Jo Jones fell in love with open water swimming when she was a child. By the age of 16, she’d set her mind on swimming the English Channel. At the age of 24, she achieved her goal, ticking the epic endurance feat off her bucket list.

So what does it feel like to achieve your lifelong dream in your early twenties? Joanne, now 27, shares her journey to Channel swimmer with me below and also chats about her recent and successful foray into ice swimming, which saw her take gold in the International Ice Swimming Association 500m freestyle earlier this year.

If you love open water swimming, you’ve probably heard of Lindsey Cole, whose joyous Instagram feed has been filled with photos documenting her six-month #dippingbritain journey of cycling to wild swimming spots around Britain. It’s a journey which started out as a two-week adventure to reach the Scottish Cold Water Swimming Championships, but morphed into a six-month wild swimming extravaganza – something she’ll be speaking about at the Dryrobe Outdoor Swimming Session at the Kendal Mountain Festival on Sunday 17 November (tickets here).

Prior to #dippingbritain, Lindsey swam the length of the Thames with a mermaid tale to highlight the plastic pandemic. However, her adventures have spanned more than watery pursuits, and include a 3-month walk along Western Australia’s 1000-mile Rabbit-Proof Fence, tracing the journey three young aborigine children made alone in the 1930s in an attempt to be reunited with the parents they were separated from. All in all, Lindsey is (to coin her own phrase) a ‘She-Ra’ of magnificent proportions.

Swimmers are known for their relentless training schedules, so what does a typical day look like for medley swimmer, Commonwealth Games champion and Speedo athlete, Siobhan-Marie O’Connor? 23-year-old Siobhan-Marie shares a day in her life with me below.

The Olympic silver medallist, who was the first woman ever to successfully defend their Commonwealth Games 200m IM title during last year’s event in Australia, also reveals her Olympic hopes for Japan 2020. Go, Siobhan-Marie!

© Bikingman

Bring up the topic of tough triathlons and for most people ‘Ironman’ comes to mind. However, for the crazy few, like French lawyer, Perrine Fages, there’s a bigger challenge to complete: the Enduroman Arch to Arc, a brutal event that starts with an 87-mile run from Marble Arch in London to Dover, followed by a swim of the English Channel and, finally, a 181-mile cycle from Calais to the Arc de Triomphe, Paris.

To date, only 34 athletes have completed the challenge. Yet, in August 2018, Perrine not only finished the event but set a new women’s world record (wetsuit swim) in the process. I grabbed some time with Perrine to get the details and to find out why she’s drawn to such immense endurance challenges.

Photo Credit: The Great Swim

For Olympian and two-time open water swimming world champion, Keri-anne Payne, years of 5am starts were all part and parcel of her medal-winning mission to inspire more people to take up open water swimming. After hanging up her professional swim cap earlier this year, the 30-year-old Olympic silver medallist explains how she’s achieving her goal in retirement through Triscape, the coaching business she’s launched with her husband and fellow Olympic swimmer, David Carry.

Before committing to her goal to swim the English Channel (a not insignificant 34km), the furthest 42-year-old Karlie Price had swum in open water was 2.5km. With no real distance swimming background, she trained for two years, working up to swimming 10-15km before first negotiating the English Channel crossing.

Here, Karlie shares the highs and agonising lows of her mission to tick ‘Swim the English Channel’ off her bucket list, all the while demonstrating how incredibly focused and determined she is.