Open Water Swimming News & Views

Jenny Smith  of Tennessee just completed the four-day, four-stage  SCAR Swim Challenge  in Arizona.  She said of the  2022  World Open Water Swimming Event of the Year , " What an incredible event and awesome experience.  SCAR has been on my wishlist, and I am still reveling in it.  I cannot believe how  Kent Nicholas  and his swim support family pulls off such an enormous event, I am still in SCAR swim bliss ." While many of the marathon swimmers and channel swimmers thought the water was cold, Smith is an experienced, well-prepared extreme athlete.  " I was fortunate to have almost four weeks of cold water training right before SCAR, an informal swim camp with my Irish pod in Mallorca, and two weeks in Ireland, and Swimquest Channel and Long Distance week in Croatia.   So I did not mind the cold, although it did take me quite awhile to warm up in Canyon Lake.  I was kind of slow (off my pace for sure)...

This winter season has seen a massive increase in rainfall and snow in the Western States of the US. The water - flowing and frozen - will have an impact on the SCAR Swim Challenge , a 4-day stage swim in Arizona along four reservoirs created by the Salt River : Saguaro Lake on Day 1, Canyon Lake on Day 2, Apache Lake on Day 3, and Roosevelt Lake on Day 4. A white blanket of snow has covered the area around this area, east of Phoenix, Arizona. The snow melt will drop the water temperature throughout the race course between April 26th and 29th. This week - six weeks before the SCAR Swim - there was flooding in the Salt River that shut down recreational access [see here and below]. by AZFamily | Arizona News Race visionary and race director Kent Nicholas [shown below with SCAR participant Roger Finch on right] reported, " SCAR 2023 is packed with an incredible lineup of swimmers and crew. Our Arizona winter weather has been very wet which means the desert should be ...