Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach.
John Batchelder, a 36-year-old American mathematician is having a season to remember. The butterfly swimmer from Colorado is prepping for his second Catalina Channel crossing attempt, all butterfly, this week.
This season, he swam the 38.6 km Tampa Bay Marathon Swim, the 15.2 km crossing of Saguaro Lake, 14.8 km crossing of Canyon Lake, 10 km crossing of Roosevelt Lake at the SCAR Swim Challenge, 1.9 km and 5 km Mountain Swim Series in Boyd Lake, 3.8 km Mountain Swim Series Solstice Swim, 17.2 km Portland Bridge Swim, 4.8 km Carter Lake, 1.6 km and 3.2 km Chatfield Classic, 57.9 km Extreme North Dakota Watersports Endurance Test, 45.8 km 20 Bridges Manhattan Island Swim, 40.2 km In Search of Memphré, 30 km Three Rivers Marathon Swim, 19.3 km Swim Around Charleston for 309.79 km of butterfly.
He also has swum the following races freestyle: 11.2 km Swim Around Lido Key and 10 km The Castle for a 21.2 km of freestyle in addition to 22.5 km out of 27.3 km total of butterfly across Apache Lake in the SCAR Swim Challenge (DNF), the first 6.4 km of 32.5 km across the Catalina Channel (DNF).
But he still have another 32.3 km of butterfly across the Catalina Channel and 16 km of freestyle (most likely) in the Swim the Suck to close out his 2017 season.
“If I do Swim The Suck freestyle, it would be my longest open water swim of doing something other than butterfly [this year],” said Batchelder. “That’s really crazy.”
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