Mary Stella’s Marathon Swim Story

An endurance enthusiast, Mary Stella came to marathon swimming by way of endurance triathlon. No stranger to suffering for 14 or 16 hours at a stretch, Mary isn’t sure she’s proud of her swimming accomplishments… perhaps she just hasn’t swam long enough yet!

Coming to prefer the sensory deprivation of the water environment, it’s the suffering she’s really after. Truly… you’ve gotta check out this episode!

Enjoy!

In her own words:

I discovered and fell in love with open water swimming from my time in triathlon. As a lifelong runner, triathlon required me to learn how to swim as an adult. I am a crossfit and crossfit endurance certified coach who has completed 3 full distance ironmans, many half-ironmans, and competed at both the Olympic and sprint distance races in the USA Triathlon National Championships in both Burlington, Vermont and Omaha, Nebraska.

As a long time practitioner of yoga the meditative quality of marathon swimming combined with the suffering of going long offered me the perfect opportunity to go within and silence out the world.  I was fortunate enough to receive technique lessons from Total Immersion founder Terry Laughlin.  I’ve been honored to coach both triathletes and open water swimmers and consider it one of my most rewarding personal achievements. I believe an endurance practice allows us to find who we are capable of being. We train not only our bodies but our minds. We learn how to both listen and talk to ourselves.  The beauty of marathon swimming to me comes in that the nature of the sport is taking on swims that might not be completed. We find our greatest success in failure.

Having a multitude of injuries over my years as an endurance athlete including but not limited to two broken clavicles, a shoulder labral tear reconstruction, wrist avulsion fracture and a foot fascial release, allows me to demonstrate anyone can be an adult onset marathon swimmer.  I enjoy all aspects of marathon swimming from solo attempt long swims, winter/ice swimming, stage swimming events, and group races.