© Suzanne Hiyana Ross

Swim for a Cure

Crossing the Channel for ALS

by Kelsey Hargesheimer

posted 2/7/2012

Six local women plan to swim the Channel this summer.

The "A2A3 Relay Team" is the brainchild of local attorney Amanda Mercer, a board member of Ann Arbor Active Against ALS. Local residents Kristin McGuire and Dave Lowenschuss founded the charity after their friend Bob Schoeni, a U-M economics and public policy prof, was diagnosed in 2008 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease). The relay team aims to raise $120,000 to support research on the disease, for which there is currently no cure.

Mercer's energy and ideas have been driving the team's rigorous training schedule for more than a year. "The goal is four days a week in the water, three weight workouts a week, and one additional cardio--usually the elliptical at the Y," she explains. The women have been training at various Ann Arbor swimming holes, including the U-M's Canham Natatorium, the city's Mack Pool, the Y, and, last summer, the Huron Valley Swim Club and the Fuller Pool.

These are serious swimmers. Three team members--Mercer, Bethany Williston, and Jenny Sutton Jalet--are full-time moms. All three also were varsity swimmers in college (at MSU, Yale, and the U-M, respectively). So were athletic trainer Susan Butcher (EMU) and resident surgeon Emily Kreger (also Yale). Teacher-in-training Melissa Karjala competed for the U-M in water polo before getting her master's from EMU.

Not only do they plan to swim the Channel from England to France--and back--during the Olympics this July, they want to beat the previous relay record of eighteen hours and fifty-nine minutes. In addition to seeking pledges in support of their own swims, they're recruiting local high school teams to take part in joint fund-raisers--last fall, four teams raised almost $4,900 for the cause--and inviting non-swimmers to make a "virtual" Channel crossing to benefit A2A3.

"I essentially stole [the idea] from an Australian who was swimming the Channel for charity," Mercer admits. "Supporters can swim, run, or walk the channel 'virtually' on their own schedule. For a $20 donation, people can track their progress online, on our website, and then will receive a commemorative 'Channel for ALS' pin for their effort.

"We actually have a woman from Boston, named Susan Rice, who stumbled upon our website and decided to do the virtual crossing," Mercer adds. "She, however, took it a step further and asked for her own fund-raising page. We gave her one, and she has now raised over $1,000. And the best part is that she hates swimming!"   

[Originally published in February, 2012.]

 

Way to go, Kelsey!!!! Beautifully done. They are sure to surpass their goal. Congrats.