Just keep swimming

That’s my buddy Nick a few hours into his recent swim across Lake Taupo’s 40.2 km. He almost beat his goal time, and did set the British record for the swim. In that video it looks like he’s barely exerting himself, just gliding along. In fact it’s a pace I can only hold for a couple minutes, if I’m concentrating hard and working harder. He looked somewhat different when he stumbled out of the water that evening, but even at his most fatigued he was pretty dang smooth. Despite practicing for years now, I literally don’t know how these fast swimmers do it and do it so elegantly.

I remember the day he first came to a Sunday swim a few years ago, wearing a scraggly surfing wetsuit and saying he hadn’t been in the water for a while. But then he easily kept up with our fastest group. We learned later that he had been competitive at the national level back home in the UK.

The video was taken by my other buddy Scott, who was on the pilot boat for 13+ hours. Of course that’s nowhere near as hard as doing the actual swim… but is plenty uncomfortable and impressive in its own way.

Since that first day with Bay2Bay Nick’s gotten way back into it… obviously! Kudos to Nick on his accomplishment and I’m eagerly waiting to see what challenge he takes on next.