Swimming Around Manhattan—For Calvin
John Waanders ’81 has been waiting almost 19 years to get a water-level view of New York City.
In September 1988, when he and his wife, Andreae, moved to Manhattan, they took the popular Circle Line Tour to see their new hometown. “It’s a spectacular geological and architectural view of the city,” Waanders said. “Even then I thought it would be fascinating to see from the water.”
On Saturday, June 16, Waanders will get that view when he swims in the 25th annual Manhattan Island Marathon. The 28.5-mile course begins on the Hudson River side of Battery Park and takes swimmers counter-clockwise, so that tides mostly assist them, around the entire island to finish in the park’s South Cove. Race literature assures participants that “the water quality (in the race channel) is fine,” and that “the Hudson’s waters flow cleaner than they have in decades.” There could be, however, “substantial chop” from wind and shipping traffic and “random flotsam and jetsam.” Predicted water temperature on race day: 64-67 degrees Fahrenheit. No wet suits allowed.
“Seeing what I can get my body to accomplish and be comfortable with,” Waanders said, “is another part of my fascination with the race.”
He’s extending his comfort level in increments. The same nonprofit organization that sponsors the Manhattan Island Marathon holds 10 other shorter races each summer in New York City waters. Waanders entered three of them last summer, more than doubling his distance with each one.
Increasing his distance again this year, he’ll swim about half the marathon course. He’s one member of a two-person relay team, the one first in the water. After two hours of swimming, he’ll climb out of the water and into the support boat that follows the swimmers as his teammate jumps in. Two hours later Waanders will hit the water again. The two will alternate in two-hour swim shifts until they circle the island, probably, Waanders guesses, in something over eight hours.
Growing up in Grand Haven, on the shore of Lake Michigan, Waanders remembers being “wet and sandy most of every summer.” At Calvin he was a member of the swim team—a sprinter as a freshman, but a distance swimmer by the end of his third year when he left Calvin for the University of Michigan’s engineering school.
“I made some great friends and was very blessed as part of Calvin’s competitive swimming program,” Waanders said. “It really gave me a lot. I’m going to use the marathon to give something back.”
Entered as a fund-raising relay, Waanders and his teammate, non-alum Lori Carena, can accept donations for their swim. Both have designated Calvin’s new athletic complex and its 50-meter pool as the recipient of money contributed in support of their swim. Though he has done, and still does, most of his swimming in a pool, Waanders finds open-water distance swimming “exhilarating. In a pool the wall throws off my rhythm. In open water you can get into a rhythm and just keep going and going. Doing the marathon this year as part of a team of two will probably convince me that next year I can do the whole distance solo. That’s my goal—but one swim at a time!”
To donate to John Waanders’ swim—and Calvin’s new athletic complex—make a gift online or mail donations to Calvin’s development office with the designation “Swim Around Manhattan.”
