The 24-Hour Swim
It was spring of 1981, and I had been doing a lot of very long swims. I had gotten up to about four hours straight. And four hours felt easy. In fact, I thought to myself, “I bet I could do this all day.”
And then, I decided I would try to do it all day. I set up a day where I could keep the Newark High School pool open overnight. I started, I think, at 1 pm on April 25. Various of the swimmers at the high school, and some older swimmers who were around, got in and swam next to me as encouragement. There were people on the side of the pool counting laps for the whole 24 hours. They had various things like drinks and bananas. They would hand them to me at the side as I treaded water. But other than treading water a little and my flip turns, I never took a break from swimming, and never touched the bottom.
I started out pretty good, doing 10 miles in the first 4 hours. There were two things I miscalculated: how cold I would get, and how much I was depleting the energy stores in my muscles. I should have been eating and drinking the whole way, but I actually did not start until it was well into the evening, and that was too late.
Some time after 4 hours had passed, everything changed: suddenly my stroke was no longer smooth and easy, but every time I lifted my arms, it was painful. My pace slowed to a crawl, which made me get colder and colder.
During the night, one of my swimmers from the fall, Margaret Mortell, came in and paced me for an entire 2 hours. This was the longest that anyone accompanied me for.
Dawn was a very welcome sight: only 6 more hours to go!
Mike Spinola and Mike Fedor came in for the last hour. They both commented upon how hard it was keeping back with me, as I was going so slowly by that point. Bruce Alexander arrived, and put on some songs I had requested for the finish.
When I was helped out onto the pool deck, I found that after being suspended in water for 24 hours, the pool deck now felt like it was liquid. I was helped up into the stands and sat there for a while recovering.
After swimming 10 miles in the first 4 hours, I only did 25 miles over the next 20 hours: one-half the speed.
The next day, I had to coach a lacrosse game. I sat on the sidelines in a chair, wrapped in a blanket, and told my assistant coach to come over when I wanted to tell someone to substitute. But two days later I was back at practice, and let me tell you, a 500 never felt so short in my life.
Moral of the story: People sometimes I ask me, “How could you swim for 24 hours?”
I couldn’t. All I could do was to keep taking the next stroke.