Open Water Swimming for Life

In 2004 at 70 years of age, George Brunstad, then a member of New England Masters, became the oldest person to successfully swim solo across the English Channel. In 2010, Brunstad told me about his extensive training for the event, which resulted in a textbook swim. “I had no aches or pains in the course of the swim, nor did I feel that I ran out of energy.”

After the swim, he said “there was a media blitz because of the 70-year age issue. With my wife, Judy, as fundraiser, we raised $11,000 before the swim and $39,000 after for a total of $50,000 for a school and orphanage in Haiti.”

Since then, the record for oldest swimmer has changed hands; in 2016 Otto Thaning, a heart surgeon from South Africa, raised the record to 73 years and 177 days when he completed the swim in 12 hours, 52 minutes.

On the women’s side, Linda Ashmore, a world champion triathlete from the United Kingdom, set the record at age 71 and 303 days in August 2018 when she completed the swim in 16 hours, 21 minutes.

How do these super septuagenarians do it, and how can you keep swimming for life? The answer seems to lie in a combination of hard work, determination, good genes, and the right kind of support.

Hard Work and Determination

Prior to his English Channel swim, Brunstad worked diligently to prepare, and that hard work paid off. Six years later when he swam the 22-mile length of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire on his 76^th birthday, he hadn’t been able to prepare at that same level because he’d been struggling with polymyalgia rheumatica, an autoimmune disease that causes muscle pain and stiffness that made most movements agonizingly painful.

Feeling underprepared heading into the swim, Brunstad said the first several miles went well, but the going got much harder later because he just hadn’t trained enough.  

“With three miles to go, the Laconia Fire Department Captain [who accompanied Brunstad as part of his support crew] gave the word to pull me out. But I was stubborn, and I switched to an alternating breaststroke/freestyle rhythm to bring in some fresh muscle groups and was able to continue. The video shows a pathetic but heroic effort, finishing at dusk with several hundred cheering locals urging me on. I could hear them from about a mile off. The whole thing was very inspirational for the people and very humbling for me,” he said.

After the 21-hour, 53-minute swim was over, Brunstad’s wife told the Laconia Daily Sun that it was hard to watch her husband struggling for those last few miles, but she knew he could make it because of his mindset. “George is a very determined person. I don’t think he’s going to quit until he makes it. I don’t remember him ever quitting anything. He’s not that kind of person. He’s a unique human being. Strong, disciplined, determined,” she said.

Brunstad showed a lot of grit in finishing his Winnipesaukee swim, as did Thaning in the Channel. After his 2014 swim, Thaning told the BBC that his motivation was to prove that older people can achieve athletic success, provided they’re taking care of themselves. “My wish was basically to promote the idea that people over the age of 70 can do things like this if they look after themselves and work hard,” he said.

He also noted that the water temperature was his biggest challenge. As a person ages, several factors can contribute to a change in their ability to regulate their body temperature. These include a decrease in metabolic rate, thinning skin and fat deposits, and changes in the hypothalamus, a structure in the brain that helps regulate body temperature.

Genetic Lottery

For Thaning, some of his ability to withstand the cold could be luck of the genetic draw. In 2021, Thaning again set an age record when, at age 80, he successfully swam 7.9 kilometers (about 4 miles) from Robben Island to Bloubergstrand, South Africa, in a time of 2 hours, 52 minutes.

Afterwards, he told Biz News, a South African media outlet, “I don’t count the numbers and I don’t count the years. I try and keep my physical status as good as possible. I do a lot of physical training—mainly swimming—and I’m very active in everything that I do. I think I have been genetically lucky. I’m a nonsmoker, I’m not overweight, I don’t drink alcohol because I get sick from it. I believe in exercise and because of my profession, I also look at, very carefully, the things that are relevant to cardiac health.” 

He continued, “if you do all those things in moderation—not in excess—I think you’re basically sharpening the pencil. But ultimately, your actual life span is determined by things that are greater than us. But you can certainly change it if you abuse yourself, add too much weight, don’t eat properly, and don’t exercise.”

It Takes a Team

Another thing that these older superstars have in common is a fantastic support network. For example, when Brunstad faltered in Winnipesaukee, his stepson joined him in the water and swam with him until the end. A roaring crowd had gathered at the finish, and starting about a mile away from the beach, Brunstad could hear the spectators willing him forward.

That made a difference, the Laconia Daily Sun reported. “With his family and friends cheering him from the boat and with bayside residents cheering, ringing cowbells, and honking horns from the shore, Brunstad kept on, stroke by stroke, pulling his body down the bay, then around Sandy Point until finally the Alton town beach was within sight and the crowd of people was still there, hours after his initial estimated arrival time, to cheer him to the finish line.”

Any major endurance event is very much a team effort, and if you have a good one in place, you might surprise yourself with just how far you can go.