were surfing six hours a day. You're still swimming when you're surfing, you're paddling. So I didn't really stop to be honest, but it was just a different type of sport."
The demands of distance swimming prove a turn-off to many would-be swimmers, but it's the dedication and the training required to succeed in the sport that appealed to Wiffen and encouraged him to stretch his stamina.
"It's the hardest event to do in the swimming calendar," Wiffen opined. "It's the most you have to train for as well. And I mean, some people might think it's hard. I don't really think it's hard. I think it's quite enjoyable.
"I enjoy doing the most amount of metres, being the last to leave the pool, being the first to get in. I mean, I just know that nobody trains harder than me in the pool that I train with.
"It just makes it easier for me to say that I'm the most resilient swimmer, maybe. But I really enjoy the 1500. I've always loved it.
"I've just loved watching it ever since I was younger. My first 1500 I ever watched was the 2012 Olympics when the world record was set. And ever since then I've always wanted to do it.
"Honestly, I've always wanted to do longer distance. I've always liked that type of training. I like the way you can think in the race. It's all very tactical.
"So it's very entertaining to watch because It's not going on for 30 seconds. You've got 15 minutes of actually switching positions of who's leading. It's more like an F1 race, in my opinion. It's a lot more fun."
Wiffen won the Swimmer of the Year Award at Swim Ireland's awards ceremony at the Dunboyne Castle Hotel on Friday night with his family present and revealed the vital role his parents played in his development.
"Normally my dad would bring us to early-morning training. He and other dads would go and work at a table at five o'clock in the morning. Just sit at computers, not speak, just do work. And we'd always laugh as we look up at the pool and just see them sat there on computers, but that was like the whole thing when I was younger.
"My mum would take us to the evening practice because my dad would be at work and our whole family's been involved in swimming.
"We were at the Swim Ireland awards last night and it seemed very evident that everybody who's in swimming, it's always about the whole families in swimming too. It's a very family-oriented sport."
