Swimming for Support

On August 8, 2008 -- better known as the first day of the Beijing Olympics -- most of the world's athletes and sports fans were focused firmly on the games in China. Most, that is… but not swimmer Dori Miller. That afternoon, she swam across the English Channel, raising over $5,000 for Parkinson's Disease research in the process.

Although it was her first Channel swim, using sports as way to fundraise is nothing new for Miller, an amateur athlete who works as web designer. Before switching to open water swimming, she ran in five Boston Marathons, rising money for the American Liver Foundation. The decision to embark on a sponsored swim for Parkinson's was an easy one, since her mother suffers from the disease.

Miller trained for two years for her Channel swim, which took her just over 10 hours. "A lot of the training was the swimming and the distance, but then there's also the cold water aspect of it," she explains. "That's one of the bigger challenges of the swim. The English Channel is considered cold water, so I started swimming in cold water. It's not like I'm a huge fan of cold water. Sometimes we'd be in the ocean in January--we'd run in and run out…and run into the sauna."

Water temperature is just one reason why it's daunting to swim the English Channel. "There's traffic coming and going," Miller says. "You see these tanker ships and cross ferry traffic that goes back and forth regularly. I swam a lot of it in the dark, so I had no concept of what time it was and how much time had passed. A lot of time I just tried to stay with the boats -- the currents were pushing me around."

To cross the Channel, swimmers are required to be accompanied by a boat with a certified captain who dictates--according to weather conditions and currents -- when the swim can begin. "It's not like you can plan an exact day," Miller says. "You get to Dover [England] and then you hang around for a lot of time waiting until you get a call that says you're going to swim. You can't say, 'We're going to leave on this day and land on this spot.'" Miller's swim began at 3:30 in the afternoon; she reached France -- under a lighthouse on a rocky patch of beach -- at 2:30 am the next morning. With all those factors, there weren't spectators -- including her mom, who inspired the swim -- to see her make the crossing.

To raise money for Parkinson's, Miller asked people to donate a flat amount for the swim instead of pledging by the mile. "I just sent out letters mostly to friends and family and asked for donations," she recalls. "I got donations anywhere between $5 and $500, and everything in between. I was pretty pleased with the amount of support I got." Many of her friends were particularly generous since they also have relatives who have suffered from the disease.

With the English Channel under her [swimsuit] belt, Miller's already training for her next long distance swim. "In mid-August, I'm swimming the Santa Barbara Channel in California," she says. "I will probably swim a 28 mile route from one of the islands back to Santa Barbara." Even though she'll be swimming without jetlag, frigid water, and European boats by her side, that's still a challenge that would make most people's head swim.