Sam Whelpton’s Marathon Swim Story

Today I spoke with Captonian ironman, marathon and ice swimmer, Sam Whlepton.

Sam’s self proclaimed stubbornness and sense of adventure, has taken her on a wild ride from triathlon to the English Channel, and despite an aversion to cold, Sam has completed several ice kilometers!

At the end of the day, Sam reminds us how great it feels to swim for a cause. I hope you enjoy this episode!

In her own words:

I’m a 35-year-old Capetonian Open Water Swimmer, Marathon Swimmer, Ice Swimmer, Triathlete and Adventure swimmer.

I was born in Cape town, South Africa. Growing up my family lived in various places in South Africa and Zambia as my late Dad was a Diplomat in the South African Defence force, because of this I learnt to love traveling and exploring at a very young age.

Both My parents loved the ocean and being in and around water. I learnt to swim very early in life but only started competitive swimming in high school. 

I am a highly motivated, passionate, and competitive individual with a great sense of adventure and love for outdoors. I adore animals and love working with people, especially children.

I worked as a “learn to swim” coach for 8 years before completing my BA Honours degree in Kinderkinetics at the University of the North West in 2013. I worked for 5 years at SNAP (Special needs adapted program) in Cape Town, tutoring children with Special Needs and Autism spectrum disorder.

I have been involved in swimming events locally and internationally. I was part of a swimming expedition team to Antarctica in November 2018, and I am a board member of the newly formed International Ice Swimming Association (“IISA”) South Africa. I am also a co-founder of The False Bay Swimming Association (“FBSA”) and a member of the board. We hope to put the False bay crossing on the bucket list of Marathon Swimmers around the World.

Marathon Swims I have done include the English Channel, 25km across Lake Malawi, 32km from Zanzibar to Tanzania, The length of the Bazaruto Island-Mozambique 30km, The Great Shark swim off the coast of Port Shepstone- 30km, WOWSA Ocean Fest Redondo beach California- 10km, Preekstoel to Mykonos -10km, Simonstown to Muizenberg- 10km, Milnerton Lighthouse to bigbay-10km.

Other open water swims include 9 Robben Island swims, 2 Cape point swims, Alcatraz, Carlingford lough and the 16 Mile at Midmar.

I have competed and completed 1km Ice Swim in Antarctica, Murmansk, China, Lesotho, Germany, Amsterdam and the UK.

I have done 5 Ironman 70.3 events and a Full ironman, I have run 2 marathons and completed 7 cape town cycle tours.

I hope to do few more open water marathon swims around the world and promote my love for our oceans, its habitat and swimming.