National Affairs Writer, Toronto Star
Annaleise Carr loves peanut butter, Nutella, honey and coconut oil sandwiches.
That’s a good thing because when the 14-year-old attempts to be the youngest person to swim across Lake Ontario next month she’ll need all the calories she can get.
“It is good and it is healthy for you, too,” Carr said Monday, noting she will be eating high calorie foods every 20 to 30 minutes.
On Aug. 17 Carr will slip into the lake at Niagara-on-the-Lake and begin her 52.5-kilometre swim to Toronto’s Marilyn Bell Park, named after the legendary long-distance swimmer who conquered Lake Ontario on Sept. 8 and 9, 1954 at the age of 16.
“Yeah, I am confident I can do it . . . I’m not nervous, I’m excited,” said Carr, who lives near Walsh in southwestern Ontario, a short drive from Lake Erie, where she has been training for her historic swim.
Besides the obvious bragging rights, Carr, who starts Grade 9 in September, hopes to raise at least $30,000 for Camp Trillium, which offers recreational experiences for children with cancer and their families.
“She will be the youngest by over a year and a half,” said Carr’s father, Jeff, adding the youngest to date is Jade Scognamillo, of Caledon, who was 15 years, at 237 days old when she did it Aug. 1, 2009.
At the other end of the age spectrum, 60-year-old Colleen Shields hopes to make her third successful crossing beginning Aug. 10, which would make her the oldest person to make it across Lake Ontario.
“But that’s not why I am doing it,” Shields said, adding it has more to do with the fact she failed four times to make it since his last successful crossing in 2006, “all within five kilometres of Toronto.”
“All I want to do is touch Toronto. I just want to finish it,” said Shields, who has also been offering Carr support as well.
There will be seven swimmers this summer vying to add their names to the 56 who have successfully made the swim since Bell made front-page news.
Jeff Carr said when Annaleise mentioned last December that she wanted to make the marathon swim both he and his wife Debbie said, “absolutely not, not a chance, no way.”
As teens are wont to do, she chipped away at them over the next weeks and months until she was turned 14 in March, the youngest a swimmer can be to officially attempt the crossing.
Anyone who has met Carr, agrees that she is a tiny — just 4 feet 10 — determined young woman, who they have no doubt can do it if the conditions are good. That means relatively warm water, very little wind and, of course a good crew watching over her. Then there are obstacles like floating picnic tables and other debris not to mention pools of oil and gasoline.
It’s the cold water of Lake Ontario that has been known to drain the starch out of many a swimmer. Just prior to starting her swim, Carr will swallow a core temperature pill that will allow her coach, Lisa Anderson of Brantford, and her support crew to easily monitor her body temperatures.
“Annaleise looks like somebody who is really determined who has made a lot of the necessary preparations that is required to be successful,” said Greg Taylor, president of Solo Swims of Ontario Inc., who met her last month.
The rules for swimming across Lake Ontario, as dictated by Solo Swims, call for two 30-foot boats, two smaller 14-foot Zodiacs, and a kayak if need be.
Carr, who is a member of the Norfolk Hammerheads Aquatic Club in Simcoe and the North Shore Runners/Swimmers Group in nearby Port Dover, did her 18-kilometre trial solo swim in Lake Ontario at Grimsby on Sunday to prove that she’s up to the task. Her dad said she “felt fine.”
Her gruelling workout schedule consists of running every Tuesday and Thursday and then distance swimming Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The question is, will it be enough?
“I think the toughest obstacle for swimming Lake Ontario is mental. You just can’t imagine what it is like to swim 52 kilometres one arm stroke at a time, there’s roughly 200,000 arm stroke,” Taylor said.