It was 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 17 and sophomore swimmer Sam Simon was about to attempt a feat she had spent the entire summer preparing for.

She dipped her feet into the cool water of the English Channel and stared across the 21-mile stretch of water before her. Just prior to her swim across it, Simon only had one thing on her mind: “Let’s do this thing.

“I just knew that once I got in the water I’d be fine and I could do it, but I knew I’d freak out beforehand,” Simon said. “Once I was in I knew I was ready. I was completely prepared.

Simon attempted and succeeded in her swim across the English Channel, the narrow stretch of Atlantic Ocean separating England and northern France. A triumph that a little more than 1,300 people have successfully completed since the first person did so more than 100 years ago. For a swimmer, crossing the English Channel is comparable to a mountain climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

The stretch of channel Simon planned to cross was a marathon that would take her from her starting point on Shakespeare Beach, England to Clay, France. The weather was predicted as a nice day with calm seas, ideal conditions for Simon’s attempt. But only hours into the swim, winds picked up, creating a fury of enormous swells and a new challenge for her.

“We had 25 foot swells,” Simon said. “So it got a little crazy after that.

Keeping a close eye on her from a distance were her parents on a charter boat. The boat remained about 15 feet away from Simon at all times while she swam, but when the weather picked up Simon was anywhere from touching the boat to even 50 yards from it.

Because of the rough sea, Simon’s 21-mile path soon turned into an unplanned route of more than 26 miles as she was pushed further from her finishing target. But determination and experience as a long-distance swimmer would help her reach her goal.

“My favorite quote is ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’” Simon said. “So I would just think that and if it hurt for a minute I would get over it and tell myself, ‘You can finish this.’”

She did finish, and with a time of 13 hours, 10 minutes and 45 seconds. The long day in the water ended when she landed in Clay, France in the late hours of Aug. 17.

“It was fantastic,” Simon said. “Once I finished I was like, ‘Well, now I have to swim back to the boat,’ but I was really hungry.

St. Thomas swim coach Tom Hodgson remembers reading the e-mail Simon sent from France after she completed the crossing.

“When I got the e-mail from her from France that said the waves really came up just five hours into her swim I just kind of thought, ‘Yeah, that’s Sam (she’ll would) work through that,’” Hodgson said. “There was never any doubt in my mind that she wouldn’t make it.

Some of Simon’s current and former swim teammates shared the same feeling. Sophomore and fellow teammate Louie Czech remembered an incident during one of last year’s events at the University of Minnesota that showed Simon’s incredible drive.

“We were at one of the end meets at the University of Minnesota and she swam the mile,” Czech said. “As she was jumping in her goggles broke off and she swam the mile with no goggles. In competition you’re allowed to turn on your back and someone can throw you another pair while you’re in the water, but she wanted to prove to herself that she could do it.

Czech said he didn’t know anyone else who would do that.

Simon had spent countless hours training and preparing for the English Channel swim with her parents during the summer months leading up to it. Most of the training was done in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. These lakes were chosen so Simon could adapt to swimming in cold water. Both Great Lakes sat at a frigid 48 degrees.

“When we were going to Lake Michigan we would go out every day almost, sometimes it would be at one in the morning, sometimes it would be 10 at night, sometimes it would be at five in the morning,” Simon said. “Once we were in Superior, I would go three to four times a day from half an hour to an hour just to try and be able to swim in 48 degree water.

Though Simon was eventually physically and mentally prepared for the freezing water of the English Channel, when she arrived she was greeted with a pleasant surprise.

“It was 65 degrees in the channel,” Simon said. “It was warmer than it usually is, so I was excited about that.

Aside from her Great Lakes training, Simon had gained experience in other long distance events that would eventually culminate in her decision to attempt the English Channel. After falling short in qualifying meets and not making it to the state finals in high school, Simon’s coach encouraged her to try an outdoor two-mile event.

“I did the two-mile in Wisconsin and two more two-mile events and a 24-mile event in Tampa Bay, Florida,” she said. “The Tampa Bay and the shorter two-mile events have been races, but the English Channel is personal. You go by yourself and the boat and you just do it.

Hodgson spoke about the training involved in Simon’s English Channel event

“When you’re training for something like this, you have to train with an intensity and dedication that is really singular,” he said. “This is how you handle the stress of competition. When you think of a one-shot at the English Channel, all of your training is calling for a reckoning, but it is the training and the dedication and the preparation that sees you through.

Simon said her experience has been “fantastic,” and although she accomplished an achievement very few complete annually and one that is considered the pinnacle in the marathon-swimming world, she is far from the end of her personal long-distance swimming goals

“There is something in swimming called the Triple Crown,” Simon said. “It is swimming across the English Channel, a swim around Manhattan Island, and a swim across the Catalina Channel. Not many people have done all three of them [in] under a year, so I want to do that.

Matt Linden can be reached at mdlinden@stthomas.edu.