Ned Denison Does His 25th Century Swim Around Sandycove Island In Ireland

Ned Denison Does His 25th Century Swim Around Sandycove Island In Ireland

Steven Munatones 12/05/2020 open water swimming No Comment

Ned Denison Does His 25th Century Swim Around Sandycove Island In Ireland

Courtesy of KAATSU Global, Huntington Beach, California.

Ned Denison completed 2,500 bioprene laps around Sandycove Island in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland.

The chairperson of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame described his 25th Century Swim circumnavigation swim achievement, “These swims were always special – but in a very tough 2020 – they helped keep me sane.

I call it 1,600 meters (slipway to slipway); 3,000 meters (double lap); 4,400 meters (triple lap); etc. On a perfectly calm day at high water, a lap can be just less than 1,600 meters and take 24 minutes, on an ugly day it can be 1,900+ meters and take more than 50 minutes. On some days, it is just not possible to swim. And then a few longer laps going down the creek or ending up at Dock Beach, Speckled Door or around the Old Head of Kinsale for a total of 10,000 meters.

No two laps were the same – due to 4 meters of tide (exposing rocks resulting in scrapes and blood), wave swells and crashing surf, water and air temperatures, visibility (or not) in the water, windm light (sun and moon or none or not so much), phosphorescence, weeds, jellyfish, seals, fish, rain, the gaps, clumps of sea foam, occasional sweet water, sleet, snow, fog, weeds, birds (diving, floating, soaring or nesting), crabs looking longing at several months of food, and the herd of feral goats. For completeness, you need to add in others in the water in the annual 300+ swimmer’s race or just a few swimmers just rounding corner 1 as I started.

My first lap was in 2000 – back when everyone swam only on high water and 100 laps was a big year. In 2004, I was training for the English Channel and recorded the first 200-lap year. And so it went:

On November 17th 2012, 1,000 lifetime laps
On September 1st 2017, 1,500 lifetime laps

In 2018, after 14 years of my target being meters (which are best done in a pool for longer/easier sessions), I set a target of 400 laps which had never been recorded.

On August 18th 2018, 400 laps
On September 9th 2018, 2,000 lifetime laps
On November 4th 2018, 505 laps (and stopped for the year, I had had enough)
On December 5th 2020, 2,500 lifetime and 309 laps

For the future? Well the youngsters Robert Bohane and Finbarr Hedderman are a few hundred behind and I really owe them a target (well into the future). I am not entertaining any targets beyond 5,000 lifetime laps. Finally nobody could possibly do 1,001 laps in a year ever.

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