Local swimmers get set for gruelling Shannon challenge for RNLI

Two Athlone women aiming to swim 32k from Lanesboro bridge to Athlone bridge

Two women from Athlone are aiming to be the first females to swim from Lanesboro bridge to the bridge in Athlone, a distance of 32km, when they take on the challenge this month in aid of RNLI.

Not only that, but they are also choosing to forego a wetsuit in favour of togs while completing the swim, which will also be a first.

Serena Friel from Coosan and Karen Reynolds from Iona Park are taking to the water at the end of the month and expect to be in the water for 13-14 hours.

“When Covid came along it wiped out a lot of the events that we had in the pipeline, so we decided we wanted to do this,” Karen said. “It has never been done by female swimmers and it certainly has never been done by girls wearing just swimming togs, so it’s really a challenge within a challenge.”

Neither Serena or Karen have a personal connection to the RNLI, but they recognise how important the service is in both Athlone and across the country.

“The RNLI has always been nearby whenever we do our training,” Serena, who has been swimming for most of her life, said. “We saw the new RNLI building going up at Coosan and just decided to raise funds for them by doing the swim.”

“It’s absolutely vital to the community, especially with the amount of open water we have on our doorstep here in Athlone and the Midlands. We need people to be aware of the RNLI because there are so many drownings, and so many people go out into the water without knowing what they are doing.”

“Children sometimes go out in rubber dinghies and they have no awareness and easily drift,” Karen, who took up swimming in 2015, added. “So many times we have had to intervene and tell them to go back to the shore or their parents. If raising awareness about the RNLI is the only thing we do, we will be so delighted.”

The women have been training six times a week, and have been acclimatising to cold temperatures since February when water temperatures were as low as 4°C.

“It’s a lot of early mornings,” Karen said, “but we could train sometimes in the afternoons as well depending on life and family and everything else.”

They have also been in each other’s social bubble since the start of the pandemic so they have been able to train together without interruption.

“Our coach David Warby from Connect to Perform thought we were bonkers!” Serena said. “Our family and friends all think we’re a bit crazy too, but they’re very proud of us for raising money for a good cause.”

“We’ll be starting off at 6am in togs from Lanesboro bridge, and we are following channel rules. That means we aren’t using any buoyancy aids, only one swimming togs, one hat and one pair of goggles, and it needs to be a continuous swim.

“We don’t know yet what temperature the water will be on the day, because the weather is so erratic at the moment,” Karen explained. “When the rain falls it’s not good for swimmers, but it could be down to 12°C.”

They have also been completing strength training in the gym with Serena’s husband Cyril to improve upper-body strength.

“We’re very lucky that we have had the knowledge from Cyril and access to gym facilities so that we will be stronger when we go into the cold water,” Karen said. “He got us through more of a mental task of acclimatising for cold water alongside the strength work. That’s nearly the hardest part of it.”

The donation page for the challenge can be found by searching 'The Lough Ree 32k Challenge' on GoFundMe.com