Courtesy of Tara Diversi, Queensland, Australia.
Karlie Price, a mother of four, has fostered a dream to swim across the English Channel for a decade.
“Life is too short to put things off,” said the Australian who made her first attempt at swimming the Channel in 2014 [see video below]. “I am very privileged to be able to attempt to fulfill a dream.
The weather got so bad, blowing 30 knots, that after 11 hours and 16 minutes of swimming, the boat captain made the decision to abort the swim. I was only three miles from France.
It was important for me to pick myself up and show my children that failure doesn’t stop you reaching a goal. Resilience is as important as determination and hard work. As soon as I returned from my first attempt, I booked my spot in August 2016.”
She explains how she makes swimming a priority in her day. “I function better as a Mum and a wife after I have swum and have had my daily dose of endorphins. A lot of Mums say to me ‘Where do you find time to swim 30 km a week as a working mother of four?’ Everyone has the same number of hours in the day, it’s up to us how we spend them.
My house is not perfect and often I am living in ‘controlled chaos’, but my kids and husband are happy, my work gets done (often late at night), and I get my time in the water to test my body, clear my mind, and relax. I don’t often have coffee dates or watch a lot of TV, and at the moment, my social life is limited. But, I always watch my kids play Saturday sports, I help with homework, I still make time to read to them and tuck them in every night. At the end of the day, it’s about what we prioritise.
When the housework was getting on top of me, I outsourced a cleaner. I’d rather spend my time enjoying my family, and being able to do what I love than scrubbing bathrooms. I am blessed to have also fostered a love of swimming in my four children, and given them all the life skill of swimming..”
Along with her training partner Jane Gordon, Price prepares for the colder waters of the English Channel by traveling to Victoria [Australia] where water is cold and the air temperatures are even colder. She muses, “If you want something bad enough, you find a way to get cold, even in our beautiful warm climate.”
Copyright © 2016 by World Open Water Swimming Association