When we last spoke with Doug McConnell, he was preparing for a 24-mile swim in Tampa Bay -- yes the actual bay – last weekend. We wrote about the 53-year-old McConnell's quest to swim the English Channel this August here.
If he's successful, the Illinois resident will be the 48th person over the age of 50 to swim the Channel. We were especially interested because Medtronic devices were used to repair a herniated disc in his neck last year. Now, McConnell is using the English Channel swim as a way to raise money for ALS (or Lou Gerhig's disease), which claimed his father in 2006.
McConnell says the St. Petersburg-to-Tampa Bay swim was a learning experience. Still, he was the seventh solo swimmer to finish among the 20 who started, and covered the watery course in 10 hours, 44 minutes.
Although the Tampa event was in warmer waters than the Channel, the two share some of the same challenges for long-distance swimmers. Among them: jellyfish.
"When you swim in salt water, you run into little jellyfish that mostly hit your hands and chest, and they only sting for an instant like nettles," he writes.
"Unfortunately, when I was at about 9,000 (strokes, that is) I also had a nasty encounter with the other kind of jellyfish that has the long arms, and it really spooked me. It wrapped around my left forearm that promptly blew up like a balloon. I immediately had stomach cramps and was actually sneezing uncontrollably. I was obviously having an allergic reaction that was more severe than I would have to a bee or wasp sting."
Fortunately, McConnell's wife Susan (who was following him in a boat) had packed some antihistamine to mitigate the Jellyfish Effect.
Beyond jellyfish, McConnell spotted three pods of dolphins, several stingray, "and a small, but aggressive little fish that seemed intent on trying to swim up the leg of my suit during the last mile. In his frustration in not succeeding, he leaped out of the water and even jumped over me a couple of times."
