48 BRAZADAS: Solo tú marcas tu horizonte
48 BRAZADAS: Solo tú marcas tu horizonte (48 Swimming Strokes: Only you set your horizons) is a 230-page book written by Miquel Sunyer with James Manresa written in Spanish and Catalan, published Planeta in April 2015.
Contents
Synopsis
Forty-eight strokes per minute, not one more nor less, at the same time physical technique and mental mindset. For the swimmer and adventurer Miquel Sunyer this is the inviolable limit. The key that allows him to swim in the sea for hour upon hour, survive the low temperature of the water, the currents, overcome fatigue, his fears….. and finally, to reach his goal: to reach the other side of the ocean.
Fascinated by the feats of the heroes of swimming pioneers like Matthew Webb and Montserrat Tresserras, Miquel Sunyer takes on, without a wetsuit, the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.
48 Swimming Strokes narrates the story of a normal guy who does extraordinary things. Miquel Sunyer tells about his daily struggle and shares his values and challenges: the mental and physical preparation, the constant team work. It reveals how he deals with fear and failure, and above all, how he maintains, despite the plethora of difficulties, his motivation. His secret is never giving up, remembering that he can always aim higher, and the importance of not pursuing victory, but rather outdoing oneself.
Authors
Miquel Sunyer (born in Girona in 1977) is a Telecommunications Engineer and holds an MBA. At the age of seven he joined the competitive swim team at the GEiEG club, where he excelled in backstroke. Later he joined the water polo team of the same club, combining these activities with individual swimming training. A nature and vital adventure lover, Sunyer is an outdoor sports enthusiast, particularly when it comes to swimming: he’s a marine alpinist and an aquatic explorer who has participated in several prestigious international open water swimming competitions. An ambassador of the Costa Brava, ideologist and promoter of Vies Braves, he currently works at Endesa.
James Manresa (born in Hitchen, England in 1973) combines writing with his current position as director of the English School Kids&Us. His childhood in the Spanish coastal village of Pineda del Mar and a house replete with books and National Geographics plant the seed for his passion for the sea and literature, two loves that came together when he wrote the short novel Dissolt in 2010, awarded with the XXI Joan Marquès Arbona Prize for Fiction Vall de Sóller in 2013. Currently he’s working on a book that narrates his experience in the North Sea as an official on a rescue boat for oil rigs. He met Sunyer in 2010 when his purist instinct led him to contact Sunyer in order to discover the secrets of swimming all year round without a wetsuit. The initial idea for this book came about when Miquel read Dissolt and identified with the philosophy and style of the book, and with certain points in common with his own story, though it was written before the two had met.
Review
“Like the mountains, the sea is one of the last places where you can truly be free. A captivating book that will transport you and give you goose bumps.” - Kilian Jornet, gold-medal winner for skiing and mountain running
2017 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year Nominees
48 Braçades was nominated for the 2017 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year by the World Open Water Swimming Association:
1. 48 Braçades by Miquel Suñer (Spain)
2. Blue Journey Dangerous Waves Project by Bruckner Chase (USA)
3. Global Swim Series by Rob Kent & Dylan Kent (Canada)
4. LongSwimsDB by Evan Morrison (USA)
5. New York Open Water by David Barra, Rondi Davies & Alex Arévalo (USA)
6. Open Water Swim Academy by Dan Simonelli (USA)
7. Outdoor Swimmer by Simon Griffiths (Great Britain)
8. Sea Donkey with Adrian Sarchet (Guernsey)
9. Shark Bait by Dr. Seán O’Connell (Bermuda)
10. Swim Argentina by Matías Ola (Argentina)
11. The Channel of Bones with Toni Enderli (South Africa)
12. Travessia do Leme ao Pontal by Adherbal de Oliveira & Renato Ribeiro Barbosa (Brazil)
2017 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year Nomination
48 Braçades: Solo tú marcas tu horizonte (48 Swimming Strokes: Only You Set Your Horizons) is a 230-page book written in Spanish and Catalan by Miquel Suñer with James Manresa. After becoming the 53rd person in history to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, he wrote an extraordinary retelling of his aquatic journey from a backstroker and water polo player to an elite marathon swimmer. The 40-year-old engineer and ambassador of the Costa Brava and Menorca Channel Swimming Association describes his perspectives of swimming in the sea under challenging conditions and his frank intimate connection with Mother Nature]. For explaining how swimming is his form of meditation, for a brilliant recount of his daily struggles and how he deals with fear and failure, for sharing how he maintains his deeply felt motivation despite facing obstacles and difficulties both on dryland and in the water, 48 Braçades: Solo tú marcas tu horizonte is a worthy nominee for the 2017 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year.
