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File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water
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http://dailynews.openwaterswimming.com/...rivers-marathon.html

Disclaimer: my fly is sh*t so anything over 200m seems impossible to me but this is just impressive:

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What is remarkable about these results is the year-long effort that John Batchelder is doing in the non-freestyle marathon swimming world. The standard for a calendar-year butterfly marathon swimming effort was previously set by Danny Projansky in 2014 when he completed 70 miles (112.65 km) of butterfly marathon swimming. "So far this year, it looks like John has completed 160 miles (257.49 km) in butterfly, and he's still talking about the Catalina Channel in October," remarked Brian Suddeth.

"His butterfly swims have included the 20 Bridges Manhattan Island Swim, Extreme North Dakota Watersports Endurance Test, In Search of Memphré, Portland Bridge Swim, S.C.A.R. Swim Challenge Canyon Lake, S.C.A.R. Swim Challenge Saguaro Lake, Tampa Bay Marathon Swim, and the Three Rivers Marathon Swim."

That works out to ~1:52/100yds. Not speedy but I can't imagine fly is great when you're dealing with currents.
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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GreenPlease wrote:
http://dailynews.openwaterswimming.com/...rivers-marathon.html

Disclaimer: my fly is sh*t so anything over 200m seems impossible to me but this is just impressive:

Quote:
What is remarkable about these results is the year-long effort that John Batchelder is doing in the non-freestyle marathon swimming world. The standard for a calendar-year butterfly marathon swimming effort was previously set by Danny Projansky in 2014 when he completed 70 miles (112.65 km) of butterfly marathon swimming. "So far this year, it looks like John has completed 160 miles (257.49 km) in butterfly, and he's still talking about the Catalina Channel in October," remarked Brian Suddeth.

"His butterfly swims have included the 20 Bridges Manhattan Island Swim, Extreme North Dakota Watersports Endurance Test, In Search of Memphré, Portland Bridge Swim, S.C.A.R. Swim Challenge Canyon Lake, S.C.A.R. Swim Challenge Saguaro Lake, Tampa Bay Marathon Swim, and the Three Rivers Marathon Swim."


That works out to ~1:52/100yds. Not speedy but I can't imagine fly is great when you're dealing with currents.

Yeah but he only finished 8th OA, 2 hr and 43 min behind the leaders. Just b/c he was swimming fly is NO excuse.

On a more realistic note, that is a pretty amazing feat and apparently not even close to his longest fly swim, since he did the 28-mile Manhattan swim. 28 miles of fly just sounds like torture to me and, actually, I would imagine the poor officials who had to monitor his every stroke got pretty tired of watching him.

I think we need to put on a fly triathlon. Yeah, that would get like 10 entries. :)




"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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From a cyclist turned triathlete: good god why?! Them other swim strokes are like racing on a beach cruiser or running in flipflops.
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Post deleted by Anna s [ In reply to ]
Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [Anna s] [ In reply to ]
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Anna s wrote:
Amazing, truly amazing! Actually the first thing I thought when reading this was: Where's Dev? this sounds like something he would attempt :-)

LOL, I did a few open water swims this summer with wetsuit, and did do some fly, but I barely lasted 2 min at a time with the tension of the suit. Yesterday I did a fun 400m straight as 25 m sprint , 25m cruise and really tried to recover slowing down the recovery 25m and barely kicking at all. I want to give the 1000m as 10x50fly-50free another timed go this fall.

OK....back on topic....how do you even do 1000m straight. I am thinking these guys have massive catch, and massive engines, and really barely use the legs, because the oxygen consumption in the legs takes things through the roof. I bit of thoracic spine and neck flexibility would also go a huge way in open water given the waves etc that would get in the way too!
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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when you are in good swim shape easy fly with good form requires less effort than easy breaststroke with good form. Really. (Flat easy breaststroke (bad form) is easier, or course.)

that is not to say that this isn't quite a feat!
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
when you are in good swim shape easy fly with good form requires less effort than easy breaststroke with good form. Really. (Flat easy breaststroke (bad form) is easier, or course.)

that is not to say that this isn't quite a feat!

agreed. fly done properly can be restful . . . during my club swimming life i had literally a few seconds of experiencing this, once or twice in a race. done properly, you get into a beautiful rhythm and it's surprisingly easy.

when i was 10-11-12, i was on a club team that would do 5k swims for charity. i struggled to do it as straight freestyle at that point, but one kid on the team (who was exactly my age) did it as fly.

-mike

____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [iron_mike] [ In reply to ]
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I swim with John at least 3 times a week at masters. Although he is in the fastest lane usually alone he is Awesome! His fly crushes almost every other swimmers freestyle speed. He is so efficient at it that is looks like he is not even trying. If you search some of his other results from this year you will see this is not his first insane distance of fly he has done something like 5 other races this year of all fly at stupid distances.
Last edited by: Exige: Sep 26, 17 8:01
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
when you are in good swim shape easy fly with good form requires less effort than easy breaststroke with good form. Really. (Flat easy breaststroke (bad form) is easier, or course.)

that is not to say that this isn't quite a feat!

Agree, AND, long distance fly doesn't look like what most people think it looks like. Stroke rate is going to be way down and there is going to be a substantial glide portion to the stroke that allows for momentary recovery. I was a 200 flyer in HS/college and would do 1500 flys for time back in the day. Still wouldn't try this though!

Strava
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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Hmmm. I wonder how much non-fly he can do and still have it count. I imagine that during refueling there is some breaststroke and egg beater mixed in there. Does it just mean that all forward progress has to be fly?

Hillary Trout
San Luis Obispo, CA

Your trip is short. Make the most of it.
https://www.slogoing.net/
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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my fly is sh*t so anything over 200m seems impossible

disregarding the seeming impossibility of the feat mentioned in the article, i'm calling BS on this.

i want a video of you doing 200m of fly.
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [jkhayc] [ In reply to ]
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That's going to require a bribe...
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [SLOgoing] [ In reply to ]
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SLOgoing wrote:
Hmmm. I wonder how much non-fly he can do and still have it count. I imagine that during refueling there is some breaststroke and egg beater mixed in there. Does it just mean that all forward progress has to be fly?

I think we can forgive him if he does one-arm backstroke for a few meters while grabbing a feed.
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
when you are in good swim shape easy fly with good form requires less effort than easy breaststroke with good form. Really. (Flat easy breaststroke (bad form) is easier, or course.)

that is not to say that this isn't quite a feat!


OK, inspired by this thread I did the 400m fly as 25 hard/25 easy and on the 25 easy, had a good glide phase and almost zero leg/quad engagement and just flicked the feet at the end minimizing oxygen utilization. I think with some practice, I can get to 1000m fly continuous, not for time, but just to cover the distance without completely dogging it. I would say that I am at the point that my easiest fly is still more difficult than a hard breaststroke, but I totally suck at the latter.
Last edited by: devashish_paul: Sep 26, 17 18:47
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [Exige] [ In reply to ]
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Exige wrote:
I swim with John at least 3 times a week at masters. Although he is in the fastest lane usually alone he is Awesome! His fly crushes almost every other swimmers freestyle speed. He is so efficient at it that is looks like he is not even trying. If you search some of his other results from this year you will see this is not his first insane distance of fly he has done something like 5 other races this year of all fly at stupid distances.
I read in interviews that he's usually doing fly and free training according to the normal masters practice--is that right?
What kind of intervals do you think he's doing?
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [Trexlera] [ In reply to ]
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Not positive but I'll do something like 1:24 swim and 1:35 sendoff on some sets and he is sitting at the wall for like a month when I come in hahaha.

I'll hit him up on facebook and have him join the thread
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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I met John at the Portland Bridge Swim and yes, he swam the 11 miles doing fly. I caught him and stopped just to watch for a bit and said to my kayaker, "Are you kidding me?"
He attempted the Catalina Channel swimming fly, but stopped at 8 miles because he ingested sea water while feeding and started throwing up.
A few days later he joined my swim pod at Shaw's Cove and fly'd about 1500 yards to Seal Rock and then back. As we entered the ocean, he swam a bit of freestyle and I could tell he's a strong, fast, smooth swimmer.


Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [Exige] [ In reply to ]
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Exige wrote:
Not positive but I'll do something like 1:24 swim and 1:35 sendoff on some sets and he is sitting at the wall for like a month when I come in hahaha.
I'll hit him up on facebook and have him join the thread

I looked him up on the USMS web site; in 2016, in scy he went 2:08 for 200 fly and 17:58 for 1650 free, at age 35. Several other scm and lcm times here:

https://www.usms.org/....php?SwimmerID=086NY


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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I immediately thought of Vicki Keith, a Canadian swimmer from the 80s. She has swum 80.2km at once, doing butterfly

From Wikipedia

Swimming achievements[edit]
  • First crossing of all five Great Lakes (completed in a two-month period)
  • First double crossing of Lake Ontario
  • First butterfly swim across the English Channel
  • Longest solo swim (distance) 94 km
  • Longest solo swim (time) 63 hours 40 minutes
  • 129 hours, 45 minutes continuous swimming (pool record)
  • Greatest distance, butterfly (male or female) 80.2 km
  • Most crossings of Lake Ontario (six)
  • Circumnavigation of Sydney Harbour (butterfly)
  • Crossing of the Juan de Fuca Strait in British Columbia (butterfly)
  • Crossing of Lake Ontario (butterfly)
  • Crossing of Catalina Channel (butterfly)







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicki_Keith
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [The Guardian] [ In reply to ]
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The Guardian wrote:
I immediately thought of Vicki Keith, a Canadian swimmer from the 80s. She has swum 80.2km at once, doing butterfly

From Wikipedia

Swimming achievements[edit]

So, all I have to do is swim 130 hrs straight at my local pool, and have a few people to verify, and i can break her pool record??? Sounds totally do-able; i mean, it's only 5 days and 10 hrs.



"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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If anyone here is doing events of a mile or more in open water butterfly, (clean fly, ala FINA rules, not butterfrog as USMS allows, no wetsuits or other bouyancy aids, basically EC rules, no other strokes), I'm very interested. I've devoted a lot of time and research to trying to capture stories of the early butterflyers who broke waves for folks like me to follow. I started swimming at 45, and have enjoyed a practice swim with Danny Projansky and some others, but am at the bottom of the barrel for fly distance at only a mile, but I'm dreaming of going further in an event. I'm focused on 5K next year, and hoping I can build up to at least ONCE doing 10K or more to be able to say I'm an open water marathon butterfly swimmer. I can do the 10K+ distance in free in the pool, and have done over 5K fly in the pool, but the OW is different. I'm learning from many of the best, and hope to keep improving. I've collected the names, times, swims and calculated speeds for many butterflyers over the years, but really there are not many at all. Read some of their stories. John "SuperFly" Batchelder, Danny "Mr. Butterfly" Projansky, Vicki, Penny Palfrey, Bill Shipp, Terry Laughlin, Steve Munatones and many others have been kind enough to talk to me about their experiences and have become friends. I've only swum with two of them so far, but hope to have more such amazing experiences. See you among the waves. I'll have a better view...

Open Water Butterfly Swims - Openwaterpedia
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [SuddethB] [ In reply to ]
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(Quote) "If anyone here is doing events of a mile or more in open water butterfly, (clean fly, ala FINA rules, not butterfrog as USMS allows, no wetsuits or other bouyancy aids, basically EC rules, no other strokes), I'm very interested." (Quote)

That someone would not be me. I might swim the 400 IM and 200 fly at a Masters meet, but 200 yd/m of fly is more than enough for me. :)


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: File This Under "Seems Impossible": 30km of Butterfly in 10 hours in Open Water [iron_mike] [ In reply to ]
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Quote:
jthomas wrote:
when you are in good swim shape easy fly with good form requires less effort than easy breaststroke with good form. Really. (Flat easy breaststroke (bad form) is easier, or course.)

that is not to say that this isn't quite a feat!
agreed. fly done properly can be restful . . . during my club swimming life i had literally a few seconds of experiencing this, once or twice in a race. done properly, you get into a beautiful rhythm and it's surprisingly easy.

when i was 10-11-12, i was on a club team that would do 5k swims for charity. i struggled to do it as straight freestyle at that point, but one kid on the team (who was exactly my age) did it as fly.

-mike

well you have to be quite unique then because to me butterfly can never be as easy as breaststroke even though beeing a former swimmer..

I know some french guy living in sweden swan the canal( english one) but its a bit special butterfly ,i saw him swam open water once.. not Michael Phelps style, something like Laszlo Cseh but much more extreme.
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