Just warming up, swimmer sets Lake Erie record
Tom Bartlett’s next goal is Lake Ontario crossing on his 70th birthday, which would be another record
EN ROUTE TO NEXT month’s swim across Lake Ontario, Tom Bartlett has already broken a world record.
He swam across Lake Erie on July 4 as his trial swim to qualify for the Lake Ontario swim, making him the oldest person to do so.
The 69-year-old will turn 70 while he’s swimming across Lake Ontario on Aug. 11, and if he’s successful he’s also earn the world record for the oldest person to swim that body of water.
The previous record holder for the oldest person to swim across Lake Erie was Steve Wargo at 55 years old in 2013.
“When we reached the 16.5 kilometres – that was my qualifying distance, which I did – and then Christine Arsenault who’s the captain of our boat, she said ‘Tom, let’s do the 19.3 and you’ll go for a record,’ so I just continued on to Sturgeon Point. And I felt good,” Bartlett said.
Arsenault and her daughter Trinity are the only mother-daughter duo to ever swim across Lake Ontario. Bartlett says the trial swim went like clockwork and he could have gone further if necessary. The water temperature ranged from 67 to 69 degrees and the lake only had a little bit of chop to it.
The swim got pushed to later in the day due to the lake’s conditions early in the day. They boated out to Crystal Beach where he started swimming at 10 a.m., not getting out of the water at Sturgeon Point for another seven hours, 44 minutes and 58 seconds.
“The crew was exceptional. They did everything right. The boat drivers for the Zodiac, the food my wife prepared, she did an exceptional job keeping me fed every 30 minutes. My son, he was in the Zodiac the whole time and he was feeding me. He would put the two containers of liquid, one was water and one was my protein and carbo drinks, and he would throw it out on a rope and I would drink it as fast as I could and just kept on going,” Bartlett said.
He also found out at the
16.5-kilometre mark that Marilyn Bell – the first person to successfully swim across Lake Ontario – had been texting his swim master, John Scott, throughout the swim to congratulate him. He’d love to meet her someday.
“She inspired me when I was nine to do this. I don’t know why I waited so long,” Bartlett said.
The swim is also a way for him to raise money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. He’s raised $5,500 so far on his website, and around $2,500 was raised by Boston Pizza in Waterloo, along with another $3,000 to $4,000 pledged, with MWS Solutions Inc. covering a lot of his costs.
“Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean that you can’t do something for your own health,” Bartlett noted.
It’s also important for him to help the next generation, to support their health through donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
He’s doing only open water swimming now, including a 30-kilometre swim planned for this weekend in Thornbury. He and his crew plan to start around 2 a.m. and swim back into Thornbury.
He’s aiming to finish the Lake Ontario swim on Aug. 11 in 24 hours, but says he’s prepared if he has to go longer.
“I’m ready. Lake Ontario’s my dream. I hope to get that one. I know I can swim 32 miles, it’s just whether or not if the lake doesn’t turn over and get really cold, and I get hypothermic. I have no control over that and I have no control over staying in the water if the swim master, John Scott, says to get out because I’ll be monitored my whole swim with the little pill that I take,” Bartlett said.
He says he drew energy to complete the Lake Erie swim by thinking about all the people supporting him from friends and family to customers at the St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market to neighbours he’s reconnected with from when he was a child.
“You just put your head down and you just keep swimming.”
To find out more about Tom’s upcoming swim or to donate to the Heart and Stroke Foundation visit www.swimforyourheart.wix.com/tombartlett.