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Introduction: Evolutionary scientists estimate that the first fish developed about 500 million years ago, that reptiles that crawled on land evolved about 200 million years later. From them the first primates appeared about 40 million years ago, followed by monkeys and apes 15 million years later, then came homo sapiens (that’s us) 165,000 years ago. Sometimes I think it would take me 500 million years of de-evolution to reacquire the original fish-like affinity enjoyed by athletes like Michael Phelps, Wendy Ingraham and Craig Walton. Or maybe it was hard work. I know I fall eons behind triathletes I poke fun of for having “manatee slow” swims. But always there is someone slower. John Huckaby once suffered tremendous foot blisters when he walked the entire Ironman Hawaii swim when a storm forced John and Judy Collins to hold it in the shallow protected waters of Ala Moana Harbor. Recently, some pro swam the 2.4 miles of the Quelle Challenge Roth in 44 minutes, wearing a modern wetsuit design whose original principles were conceived by Slowtwitch’s own Dan Empfield. Swimmers come in all shapes, sizes and speeds. Smooth, tall Gary Hall Jr. could touch the wall in a 50 meter swim in just under 22 seconds, while mustachioed barrel-chested Matthew Webb made the first crossing of the 21-mile English Channel (using the breaststroke all the way) in 1875, taking 21 hours and 45 minutes for the task. In 2007, Petar Stoychev made the crossing in 6 hour 57 minutes. The romantic poet Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, while macho author Jack London made a suicide attempt at age 16 by swimming so far out to sea in San Francisco Bay he could not come back – but the will to live was too strong and he swam back. Lynn Cox became famous at age 14 as the youngest to set an English Channel record. Thirty years later, she achieved more notoriety as a swimmer-adventurer, becoming the first to swim across the Straits of Magellan in South America, go around the Cape of Good Hope and swim the Bering Strait. Wearing only a swimsuit, Cox also swam over a mile in 0ºC Antarctic waters in 2002. By contrast, U.S. triathlete Jennifer Gutierrez’s ability to adapt to 93-degree Fahrenheit waters in Lake Minneola in Clermont Florida played a key role in her 1998 U.S. elite triathlon championship.

Swimming is ultimately a humbling, quixotic enterprise, as the elusive arcane movements needed to master hydrodynamics in the pool only reward the best practitioners with a sustained speed of about 3 to 4 miles per hour. Dolphins, who can barrel along at nearly 30 knots and who can leap 15 feet in the air, simply laugh at and tolerate humans. Five-time World Champion Greg Welch, who seems to have inherited a dolphin sense of fun and humor, remains humble about his human swim skills. On his first try at the pool at age 19, Welchy barely made it to one 25 meter length gasping for breath before he touched the wall. Still, despite gripes from super swimmers that triathlon’s swim legs are so short because they are designed to prevent the feeblest of swimmers from leaving the sport -- or dying -- the first leg remains crucially important for Olympic style racing. For the rest of us, it’s a non impact sport that balances out the hard muscles of running and biking with smooth, long, aesthetically pleasing muscles that make the triathletes’ body one of today’s ideals of healthy beauty.