An ultra-endurance athlete living in Kelowna, BC, is preparing for his third and final attempt to break the Guinness record for swimming the length of Okanagan Lake.
Nick Pelletier, 25, plans to swim 106 kilometers from the north arm of the lake, located about 10 kilometers northwest of Vernon, BC, to the SS Sicamous Museum in Penticton. His goal is to accomplish this feat in less than 40 hours, beginning at 4 am PT on August 1 and ending before 8 pm on August 2.
During his swim, Pelletier does not take sleep breaks. She will be accompanied by a 20-person support team in two motorized boats and two kayaks to monitor his progress and provide him with food and drinks.
“I won’t touch anything while I eat,” he told host Chris Walker on the CBC show. south dawn On Monday in the morning.
Guinness Lake Okanagan record set in 2016
He current Guinness record for the fastest swim across Lake Okanagan was set by a Detroit man, Adam Ellenstein, who completed the challenge in 40 hours, 57 minutes, and 11 seconds on July 25 and 26, 2016.
Ellenstein, 39 at the time, said she had trained for two years to swim to raise money for Parkinson’s disease patients, including her aunt Susan Scarlett.
Scarlett was part of a 19-person team that supported Ellenstein during his swim, providing him with a constant supply of a sugary protein drink and occasionally swimming alongside him.
“This swim has never been done before, and Adam’s intention is to do it as fast as possible,” Scarlett told Breaking: in July 2016. “He’s setting the bar.”
Pelletier says he sought Ellenstein’s advice to prepare logistically for his epic swim, an idea that came to him during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I couldn’t go international with my other expeditions, so I had to look local,” he said.
But Pelletier faced setbacks during his two previous attempts to break Ellenstein’s record.
In 2020, he suffered chafing injuries to his back and shoulders from friction with his full-body wetsuit. In 2021, she tried wearing a sleeveless wetsuit to reduce chafing, but ended up breaking her wrist due to inadequate swimming strokes.
“I had to swim with one arm into a headwind for hours, and then it got too difficult and I started getting hypothermia.”
Fundraising for the Canadian Mental Health Association
Despite these challenges, Pelletier raised $13,000 for BrainTrust Canada, a Kelowna-based nonprofit that supports brain-injured patients, following his attempt to break the Guinness World Record in 2020.
This time, her goal is to raise $10,000 for the Canadian Mental Health Association in Kelowna.
While he can’t guarantee breaking the Guinness record, Pelletier says he’s mentally prepared to take on the challenge.
“You have to look at it not as a big undertaking as a whole; I have to look at it as 106 one-kilometre swims instead of 106 kilometres, so it’s gaining the kilometers that are behind you.”
