Miranda Wingfield thought her swim across the English Channel would be her swan song.

The Northampton High School alum has always been a distance swimmer, but she didn’t find open water swimming until her college years. Shortly after graduation, she underwent arduous training to build up her physical and mental strength for the trek across the English Channel, and she accomplished that bucket list item on July 20, 2018. 

That was supposed to be it. Little did Wingfield know, the ocean had other plans for her. 

Shortly after her swim across the English Channel, Wingfield moved to Boston and quickly immersed herself in the open water community there. Last year, she was competing in the Boston Light Swim, a historic eight-mile open-water swim, when two of her friends, Laurie Craigen and Polly Madden, put a bug in her ear about another long-distance swim they thought she should sign up for. 

“They were like, ‘Hey, we signed up for Catalina (Channel swim) next year, you should do it too.’ And I was like, ‘No, it’s never really been on my list to do.’ But they told me to think about it. And the more I thought about it, I was like, ‘yeah, it would be really cool to do’ so then I decided to do it,” Wingfield said. “It's not too popular… A lot of people have heard of the English Channel and it’s everybody's bucket list big swim to do. But this one, though it's the same magnitude, it's just a lesser known body of water.”

It would be a tall order – the Catalina Channel swim is approximately 20 statue miles long, typically starting from Arrow Point on Santa Catalina Island and finishing at Long Point, Rancho Palos Verdes on the California mainland. And there’s also the detail that the swim always starts at night, around 10 p.m., so the majority of the swim is done in the dark.

Wingfield had never swum in open water in the dark before and also describes herself as being “so, so, so terrified of the open ocean.” Why continue to put herself through an already difficult swim when she’s also deathly afraid of the ocean? 

“It’s one of those things to conquer my fears,” Wingfield said. “I fell in love with open water swimming (after the English Channel swim), which I wasn't really expecting. I realized that versus a pool, when you're in the open water, you feel free.” 

Wingfield focused more on mental preparation than physical preparation. She would wake up early in the mornings, sometimes before 4 a.m., and head to the water to beat the sunrise. At first she started by just getting used to being in the water in the pitch black. Then she would go five minutes away from shore, then 10, and gradually build up from there. She trained with friends, which made it easier and also more realistic – during the actual swim itself, she had a kayaker in the water next to her along with a boat following her. The small lights her friends wore during training simulated the lights she’d see during the swim itself. 

Finally, the night arrived for the big swim — Aug. 10. Her whole family got involved – her brother agreed to kayak alongside her for part of the swim and her dad followed along on the boat. Her mom stayed behind to watch Wingfield’s dog, dutifully following along virtually thanks to a website that tracked her daughter’s swim.

Despite her initial fears about swimming in the dark, the nighttime portion of the swim proved to be the best for Wingfield.

“It was just me and the open water. It was dark, I couldn't see anything except for the light from the kayak in the boat so I knew I was going on track. You couldn't see land, it was very freeing and very calm. The conditions were really calm,” Wingfield said. “As soon as daylight hit I feel like I also hit a current, so I slowed down quite a bit. I could see the land as the sun came up, but it didn't seem like it was moving.”

Wingfield fought against the current as best she could, at times feeling like she wasn’t moving at all but doing her best to swim closer to shore. Though she was initially worried about underwater creatures lurking below her, she saw quite a few dolphins during her swim that kept her morale up. After 11 hours, 27 minutes and 57 seconds of non-stop swimming, Wingfield finished and finally pulled herself out of the ocean.

“I just felt this huge sigh of relief, like I finally did it, I got there. My hard work paid off,” Wingfield said. “Getting to shore and knowing that people were watching this little orange dot from work and everything, it made me really happy knowing that I was able to do it and I was able to push my body to its limits again.” 

Wingfield isn’t done yet – the Catalina Channel is part of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, along with the English Channel. Her next big goal is to complete the trio with the Swim Around Manhattan course, the longest of the three (28.5 miles), and is eyeing other swims in the Straight of Gibraltar and the Cook Straight.

Hannah Bevis can be reached at hbevis@gazettenet.com. Follow her on Twitter @Hannah_Bevis1.]]>