Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. People of all ages, abilities and backgrounds participate in open water swimming for many reasons. You swim because it might be a hot summer day...or you want to become more fit or tone...or you are a competitive swimmer...or you are a lifeguard or a triathlete. No matter if you are a hard-core marathon
Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Ross Bogue is an American open water swimmer from Danvers, Illinois who specializes in butterfly. What is interesting is that he has done the same swim - the Big Shoulders 5 km in Lake Michigan right off the shoreline of Chicago - both butterfly and freestyle: *2006 freestyle in 1:32:44 *2007 butterfly in
Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. It has been a summer like no other in the United States. The 2015 Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the 2015 RCP Tiburon Mile, and the 2015 Big Shoulders were all cancelled. Now add the 2015 Escape from Lewes Open Water Classic, scheduled on September 27th, to the mix of major races on this summer's American open
She is not one of the elite competitive swimmers, but Amanda Horton is representative of many of the thousands of athletes who participated in the Big Shoulders event in Lake Michigan this weekend. And Horton was brutally honest about the triangular course within view of the magnificent Chicago skyline. "This has been my most challenging open water event
When we saw this recent t-shirt with the likeness of President Nelson Mandela, it brought memories of the controversial President Obama t-shirts of the 2008 Big Shoulders event in Chicago. Prior to 2008, controversies in open water swimming tended to center itself over drug testing, high-tech suits, and length of feeding sticks. Now controversies in
The 2008 Big Shoulders Swim in Chicago caused quite a stir - both for and against - when with the annual open water swim in Lake Michigan printed t-shirts and offered finish medals with President Obama's image. With President Obama winning a second term, it looks the 2008 t-shirts with the president in goggles may increase in value as a collector's item -
Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist at the University of Oxford, is famous for Dunbar's number. He believes that people can maintain 150 relationships with other humans, a measurement of the cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships. “When people add more than 150 friends on Facebook, they
A slim waist...ripped muscles...a smiling face... and Big Shoulders. The epitome of the ideal aquatic athlete. Blue skies...blue water...a soaring skyline... and Big Shoulders. The epitome of an open water swim. Big Shoulders is one of the world's top 100 open water swims, Founded in 1990 by local Olympic champion Bill Mulliken, Big Shoulders has
Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. People of all ages, abilities and backgrounds swim for many reasons. It might be a hot summer day, you may want to become more fit or tone, you may be a competitive swimmer, you may want to be a lifeguard, you may be a triathlete. No matter if you are a hard-core marathon swimming traditionalist or a
CHICAGO. For 22 years, Chicago has played host to the Big Shoulders 2.5K and 5K race along its shores of Lake Michigan every September. While "big shoulders" has always been a point of reference to the well-developed shoulders of swimmers, the genesis of the event name goes back to Chicago-born author-poet Carl Sandburg. Known alternatively as the Windy
