Jia Jung’s Marathon Swim Story
I can almost remember the first time that Jia joined us at Marathon Swim Stories way back in the early days of the pandemic – gosh, what was that, 3 months ago? She’s been a constant on our calls, and today I finally got to hear her story!
Jia is a an award winner and product of the New York City Parks and Recreation Adult Lap Swim Program and still feels hard pressed to call herself an athlete. Labels aside, I spot a fellow limit pusher, and I love how Jia talks about opening her mind to the possibilities as you hear her tales of swims in Boston, New York, New Jersey, Key West, Lido Key, Charleston, and Busting the Canadian Border in Vermont. A hard core marathon swimmer, among other things, she describes spontaneously adapting and out of body experiences.
I hope you enjoy this episode!
In her own words:
Jia H. Jung is still hard pressed to call herself an athlete since this all started as good fun. Apparently magnetized by water from birth, she participated in a mother-baby swim class before she can remember. As a result, the rest of her childhood ripples with magical memories of being first in and last out of the water off New England’s shores, lakes at summer camp, the Y, and other people’s pools. In college at the University of California, Berkeley, her NCAA rower roommate dragged her to the gym to acquaint her with the concept of voluntary exercise. In retaliation, Jia dragged her pal to the Hearst rooftop pool to suntan at the bleachers beside the 33 1/3-yard pure marble tank. She jumped in to cool down by drifting to the other side and back, only she didn’t stop until some 25 laps later, by which time the notion of swimming continuously and at length had firmly taken root.
Her first open water swim was the highly experimental, inaugural 1-mile Charles River swim in 2007 in her home city of Boston. Her longest swim in distance since then has been the 15-mile Stage 4 of the 8 Bridges Hudson River Swim in 2014, which she chose in blissful ignorance at the time solely for its scenery. Her longest swim so far in terms of time was the 10.5 hours before a DNF in Lake Memphremagog in 2019, after busting the US-Canada border. And there have been plenty of other swims in between these, each with a tale of its own. Having “done time” in New York City for the past decade, she gives special thanks to the Adult Lap Swim program of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation for providing her with an outlet to train and stay sane before and after work every summer (except this summer) in the behemoth, historically significant pools around the city. She has swum hundreds of miles in those pools, and won a trophy, or even two, for most years of her participation in the program.
When not swimming, Jia performs Polynesian dance with Lei Pasifika, podcasts sporadically, and organizes a charity Jeff Buckley tribute concert every November. She is working on her late father’s biography, among a bunch of other writing projects, and looks forward to embarking on a part-time Master of Science program at Columbia Journalism School this fall while holding down the full-time job she is extremely grateful to have as a regulator of surgical trials supporting the heroic Department of Surgery at the Columbia University Medical Center.