Podcast Ep195 Sarah Thomas
Didrik Johnck: Don't make decisions in the dark, swim until the sun comes up. That's advice our guest Sarah Thomas lives by. And she'll unpack that today with host Erik Weihenmayer on the No Barriers podcast. Welcome, welcome listeners. Now Erik's goal with these interviews is to shine light into that obscure terrain between the struggle and the success.
It's dark there, with plenty of barriers. Metaphorically speaking, certainly, but also many times literally. As is the case with Sarah, she stared into the darkness of the English Channel waters, crossing it back and forth twice. Oh yeah, she was swimming. And, she was battling breast cancer too. Sarah's journey is both surreal and inspiring.
Her feats of sheer endurance go beyond the English Channel, across the world, 104 miles across Lake Champlain, 80 miles across Lake Powell, a short 22 miles across the Loch Ness, no monster sightings, and many, many more. She's on a mission to complete the Ocean 7 marathon swims. Erik digs into it all, from her motivations, breathtaking encounters with marine life, and how she's thriving post breast cancer.Alright, off we go then. I'm producer Didrik Johnck, and this is the No Barriers Podcast.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's easy to talk about the successes, but what doesn't get talked about enough is the struggle. My name is Erik Weihenmayer. I've gotten the chance to ascend Mount Everest, to climb the tallest mountain in every continent, to kayak the Grand Canyon, and I happen to be blind. It's been a struggle to live what I call a no barriers life, to define it, to push the parameters of what it means.
And part of the equation is diving into the learning process and trying to illuminate the universal elements that exist along the way. And that unexplored terrain between those dark places we find ourselves in and the summit exists a map, that map, that way forward is what we call No Barriers.
Hey everyone, this is Erik Weihenmayer, another No Barriers podcast, and man, we are, we're making a name for ourselves here at No Barriers with our, this guest today, Sarah Thomas. I'm so excited to talk to you. We met this last summer at the Outside Festival in Denver. It was like a bunch of films and activities and so forth down in downtown Denver and Diana Nyad came into town, who's an acquaintance of mine. And then, and then you were at our dinner and we got to know each other and, man, it's led to us talking right now. Welcome to the podcast.
Sarah Thomas: Thanks for having me. I'm pretty excited.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Cool. That was a really nice dinner, by the way, and I was so blown away, by your story. So let's just dive in, eh?
Sarah Thomas: Sure. let's get into it. Let's see how we go.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, let's do it, because we only have an hour, I know, but four times across the English channel swimming. for consecutive back, there and back, there and back.
can you just like, because I'm an idiot when it comes to geography, tell, where did you start and where did, where's the finish?
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, so most English Channel Swims start, really close to Dover in England,and so you start in Dover, yes, exactly right there. That's the shortest, most compressed point of the English channel.
So the goal is to swim as directly as you can across the English channel in land, um, near, Cape Grisney. which is a little bit of a peninsula that juts out. The currents are kind of crazy through the English Channel, so between currents and tides no one ever swims in a direct line, so everyone kind of swims this S curve, but the goal is to get directly to the cap, as best you can.
Some swimmers land a little bit above it or below it, just depending on your speed and your pilot and, conditions and all that, but basically, it did. I started in Dover, swam across to the Cap, landed on it for the first length, swam back across to, back to Dover.
Erik Weihenmayer: Is there like a place where you have to get to though? Like a specific, like you have to touch X?
No.
You just have to, and then what's the technicality, cause I'm getting through the technical questions first before we get to the deeper stuff. But so I asked you this at dinner, like you have to, stand up or you have to touch something? How do you know you're there?
and then what are you not allowed to do?
Sarah Thomas: Yes. So you know that you're there when you either can't swim any further, like there's a cliff or rocks, or if there's a beach, you do have to climb out of the water at the beach. you have to clear the water. Theoretically, yes, that's, I didn't get so lucky, when I was going across, we just found some rocks, so I had to touch the rocks that were too dangerous to climb, and just signal that I had reached the other side.
The rules are that you get 10 minutes in transition. So in that 10 minutes, you can tread water. If you do happen to land on a beach. You can sit there in the surf. You have to remain in the water, but you do get 10 minutes before you have to start swimming again. So I use those 10 minutes.
Erik Weihenmayer: Climb the cliff and stood on top, with your arms up and then dove off the giant cliff, probably was like a hundred feet tall.
Sarah Thomas: They're sharp rocks. Maybe, maybe it's something for you to do. not me as a swimmer.
Erik Weihenmayer: Another technical question is, you're doing freestyle and you're mostly looking down at the water, but I've heard a little bit of your story in terms of like, you know, you, you actually get to look up and so forth.
So how does that work? Like, do you, do you stop every now and then and look around?
Sarah Thomas: So the way it works is that you have an escort boat that goes along next to you. So when you're swimming freestyle, you are looking down, but when you breathe, you're looking over at the boat. So basically you just follow the boat the entire way.
They guide you, they have the GPS and the smart people on the boat to pilot it. But yeah, you just basically follow the boat across the water.
Erik Weihenmayer: So you have to look up at the boat, then?
Sarah Thomas: You're basically looking to the side, right? It's comfortably in your breathing pattern. Some people like to look ahead.
I try to avoid that because it's always deceptive if you're looking forward. it sure might look really close, but it's actually really far.and so I focus on the boat next to me one stroke at a time.
Erik Weihenmayer: I see. Is it pretty when you're looking down in the ocean? Or maybe when you're, it's nighttime and you're cold and miserable and then you look to the side and you see maybe like the sun rising?
Is there some really beautiful stuff that you remember, like that you can paint a picture?
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, there's definitely beautiful moments. I'll say the English channel is not known for its scenic values. It is fun to kind of look around the shipping containers that go through are impressive because they're so gigantic and you're so small. And so that's a fun thing to just observe. I will say in the English channel on my second lap we did, the sun went down and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets.
So you can just enjoy the sunrise, the sunset. The English Channel, there's not a whole lot to look at in the water. I've done swims in Hawaii and Catalina and New Zealand and, you I have swum with dolphins and all those fun critters, seen some really cool fish, but English Channel, there's not a much, not much to see other than, some jellyfish.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. We'll talk about that, I'm sure. So I have some experience with like big projects, not in swimming, but, and I know how the process begins for me, right? Like you get an idea in your head and you're like, is this freaking crazy? Is this a pipe dream? Do I have the time and the energy and the commitment to make this happen and execute it?
And then it gets stronger and stronger and then it freaking just can't be contained anymore. And then you maybe start to friends about it. Tell me about your process. Like how did the English channel specifically begin and how, and move us through that process to execution?
Sarah Thomas: Sure. so I, you know, lifelong swimmers, way in high school and college, didn't get into open water swimming until I was 25.
And then I, you know, started with a 10 K and then just gradually built up, some really long distances. So in, um, 2016, I had done a handful of longer open water swims. It was really starting to feel like I wanted to push some boundaries into what was possible. So in 2016, I was actually in the middle of training to swim across Lake Powell.
So the goal was to do an 80 mile swim. Which at the time was the longest swim that had ever been done without the aid of like currents and stuff like that. I was literally in the middle of training for that massive swim. And then I was. helping a friend swim the English Channel. So he was swimming and I was on his support boat.
And so I remember I was just sitting, on his boat and we're in the middle of the English Channel and I'm looking at England and then I'm like looking over to France and I'm thinking, gosh, it's really not that far across the Channel,and I still hadn't done anything super crazy long, I've done a couple of like 50 mile swims, was training for this 80 mile swim. A 4 way trip across English Channel is about 80 miles as the crow flies, and so I'm sitting on this boat watching my friend and thinking, you know what, if I can do this swim across Lake Powell, I think I want to come back and maybe swim the English Channel 4 times.
You know, people have done it 3 times, and if I can do 80 miles in a freshwater lake. Like I'm pretty sure I can come back and I can do something really special in the channel. And so I didn't tell anyone, Just my like secret, personal, private thought. Um,my friend had a great swim.
I went on a couple of months later and had a really good swim in Lake Powell. And really after that swim, like moments later, I was like, man, I could have kept going. Like that swim was, that was awesome. Like it was really hard. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, don't get me wrong. But There's more left in the tank.
And so almost simultaneously I started planning a hundred mile swim in a lake, in Lake Champlain and, Vermont and New York. And then also really trying to dig into what I might be able to do in the English channel. You might be familiar with waitlists, but you can't just decide you're going to swim the English Channel and show up the next day and swim it.
There's lots of other people who want to do it. So you have to kind of book and plan ahead. And so, you know, I did my Lake Powell swim in 2016 and then, in the spring of 2017, I was like, all right, we're going to figure out this plan for the English channel. obviously got to talk to my husband, make sure he's cool with this kind of crazy thing.
It's a big financial commitment, big time commitment, and then had to find a good slot with a pilot. So I reached out to the pilot who had taken me across in 2012 for my first English channel swim. And, and he was like, you know, I've got a slot in September of 2019, that's two and a half years down the road.
I'll take it. So that's how it came to be.
Erik Weihenmayer: Hey everyone. This is Erik. And I just want to remind you that No Barriers is not just a podcast. It's also a movement and an organization. Our mission is to empower people with challenges and to break through barriers, to discover purpose, and to find ways of elevating their lives and their communities.
If you want to support our work, go to NoBarriersUSA.org/donate.
Who was the first person you spoke the idea to? Do you remember?
Sarah Thomas: I don't even remember. It's been so long. I would, if I had to guess, I would say my husband. Usually you got to get the buy in from
Erik Weihenmayer: the
Sarah Thomas: partner.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, and that's courageous when you start talking about it.
Yeah. Yeah. it was something that Oh my God, it's become real.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. Like, you know, it's never been done. It's really far. just to swim the English Channel one time is a huge accomplishment. And so just start thinking about doing it, not twice, not three times, but like four consecutive times, like that's a pretty bold idea to have.
Erik Weihenmayer: But you said Okay. There's more in the tank, but maybe then some people might be like, I'll do it twice, but you said four times. So you're ambitious.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, that's what I will say. Some people, straight up told me when in the lead up to the swim, they're like, man, you've never even done a double English channel.
What makes you think you can do a four way? And it's you know what? I've swum 80 miles in Lake Powell. I've swum a hundred miles in Lake Champlain. Like I have done the distance. And, I feel pretty confident. I've done the training. I have the experience. I can handle a four way English channel.
You know, it's, the medium was different, but the process is the same.
Erik Weihenmayer: But in a lake, it's what you call current neutral, right? And so in, in an ocean, it's, there's a lot of current, a lot of other variables, right? It's a lot. Is it harder? I think you float easier in saltwater than freshwater, right?
But so what's the differences?
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, and so some people like to debate what's easier or harder, freshwater or salt water, and I think they both have their pros and cons. I live in Colorado, so freshwater lakes are my jam. It's where I grew up, so I do feel sometimes more comfortable in a lake.
There's less chafing. You don't have to worry about, salt mouth and things like that salt water causes, but then there's also
Erik Weihenmayer: Less jellyfish and sharks. Yeah.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, there's no jellyfish to contend with, before Lake Powell, someone tried to terrify me about some type of giant fish that lives in the depths of Lake Powell.
And I'm like, come on, it's just a fish. but yeah, when you're in saltwater, you definitely float better. So you can move quite a bit faster, takes a lot less strain on your shoulders. So there's a lot of advantages to saltwater, like you chafe like crazy in saltwater. It's just so much more like corrosive and it can get a little nasty.
It's a little sticky.
Erik Weihenmayer: Oh my gosh. Just recently you did a two way crossing of the North sea, right? And that was to Ireland?
Sarah Thomas: Yes. I swam. Yeah, I swam from Scotland to Northern Ireland and then back to Scotland.
Erik Weihenmayer: Alright, another technical question though. How do you stay warm? I went up to this mountain lake just three weeks or four weeks ago, and I swam for like 30 minutes.
I was hypothermic. I was literally shivering for two hours, or an hour and a half at least. I had to eat some, drink some coffee and some hot soup and I finally recovered. But man, how do you prepare for that?
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, I always tell people that
Erik Weihenmayer: Or you're just a natural.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, I'm not a natural. Some people are.
Some people just love cold water and they're like, the colder the better. That is not me. I always tell people it's you have to train for the cold just like you would train for a marathon or any other athletic event, right? You have to start small and just gradually work your way down to colder and colder temperatures, gradually increase your time in the water.
So it's just kind of a matter of, just acclimating your body, to handle it. My, my very first open water swim I did here in Colorado was in Horsetooth Reservoir. The water was like 72 degrees and I was freezing. Now if you pop me into 72 degree water, I'm hot. So just over, Yeah, just over the years, you've just,you push it, you go colder, you go longer, you train in it, you train when it's miserable, you train when it's 40 degrees, you train when it's snowing, and eventually your body can adapt.
I just, your, the human body is incredible and the things that it can do if you really decide you want to make it do it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, a lot of people recover in an ice bath these days. You don't have to do that. You can just train and recover at the same time. Yeah. I think you said earlier that you got into open water swimming, ultramarathon swimming at 25, was that right?
But you were a swimmer before that, right? yeah. How'd you make that transition? what was the appeal to open water swimming?
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, you know, I, you know, I grew up in Texas and, lakes are not necessarily something that you're like, ooh, I want to swim in that lake when you're in Texas.
Erik Weihenmayer: Wow. That is unlikely growing up in Texas.
Sarah Thomas: Yes.but then, I, swam competitively in high school and college, and then I moved to Denver for grad school. decided I was retired from the sport of swimming after I finished college,just a little bit burned out.so I tried all the other things, all the land things, and I'm really terrible at things that involve gravity.
And so it didn't take a whole long time for me to get back into the water, just casually.I missed swimming, that's basically what it came down to. And so I joined a master's swim team, which is just basically a swim team for grownups. And some of my new teammates were like, Sarah, you got to do open water.
And I was like, that's weird. who, who does that? And it is, it's a hard transition for pool swimmers to go from, the safety of the swimming pool, the lane lines, the line on the bottom of the pool that guides you, you can stop, you can stand up, you can do all those things in the pool.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
Sarah Thomas: And then when you take all that away, and it's gosh, sure, I've swum a 10K in the pool before, but now, like, how do I pee, you know, how do I, what if I get tired, what if I need to take it? How are you going to get me something to drink?
Erik Weihenmayer: You just pee. You're in an ocean.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, you are. It's a skill to learn. Um.
Erik Weihenmayer: I think we learned that when we're like two years old, how to pee in the pool.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. Um, you know, as a competitive swimmer, I never really peed that much, in the pool growing up. It was just like. Huh. We didn't do it. And but now
Erik Weihenmayer: because it turns purple, the dye,
Sarah Thomas: right.
It's so true. but yeah, so my teammates basically talked me into doing a 10 K open water swim. it took a year and a half for me to be like, okay, yeah, I'll give it a try and I just loved it. It was like this instantaneous, fell in love. this is the most incredible thing I've ever done.
Why have I not been doing this my whole life? I have been missing out. This is where I belong. it was just one of those
Erik Weihenmayer: Cause it's an adventure, right? Like swimming in a pool is a competition, of course, and athletic and hard, but swimming out in an ocean or a lake is that's just full on adventure. I mean, that's the only way I can describe it the way I understand it.
Sarah Thomas: Yes, for sure. Cause it does. It's just, I always tell people, it's like the difference between running on a treadmill and going for a trail run, right? You just, it's just so much more freeing. There's sky above you and wind and waves and fish, and you just never quite know what's going to come at you. And it is, it's just, I don't know. It's just, it's so incredible.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. And you get to puke too. I've heard. We'll talk about that.
Sarah Thomas: So much puking.
Erik Weihenmayer: So you branch into this open water swimming career and you're doing amazing stuff. And then of course, life punches you in the face, right? Like you get diagnosed with breast cancer.
Yeah, no, I've been there. And,and so tell us about that. obviously it's an understatement to say that it affected your mindset, your preparation, your training, like all those things, right? Your life. Forget all the rest of the stuff, right?
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. I had, so I got my cancer diagnosis in November of 2017.
And I was, like, three months past, I had just swum Lake Champlain. So I had just swum 104 miles in Lake Champlain, right? 67 hours of, non stop swimming. 35 years old, and I was, like, I am at the top of my game, I can do anything I ever want in the whole world. I had the English Channel dates already planned,
I was just rocking and rolling, ready to, like, take on some like big swims to get ready for the four way. Like I was
Erik Weihenmayer: Isn't it funny too, sorry to interrupt, but just like that, it's all, it seems to happen then, like you're on the top of the world. You're like, wow, I have plans and I'm as fit as I've ever been.
Sarah Thomas: Yes. Yes.
Erik Weihenmayer: And then this thing happens.
Sarah Thomas: Yes. And then you just get punched in the face is basically what it was. I've got no family history of breast cancer. We did genetic testing, so there's no, there's nothing genetic, none of that. So it just really completely came out of the blue.
And it's a devastating moment because you don't know when you get that diagnosis, like what comes next. I think, we, as a society and I, I was guilty of this before you think about breast cancer as well, it's an easy cancer to get,it's really curable, but it's the treatments for breast cancer are not great.
I had.
Erik Weihenmayer: You had an aggressive form too.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah, I had, I had, I was triple negative breast cancer, which has one of the more high occurrence rates, reoccurrence rates. it affects younger people. It affects, black people more. And so it's just one of these, Subtypes of breast cancer. That is really lame to get.
I got to go through chemo. I had a mastectomy. It's really terrifying to start operating on a part of your body that you use for your sport. remember having lots of discussions with my surgeons, like, you know, you want to do a breast implant. What is that going to do to my ability to swim?
Erik Weihenmayer: would it make you float better?
Sarah Thomas: I had that, we had that thought, I actually talked to some people who had implants done to be like, what does this do? just like logistically, once you're in the water, So fun to dig into, They put your implant under your pec muscle. And so it makes everything tighter and shortens and all of that.
And then you put radiation on top of it. And that really just impacts a whole lot of things, in your shoulders and your pecs. And as a swimmer, like that's the most important part of my body. And so, you know, really terrifying to think that I might have to have a treatment that could take away my ability to swim.
And that's hard. that's really hard to say, this is my favorite thing to do in the whole world. it's the one thing that I feel like I'm really great at and now cancer could possibly take that away from me.
Erik Weihenmayer: Did you have to stop swimming for a while you were just focused on recovery?
Sarah Thomas: There were periods where, they wouldn't let me swim. It was an ongoing battle. So my oncologist was super cool.
Erik Weihenmayer: I'm assuming you weren't the most compliant patient that they've ever had.
Sarah Thomas: I did my best.they were nice. It was, not a problem to swim during chemo. Luckily for, I think everyone, I did chemo in the winter time.
And so it wasn't until the tail end of chemo that I was like, Hey, the lakes are not frozen anymore. Can I get in the lake? So there was some big discussions about whether or not the lake water would cause an infection in my port, or just cause me to get sick in some way. But, my oncologist was super cool.
She let me swim.
Erik Weihenmayer: Chance of infection or something I would imagine.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. But, we didn't have any trouble. So I did, I swam most of the way through chemo. Wasn't like anything impressive, butmentally, I think you have to have something to take your mind off of it. And I really, it was a nice.
It was a nice thing to have because, you know, I could put my swim cap on and jump in the water, and if you didn't know me, you wouldn't know that I was a cancer patient. And I think I liked that just, an hour, a few times a week where I could just be myself.
Erik Weihenmayer: Did you feel like crap when you were swimming though, for a while?
Sarah Thomas: Oh yeah, I felt like total garbage. I really had to watch my heart rate, chemo treatments, especially the kind that I got can really impact your heart. So I was really conscious of just not pushing it too hard, paying attention, was definitely not out to set any records, butyou got to keep moving.
And I think There's a lot of studies that actually show the more active you can be during chemo, the better that you handle it. More they used to tell you just, lay in bed and rest. But I think the new studies are showing that if you can be at least a little bit active, sometimes you have better outcomes and you don't struggle with some of the terrible side effects quite as much.
Erik Weihenmayer: I don't want to put words in your mouth, Sarah, but it feels like maybe swimming could be a form of therapy.
Sarah Thomas: Oh yeah, definitely. I think it's always been a form of therapy in a way. It's oh, I could either go insane or I could go swim a hundred miles. I'm like, which one do you want to pick?
I'll pick the swimming. I will say the biggest struggle I had, was after my mastectomy because I did, I had to be out of the water for about eight weeks and that was a tough eight weeks. And it was every time I checked in with my surgeon, it was a battle as to like, when can I be in the water? Arguing, you know, he, I think he was pretty sick of me by the end of it.
And I think he gave in earlier.
I will say, I climbed a 14 er with my drains in because I was going a little stir crazy. My mom was here to take care of me and we were, just walking to stay active after my surgery. And she was like, you know what, let's go climb something. So we went up Mount Sherman about two weeks after my mastectomy.
I was like, I need to get out of here.
Erik Weihenmayer: Nice. Beyond cancer, of course, just, I know these sports, these things that we do, at least for me, are like a love hate relationship. it's, of course you love it, but there are moments where you hate it. At least I'm speaking personally, I'm up on a cold mountain and I'm trying to go to the bathroom and I can't feel my hands and I'm just like frozen and the wind's hammering down the face and you're like, what am I doing here?
Sarah Thomas: It's really stupid
Erik Weihenmayer: I know this is stupid, Yeah, so yeah, so tell me about your love hate relationship. I mean have there been moments where you've fallen out of love? Momentarily maybe
Sarah Thomas: Sure, I will say the first two hours of any swim I've ever done feels like the stupidest thing I've ever tried to achieve, you're just, you're looking, at your support boat, you've got hours or days ahead of you. You're like, why am I doing this? This is so dumb.
I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm going to get stung. And I don't know, you always just always tell people you just gotta gut out two hours, and you're gonna come back around. I've been, I did a swim across Monterey Bay. I don't remember what year it was anymore, 21, 22 maybe. Like just 20 miles, Monterey Bay, big waves.
It was freezing. I was, I puked the entire way. I think I puked for like 15 hours straight. And I'm like, this is the most awful thing I've ever done in my entire life. Like, why am I still in this water in the middle of the night? My boat crew, they were also seasick. They were all like just puking, collective puking in like the most miserable, 15 hours.
And I don't know why you just, one foot in front of the other, because you got to get to the other side. there's no prize at the other end, right? But you still just want to, you want to get there. I don't know why I feel like I enjoy suffering so much, but yeah, there it is.
Erik Weihenmayer: Okay. So fact check me here because the way I understand it is literally a year after diagnosis, you swam the English channel. what? Is that true? And a year?
Sarah Thomas: That is true. All
Erik Weihenmayer: That part doesn't seem real. Like, how do you go from chemo, to swimming the English channel in one year. that's crazy.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. it is crazy. And, you know, I truly, I think at the time I didn't think about it a whole lot.
I finished radiation at the, end of August of 2018. And then my deposit for the English channel was due like two weeks later. And the boat captain emailed me, And he was like, I know what you've been going through, but like, Do you think you're going to come next year?
And so I literally had two weeks to decide, am I going to do this? Or am I going to try and put it off? And it didn't take me very long to be like, you know what? I'm going to do it. And so I think almost like immediately after all of the treatment was over, I was like, all right, this is next.
Like cancer's not going to beat me. Like I'm fine. I made it through and we're gonna, we're going to figure this out. It was really hard. I'm not going to lie. It was a lot of rebuilding, I was starting almost, not completely from scratch, but in some ways I did after my surgery, I had to learn how to swim again.
Treatments were not good for my body, right? I was all like puffy from all the steroids and it was gross, and just having to say, all right, like that's what I did last year. And then this is what we're going to do this year. And did, I had to put my head down, I had to start really small and just really completely rebuild back everything.
And it was really hard. I guess that's the easiest way to summarize. It's really hard.
Erik Weihenmayer: When I sit and listen to these, No Barriers pioneers like yourself that I interview in the podcast, there seems to be a lot of counterintuitive thinking going on. And this is, seems like one of them, like maybe in a counterintuitive way, having this external thing to train for and dream about was great for your recovery.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. Um,I do think in some ways, Maybe I didn't like emotionally deal with the trauma of cancer until a little bit later down the road. But I do think having this big dream, this big goal, that was already planned on the horizon. it helped me through treatments for sure. Hey, doctors, I've got an 80 mile swim in a year and a half.
Am I going to be able to do that? and we really did take a lot of that into consideration during my treatments.
Erik Weihenmayer: And then I would have loved to have heard that conversation with you.
Sarah Thomas: They just look at you. They're like,especially with my surgeon, like he had nothing to compare, nothing, he had literally nothing to compare me to.
And so we were taking a stab in the dark about how long recovery was going to take. I did delay. So I, trained for and swam the English Channel with a tissue expander in, which is just like a temporary breast implant. And for women who have had that done, like a tissue expander is hard.
It's, I always tell people, it's like having a softball sewn under your pec muscle. So uncomfortable. Some women can for, a couple of months that they have to have it in, but I didn't have time in the schedule to replace it with an actual implant because it meant more time out of the water and I couldn't afford, another eight weeks out of the water following a second surgery.
So we delayed my second surgery until after the English channel. And I had, A lot of roadblocks in place that said like, sorry, like the, the doctors were literally like, you're not going to be able to swim with your tissue expander in. and I was like, try me, like I'm gonna figure it out.
And I did. And it was definitely painful. Definitely not the best idea I've ever had, but this dream was bigger than all of that. You know, and I'm honestly like, I'm super glad I didn't put it off because the next year was COVID. So had I said let's wait another 12 months and try it again in 2020, I wouldn't have had an opportunity.
Like I might not have ever been able to find the timing to do it. So it definitely is one of those things. I'm like, you know what, I'm glad I went for it because who knows? Like it could still be an unswum achievement for anybody.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, I love hearing these stories of the process, because like, tissue expander, who would have thought that would have been?
But, you know, life is it's so specific, It's wild. That's such a wild story. Talk about mental toughness. so I've, I interviewed Erik Larson, who's a polar explorer, and he says, as you're skiing across Antarctica, each time you slide your ski isn't that bad, but it's death by a thousand cuts.
And I imagine long distance swimming is like that. Diana Nyad said she'd put her earphones on and listen to her favorite playlist. But 67 hours across Lake Champlain.what are the tricks, like what's happening in your mind? How do you stay in the present?
Sarah Thomas: I always tell people that, that's the number one trick is you have to stay present.
You can't think about all of the miles you've already swum. You can't think about all of the miles that are ahead of you. You can't think about the cumulative hours. You have to just stay right in the exact moment that you're in. or else the enormity of what you're trying to achieve will just overwhelm you.
And so it is just, one stroke at a time, one, one piece of the puzzle at a time. And I think for me, it, the more I can just go into a zen space, just find like quiet and peace and, find comfort in one stroke, the splashing of the water, the rhythm of my breathing.
That is what gets you through, right? Like I just like to zone out, right? Like I go to a completely other place as long as possible. Some swims, I feel like you can do that really easily. And Lake Champlain, I think I spent most of the time just in my zen, head is empty. We're just swimming and that's ideal.
When I was in the English channel, I think I felt every single stroke, every single moment, and that makes it so much harder. But you do, you just have to think about your reasons why. Think about all the sacrifices that you've made. Swimming the English channel. They charge, this is funny, they charge me, 2, 500 pounds per length, right?
I'm looking at a, 10, 000 pound,swim here, and that's not chump change, you know? And so that's crazy to be like, yeah, I'm thinking about the money piece of it, but like, you can't quit. So you just, you do, you plug along one.
Erik Weihenmayer: And the anxiety of that probably creates; I mean, it probably wastes energy, right? You know what I mean? And you need to hang on to every bit of energy. So like when you're, when you got anxiety about the deposit and the currents and the cold and the jellyfish and everything else, it can probably kill your effort, right?
Sarah Thomas: That's what I always kind of think about it this way.
It's my job is to swim and it's my crew's job to think about everything else. The more you can just let go of any of the external factors, the better off you're going to be in the long run. You just gotta, sometimes you just have to give what you can to other people and do what you can on your end.
Erik Weihenmayer: Sarah, we place a lot of value on thinking in the Western world, right? But not thinking is sometimes a lot harder, right? Just being totally, fully present and being one with the water, although I know that sounds like a little bit like Yoda's cheesy, but it's true though, isn't it?
Sarah Thomas: It kind of is. Um, and I do, I think people who have a strong yoga practice probably relate to that. Maybe I don't do a lot of that. And so I think I need that in the water, right? that's my place, just even in training to just go and turn it all off. Like no one can email me, no one can text me, no one can call me when I'm in the water. And so doing a long swim, a long adventure, right? Like no one can talk to me for three days and maybe I'm okay with that.
Erik Weihenmayer: One of the things I thought was pretty wild. And when I was listening to one of your podcasts was, the fact that when you swam the first length across the English channel, like you're in the middle of the swim and you're still not fully committed to doing it four times.
You're like, huh, I wonder if, how long can I go? So it's not like you're still questioning, even though you're trying to stay in the present. Right. But your mind is still reeling a little bit.
Sarah Thomas: Sure. that's, I hit the halfway mark, right? So I did a double and that's a long way.
And most people are really thrilled if they get a double, right? Like that's a huge achievement to swim the English Channel two times without stopping. And so you're like, and I got, I was super sick after that moment, right? I'd been in the water for 24 hours. I'd swum from England to France and back to England.
And now I'm like barfing my brains out and it's like, why am I doing this? Like I'm really sick right now. I've been swimming for 24 hours. Like I have had breast cancer, right? There's all these good reasons to quit and I think it's really easy. No one would blame you, right? yeah, Sarah, you swam an English Channel double after a year after breast cancer.
Yeah, like that's pretty incredible. And you do, you think about quitting a lot. And then.I had a friend who was on the boat and she did, she yelled down at me and she's Like, Sarah, don't make decisions in the dark. Just swim until the sun comes up. And I'm like, okay, you know what? You're right.
I need to get back into the present, right? Like I'm puking right now. I'm probably gonna stop puking when the sun comes up. And it'll be okay. And so you do, you have to just, sometimes you find that inner strength and sometimes you have to rely on your team to help you find that inner strength.
But yeah, don't make decisions in the dark. you might change your mind a few hours down the road. sucks right now, but you know what, things can always change.
Erik Weihenmayer: All right. here comes the ultimate cheese ball question, but it's a really important question. Tell us about, when you finished the fourth lap and you crawled up on shore, what was that like?
Sarah Thomas: I crawled. Um,so laps number one, two, and three were really consistent, right? They took me just, all it just averaged about 12 hours each. and so when we made the turn to start lap number four, I was feeling great at that point and I was like, oh man, we're going to finish in another 12 hours.
This is going to be incredible. lap number four took me 17 hours. The currents went a little wonky. Like we got pushed so far off course in the kind of out in the middle of the channel. My friend Craig jumped into Pace Swim with me, at about the 48 hour mark. And he was like, Sarah, we are stuck in a current.
I hate to tell you this, but like, you got to sprint right now. we need we call it an hour of power. So like we need an hour of power right now. And hopefully you can break through this current and get into British in shore waters. And it's like, I am 48 hours into the swim and you want me to sprint right now?
but that's all, you put your head down and you go for it, right? Like you, if you don't, then you're out of the water. And what was it all for? And I, I sprinted that hour. I remember asking at the end of that hour, like, did I do enough? And they're like, yeah, we think so.
And so then, but that was my first. instinct that something was not going quite right. And so like, I had thought we were going to finish about two in the morning, right? The sun starts to come up and I'm asking my crew, like how much further, how much longer? And they're like, we don't know, And it's hard, you know, I've got earplugs in, I can't really see, I can't really hear, I can't see super great. Everything's just foggy. And so they can't really explain exactly what's happening. And so you just have to trust your crew. Like, all right, they're telling me I'm fine, I feel fine, but like, where on earth is shore?
When am I going to get there? And so truly, so the kind of the way it happened is that the tide started to turn again. We had been in so long, the tide turns every 12 hours in the channel. So it was starting to turn on me again. And so another friend jumped in to pace with me and he was like, Sarah, you're really close, but this tide is turning and you have to sprint.
And so I wasn't looking up, like all I could see was, the support boat on the right side of me, my friend Carl was on the left side and I was literally just swimming. I'm 56, 54 hours, whatever, into it here. And I'm truly sprinting with all my might, right? The whole crew is on the other, on the side of the boat.
They're all screaming at me. I think my mom's going to have a heart attack. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, like I have come all of this way. And the tide is going to push me away from shore, right? I have to get in now. And so when people ask, what did it feel like to crawl out on shore? I had given 110 percent of everything I had.
I didn't know how close shore was until all of a sudden I could just see it at my fingers. I hadn't been looking. You know, water had been going up my nose and down my throat. I was like, am I going to drown in this last push? And so I had no idea where I was, I didn't know what time it was, I was just dazed other than I had touched land for the first time in two and a half days.
And so it's just, even when I think back on it, it's such a surreal moment because it's like I achieved what I set out to achieve, but I was so spent. I think it was a couple of days before I could really appreciate what had happened and what, you know and what I had accomplished.
Erik Weihenmayer: My heart is literally swelling right now. It's just, I'm with you. Oh my gosh. That's monumental. Wow. we're almost out of time. but, I want to make sure I end with the fact that you're not done by any means. I hear you want to swim Ocean Seven, which is like, the ocean of every continent.
Sarah Thomas: Yes.
Erik Weihenmayer: Tell me a little bit about that future plan. Is that correct?
Sarah Thomas: Sure. Yeah. I'm working on it there. the Ocean Seven is modeled after the seven summits, right?
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah.
Sarah Thomas: Basically the same idea is that there's a marathon swim, not in every continent cause it'd be really hard to do, something in Antarctica, but basically there's seven ocean swims around the world and I've done five of them.
So two are remaining. I actually just found out last week that I've got a slot to do number six in May. So I'll be able to knock that one out. It's the Strait of Gibraltar. So I'm super excited.
I'm excited about that one. And then my last final one, is the Suguru Strait in Japan. I'm actually went last summer to try that one and we got blown out from the wind. So just sat and waited. So hopefully I'll get another slot to go back to Japan here pretty soon.
Erik Weihenmayer: What an incredible life just to make your life into this great adventure and to have these huge goals in front of you.
Sarah Thomas: Yes.
Erik Weihenmayer: Wow. Awesome. Thank you. You are full on No Barriers. It's so awesome to know you, Sarah, and get to hear this amazing story.
Thanks for, spending an hour with us.
Sarah Thomas: Yeah. Thanks for having me on.
Erik Weihenmayer: All right. Love it. No barriers to everyone. Thanks. Good luck with the Seven Oceans or the last two, at least.
Sarah Thomas: Yes.
Didrik Johnck: The production team behind this podcast includes producer Didrik Johnck, that's me, and audio engineer, Tyler Kottmann. Special thanks to the Dan Ryan Band for our intro song, Guidance. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, share it, and hey, we'd be thrilled for a review.
Show notes can be found at NoBarriersPodcast.com. There's also a link there to shoot me an email with any suggestions or guest ideas for the show. Thanks so much and have a great day.
