Everything In Texas Is Big - Jamie Touts Having Fun In The Cold Water

Jamie Tout from Austin, Texas has always overcome obstacles, either from Mother Nature or physiological.

This year, the 69-year-old Texan (who will turn 70 in May) has prepared himself for a daunting series of marathon swims.

For the first swim of the season, he will head off to Israel and take on a 21 km lengthwise crossing of the Sea of Galilee on April 24th. Then he returns to the States where he will head down the Mighty Red River of the North in the famed 57.9 km END-WET river race from North Dakota to Minnesota.

If those two long marathon swims are not enough, Tout then flies to New York City to take on the 91.8 km 40 Bridges Swim, a double circumnavigation swim around Manhattan Island.

And, if all of that swimming is not enough to fatigue a hardened marathon veteran who is up to 60,000 meters per week in his training, Tout intends to carry on to even bigger and tougher challenges.

His summer season will culminate with two swims in Lake Tahoe. First, he will swim the 19.3 km width of Lake Tahoe on August 16th - then go to bed, and wake up the next morning to attempt a 34.1 km lengthwise crossing of Lake Tahoe on August 17th - 18th.

With all the snow that has built up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California and elsewhere in the continental USA, the river and lake water temperatures - especially in the western and northern states - are expected to be at historic lows.

But Tout has always been up to the challenges he has set for himself. His positivity is infectious, “I assume END WET will be very cold this year - and the downstream swim will be fast with all the snow melt. It will be interesting to see if I can still handle the cold. It will be fun either way.”

We will follow Tout, the author of Across The Pacific and a Triple Crowner, as he faces off with Mother Nature in the Sea of Galilee in Israel, END-WET between North Dakota and Minnesota, 40 Bridges around Manhattan Island, and two times across Lake Tahoe in California - for a total of 224.1 kilometers this summer.

Tout is the only human to have complete the Triple Crown of Endurance Sports with a successful Hawaiian Ironman in 1981, a successful Boston Marathon in 3 hours 30 minutes in 1982 with a qualifying time of 2 hours 48 minutes, and a successful crossing of the English Channel in 1987 on his fourth attempt in 10 hours 33 minutes. He attempted the English Channel in 1981, 1983, 1984, and 1986 (but didn’t get off the beach), and made it in 1987 when he increased his weight from 148 pounds on a 6’1” frame to a 187-pound Channel swimmer. He has also completed 10 Manhattan Island Marathon Swims between 1985 and 2015.