By Peter Burke
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Normally, when a stone hits the water, it skips a few times and then sinks to the bottom.
Sinking is not an option for this Stone.
Santa Cruz County Supervisor and Scotts Valley resident Mark Stone is preparing to make the 21-mile swim across the English Channel next month. The swim will take between 12 and 14 hours to complete in water that will hover around 60 degrees.
“It’s been my focus for two years,” Stone said. “A couple of more weeks of intensive training, and then I’ll start to taper.”
Stone, 52, looks to conquer what is sometimes referred to as the “Mt. Everest” of swims during the week of July 13. He has a one-week window of opportunity when the pilot of his accompanying vessel is on-call to start the journey through the busy shipping channel.
“It’s something I never would have thought possible, but is in the realm of possibility” Stone said. “It’s something I don’t want to do, but something I can do. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t make it.”
Stone, who never swam competitively in high school or college, began training in 2007 after his friend and coach Joel Wilson, the Masters swim instructor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, saw him win the pier-to-pier swim in Santa Cruz for his age group.
Wilson had coached Hendrik Meerman, Stone’s friend, across the channel in 2006 and thought Stone could also accomplish the feat.
“He’s not one of the faster swimmers, but he’s fast enough, and he can handle the cold water,” Wilson said.
Stone’s training regimen includes swimming at Simpkins Swim Center at 6 a.m. six days a week. He swims with the South End Rowing Club in San Francisco, and last fall he was logging 20,000 yards each week. He bumped up to 30,000 yards in the past few months.
Stone must be prepared to swim close to 30 miles because the ebb and flow of the tide in the English Channel causes the pilot of the accompanying boat to take the swimmer on an S-shaped path to make sure he completes the swim at the correct point, Wilson said.
Stone said he rarely gets cold in the water — he’s swam in water that’s been recorded in the low 50s in San Francisco Bay — but has to deal with being alone for long stretches of time.
“Once you’ve got the physical part down, probably 70 percent of this is mental,” Stone said.
A Speedo and goggles is all that Stone will wear, and he will never touch the boat that trolls along beside him. Every half-hour he will tread water for a minute break to rehydrate.
Stone’s wife, Kathy, and their two children will accompany him, and after the swim the family will travel the United Kingdom as a vacation.
“Mark’s done the work — everything you could possibly do to get ready,” Wilson said. “He’s certainly right there. It’s kind of like all the hard work is done. Now you just have to do the swim.”
