Swimming to survive | Your online newspaper for Waterloo, Ontario

By Bob Vrbanac,?Chronicle Staff

?Ultramarathon swimmer Lesley Zehr said there is no more peaceful place to be than alone in the middle of Lake Huron with no signs of civilization around her other than her support crew.

That solitude helps focus the mind ? and the mind is the most important tool she has in a 40-hour swim that will see her cross Lake Huron from Harbor Beach, Mich., to Goderich, Ont., July 26-29. The 75-km swim is part of a fundraising and awareness campaign called SEALS Swim to Survive, which hopes to raise awareness about swimming as a life skill and to educate the public about drowning prevention.

?We want to prevent these unfortunate deaths from occurring,? said Zehr, a client service coordinator at the City of Waterloo?s RIM Park. ?We teach fire safety, we teach traffic safety and how to cross the road, and yet swimming is one of those things we seem to take for granted.?

Zehr grew up in Huron County, where she was a competitive swimmer and lifeguard before a diploma in Sports and Recreation Administration brought her to the city in 2006. While she doesn?t do as much work teaching in the pool anymore, her passion for preventing drowning tragedies hasn?t diminished.

That?s when she came up with SEALS Swim to Survive, which stands for Swimming, Education, Awareness and Life Skills. Proceeds from the fundraiser will go to the Lifesaving Society of Canada, which has been training swimmers to be lifesavers and lifeguards since 1908.

?Swimming should be taught as a life skill,? said Zehr, who said she supports making it a mandatory part of the school curriculum for all Grade 3 students. ?We?re trying to get the word out to families to not only take swimming lessons but to educate the parents to be proactive instead of reactive.?

Zehr said it can take seconds for a trip to the beach to turn into tragedy, and a small child can drown in only centimetres of water without warning.

?It can happen so quickly and so silently,? said Zehr. ?I think we?re used to seeing things portrayed in the movies that it?s this big, dramatic tragedy that happens but so often it?s quick, it?s silent and it?s really unfortunate.?

That?s why Zehr chose an ultramarathon swim to support those education efforts.?We want to give everyone the opportunity ? adults and children ? to learn the basic survival skills.?

Zehr last conquered the waters of Lake Huron in 2001 as part of a relay swim with the Huron Hurricanes Aquatic Club. This is the first time she?ll be doing the swim solo, and has been training in Goderich for the past month.

The swim is sanctioned by Solo Swims of Ontario and requires her to meet certain safety guidelines to make sure she is adequately prepared for the challenge. She?s readied herself to deal with the temperature fluctuations.

?It?s no wet suits and no additional support or buoyancy, so it will just me in my bathing suit greasing up with lots of lanolin oil to make sure I?m covering the major organs to prevent heat loss,? said Zehr. ?But other than that, it?s just me and the water.?

Zehr said the biggest challenge at that point isn?t physical ? it?s mental.

?That?s the most arduous part of any kind of endurance race or marathon race,? said Zehr, who is crossing 25 years after Vicki Keith did it for the first time.

?It?s one thing to train your body, but to overcome those mental blocks and those hurdles that come along in a way is probably 70 per cent of the battle.?

But there is also a sense of serenity that comes from being in that big body of water all alone with only your thoughts.

?To see it go from day to night, and to see the sunrise again in the morning is a surreal experience,? said Zehr. ?There is a serenity to being surrounded by the water, even if it?s choppy, nobody bothers you out there. It?s you and nature, and the rest of the world is at a distance.

?For me it helps to focus on staying connected with the swim?s purpose.?

For more information, or to donate to the cause, visit her website, www.sealsswim.com.

Source: http://www.waterloochronicle.ca/community/swimming-to-survive/

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