With Joseph Locke‘s attempt at swimming 30 miles (48 km) from the Golden Gate Bridge through the Red Triangle to the Great White Shark haven of the Farallon Islands in water that started at 51°F (10.5°C) and then fell to 47°F (8.3°C) as the air temperature hovered just over 41°F (5°C), the amount of cold-water acclimatization training necessary to complete such a swim comes to mind.
How far do marathon swimmers push themselves in training? Incredibly and unbelievably long and hard.
With hardened swimmers from Sandycove Island (Ireland) to Cape Town (South Africa) and Melbourne (Australia) to Aquatic Park (San Francisco, California) becoming more numerous by the day, what are some of the toughest cold-water training sessions completed by swimmers out there?
Send your toughest workouts under the most difficult conditions (water temperature + air temperature + currents + waves) to Daily News of Open Water Swimming for future articles on tough workouts by hardened swimmers.
Southern California native, born 1962, is the creator of the WOWSA Awards, Oceans Seven, Openwaterpedia, Daily News of Open Water Swimming and founder of WOWSA. Inductee in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (Honor Swimmer, Class of 2001) and Ice Swimming Hall of Fame (Honor Contributor - Media, Class of 2019), recipient of the International Swimming Hall of Fame's Poseidon Award (2016), International Swimming Hall of Fame's Irving Davids-Captain Roger Wheeler Memorial Award (2010).