Fionnuala Walsh

Fionnuala Walsh: 'Long distance swimming is meditation'
The only Irish female holder of the Triple Crown of open water swimming is looking for a new goal

“Some people want to be astronauts, some people want to climb Everest or be mathematicians and I wanted to swim the English Channel.”

“Taking on something like that is absolutely massive. Not only does it affect you, it affects your family and your friends.

“On top of swimming, you need to be sure that you are also doing strengthening and conditioning, and you need to do yoga to make sure you are getting enough stretching.

“You have to eat well and you have to eat enough so that you have got enough energy.

“Basically your whole world revolves around swimming. And on top of that, you have to work.”

“Swimming is meditation,” she says, “if you work really, really hard, at the end of a 10 or 12-hour day, there is nothing more enjoyable than to go for a swim, ideally in the sea.”

Her next challenge might be a round Ireland swim, she says, a feat never accomplished by a single, open water swimmer but something, she says, that would take years of commitment: “There are lots of people who talk about swimming around Ireland, but they don’t talk about doing it under Channel Swimming rules. It’s never been done as a solo. I would love to do that.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/get-swimming/fionnuala-walsh-long-distance-swimming-is-meditation-1.2468607