Marathon Veterans Take To New York New York

The annual Manhattan Island Marathon Swim is this Saturday, starting at 7:25 am near Wall Street. With the water temperature around 65°F (ranging from 17-19°C), the athletes will surface chop, substantial tidal flows and boat traffic for the entire 8-9 hour event.

Besides the relay swimmers, this year's event includes an extraordinarily solid group of marathon swimmers with a plethora of long-distance swims under their belt. Two of the younger swimmers in the field, Chloe Mccardel and Jen Schumacher, will certainly be pushed by their older (and wiser?) competitors.

The international field includes English and Catalina Channel swimmers from as far away as Australia. After getting through the highly selective qualification process, the group is representative of the highest echelon of marathon swimmers world.

The women include Rachel Golub (33), Rondi Davies (40), Jaimie Monahan (30) and Tobey-Anne Saracino (34) of New York, Amanda Hunt (41) and Chloe Mccardel (25) of Australia, Sakura Hingley (28) of UK, Kathrin Raymond (31) of Colorado, Jen Schumacher (24) of California (left) and Samantha Simon (20) of Wisconsin.

The men include Dave Barra (45 years old), Mo Siegel (58) and Lance Ogren (39) of New York, Jim Bayles (58) of Connecticut, Jaime Caballero (35) of Spain, Jeffrey Cleveland (30) of California, Dougal Hunt (30) and Stephen Junk (49) and Andrew Page (38) of Australia, Rob Kent (45) of Canada, Craig Lenning (31) of Colorado, Julien Leonard (32) of France, Jose Serra (36) of Guatemala, David Strasburg (44) of Virginia, Kristian Rutford (50) of Nebraska and Jordan Waxman (45) of New Jersey.

Kristian is returning to a venue he knows well. He holds the fastest time for a man around Manhattan (5:53:57 in 1992) and the fastest time for a man in the reverse direction (17:48). But in a hint of what may occur this Saturday, Kristian's records are just slightly behind women: the overall record in the counterclockwise direction is 5:45:25 set by Shelley Taylor Smith in 1995 and 11:48 in the clockwise direction set by Liz Fry in 2009.

Photo by NYC Swim.

Copyright © 2010 by Open Water Source