The thrills of marathon swimming

Ranie Pearce has conquered some of the world’s most challenging waters, from the turbulent English Channel to frigid Antarctica. Little did she know what she was capable of (like achieving the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming!) when, at age 45, she headed to a local pool for some "me time." Read more in the fall/winter issue of Andover magazine.

What do you like most about swimming?

Swimming has changed my whole life. There’s the meditative aspect of swimming, the endorphins, the post-swim euphoria. But it’s so more than that. It’s a social life. It’s an identity. I have friends all over the world. I want to tell women that they have so many more choices, more options than they realize. And I want to tell all people: You can do hard, incredible things. Set your sites on it and go get it. You deserve joy.

What's your daily routine like?

I get up at 4:50 a.m. and in the pool by 5:45 a.m. four days out of five. Then I swim both weekend days in the bay, close to the Golden Gate Bridge or in Aquatic Park. Sometimes in Lake Tahoe or Lake Donner. Wherever anybody wants to go!

Swimming with the dolphins in South Africa (Robben Island Swim)

How did you end up swimming the English Channel?

My "pool people" asked what it would take to get me to swim the English Channel. I said, well, I can’t do that. I can’t afford it. The coach said, "How about if we sponsor you for $1,000 and you come up with the rest?" And I thought, what? I’m turning 50 and all these people think this is a good idea. Maybe I should do it.

I planned to swim the English Channel in a bikini, my most comfortable bathing suit. We’re on the boat in Dover Harbour, and the official observer says, "You can't swim in that. It’s not official." So I pulled a training suit out of my backpack. After an hour or two, my shoulders are getting bitten by the straps. So I just rolled it down and swam without a top for the next 16 hours. Luckily, no one on the boat much cared what I was or wasn’t wearing.

Any scary moments in the water?

I was swimming from Molokai to Oahu, a distance of 28.5 miles. After about four and a half hours, my kayaker spotted a 10-foot tiger shark [see video]. All the things you’ve ever seen on a National Geographic show, I saw them—the shark coming at me with those dead eyes, this eating machine.

I tried to convince myself he was going to go away. But in fact, there were two tiger sharks, so that’s very different. One might just take off, but two might egg each other on to do something awful. The other thing is that I was throwing up—mostly due to the 8- to 10-foot swells—so I was basically chumming the water myself.

I literally thought if I could stop my heart from beating, maybe the shark won’t notice me. That’s how rational I was at that point. I knew that I was going to be swimming for another 13 to 15 hours to reach Oahu, swimming all night knowing that those sharks were out there. So I got out.

How do you train?

It’s much like training for a marathon run. You increase your distance over three weeks, cut back for a week, and then add 10–20 percent more distance over the next three weeks until you reach more than half the distance you plan to swim.

Because I have a job and can only swim about an hour on weekday mornings, my weekend swims are much longer. When I was training for the English Channel, there were several weekends where I swam six hours on Saturday and seven hours on Sunday. Yes, more on the second day to build your mental toughness.

Swimming a marathon is 85% mental. Many people can do the physical swim, but many people don’t complete the swim because they quit. You don’t get to pick your start time, it’s up to the tides. So I started some of my training swims at two o’clock in the afternoon, which was hard, because I knew that by the time I was struggling with my mental demons, it would be dark and rainy.

Receiving the Triple Crown plaque for swimming the English Channel, Catalina Channel, and a circumnavigation of Manhattan

Guilty pleasure?

A Coke and some potato chips if I swim six hours or more.

How do you prepare for the cold water?

I’ve done two "ice miles," which is swimming a mile in water that is under 40 degrees. To prepare, I swam in a lot of cold water and took ice baths.

What was your Andover experience like?

I loved Andover. I went for just upper and senior years, and I met some amazing people. Just knowing that there are other people out in the world who can do more than you can makes you think maybe you could do more too.

When I got there, I was so out of my depth—academically and intellectually and physically. But I wanted to do everything. And I wanted to row. After maybe three weeks, Mr. Lyons, my history teacher, called me into his classroom. He had crutches because he had polio. And he banged on the board and said, Etna—he called me Etna because I lived in Etna, New Hampshire—you can either be a rower or you can pass History 35, but you can’t seem to do both.

It was eye-opening to realize that all my life I’d just sort of gotten by on being friendly and cute and enthusiastic. At Andover, they were like, no, everybody's like that. We need more. We need you to be smart, to do the work, to care. We need you to work hard. And I couldn't appreciate that more.

What do you have coming up in 2025?

In March, I head to Sweden for a long weekend to swim the Dark and Cold—a little event sponsored by the International Winter Swimming Association. I just can't wait. I’ve been to six of the seven continents. I’m saving New Zealand and Australia for a big swim down there for my 65th year. I really believe that there is nothing I can’t do if I really want it and am willing to train for it. That power is in the core of who I am now.”

December 20, 2024