John “Batches” Batchelder’s Marathon Swim Story
Prior to the 4th of July weekend, I spent my Friday afternoon chatting with Marathon Swimmers Federation 2019 Barra Award nominee, John Batchelder. We relaxed into the interview just like John relaxes into his distance butterfly and touched on swimming for weight loss, how John became “butterfly man”, being motivated by others and finding ways to reciprocate that support.
In his own words: I am John “Batches” Batchelder, a 39 year old marathon swimmer born and raised in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. I am the fifth of six children, and swimming was a huge part of my early years, following in the footsteps of my oldest two siblings who were both very good swimmers. I learned to swim when I was 4 or 5, joined USA swimming soon after, and found some success at age 8. However when I aged up and no longer could swim the 25s, I found myself to be at best an average swimmer, and I quickly became discouraged and started to swim less and less. After 3 years of high school swimming near the back of the pack, I had completely given up on swimming.
Fast forward about 15 years, at the age of 32 I had gotten so horribly out of shape and decided to get back into swimming, joining my local US Masters Swimming team. Through them I fell back in love with the water, and I particularly enjoyed my team’s distance focused workouts. Through them I was exposed to distance swimming, starting with the 1650 free at swim meets, then the USMS postal swims, and then the USMS open water nationals. I was more and more intrigued by the longer and longer distances, and somewhere along the way I was doing so many swims that started to do some of them butterfly because I needed a break from racing them freestyle and because somehow I could. This eventually brought me into MSF and other open water swimming communities, and I haven’t looked back since. Highlights include the Tampa Bay Marathon swim, ENDWET, 20 Bridges, In Search of Memphre, 3 Rivers Marathon Swim, the Catalina Channel, and the Capri-Napoli Marathon Swim.
Outside of swimming my hobbies are recreational mathematics (think math puzzles and riddles), playing bridge, and solving crossword puzzles. I love to travel, which these days goes hand in hand with open water swimming. Above all, even though I am very quiet and shy, I do love hanging out with my fellow open water swimmers and following what everyone else is swimming.