The annual Chris Greene Lake Swim in Virginia was established in 1977 and has served as the U.S. Masters Swimming national 2-mile cable championships on several occasions. Because the cable swim is measured and surveyed annually to precisely 440 yards, the one and two-mile cable distances are the only open water events in which U.S. Masters Swimming maintains national records.

The course record of 38:32 was set by James Kegley in 1988 and, remarkably, his record remains the fastest 2-mile cable swim ever recorded in a masters swimming sanctioned race.

So while the rest of the world has gotten faster, James’ time standard has stood the test of time. To give you an idea of how fast James went and how far ahead of his time he was, during this same time period, the world record in the 1500-meter freestyle dropped from 14:54 in 1988 to 14:34 now and the English Channel world record dropped from 7 hours 40 minutes in 1988 to 6 hours and 57 minutes now. Given the fact that technical swimsuits were not even a glimmer of an idea back in 1988, James’ record is all the more impressive.

The all-time Top 10 swims in the Chris Greene Lake Swim are as follows:

1 James Kegley, 38:32.00 in 1988 (done at the age of 30)
2 Austin Ramirez, 38:34.00 in 1999 (21 years)
3 Michael Fuller, 38:53.00 in 1999 (20 years)
4 David Alleva, 39:59.00 in 1989 (25 years)
5 Christopher Derks, 40:09.00 in 2001 (31 years)
6 Andrew Wren, 40:32.00 in 1986 (25 years)
7 Robbie Allen, 40:47.35 in 1999 (33 years)
8 Chris Stevenson, 41:03.05 in 2009 (44 years)
9 James Stewart, 41:27.37 in 1999 (42 years)
10 Robert Geise, 41:36.94 in 1998 (34 years)

James, an honor swimmer in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame for his many successful years of the professional marathon swimming circuit, married a real CIA agent after his career was over.

Obviously, he has had some tricks of the trade in setting the longest standing U.S. Masters Swimming record.

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