Golden Gate Medley Swim
noun - the Golden Gate Medley Swim is a Quad IM crossing of one mile of each swim stroke swum under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay, California. It was first accomplished by Tom Keller, Michael Chase and Jon Ennis from the Dolphin Club. They completed their individual medley crossings with the 4-mile Golden Gate Medley Swim on 3 August 2010.
"We completed first Golden Gate Medley Swim underneath the bridge, doing a span of the bridge - about one mile of each stroke. Three of us made it in times around 2 hours and 20 minutes. We did butterfly to Lime Rock that was awesome. 29 minutes, it was super fast," explained Keller. "When we turned around and started doing backstroke, we realized that we were going against a bit of a northerly current for Baker Beach. And then a tanker came through and we had to stop. So we just paused, treading water while it went through. The backstroke took a long time, it took about 45 minutes to get back to touch the seawall of Fort Point. Breaststroke was considerably faster than backstroke, ironically. Freestyle was a welcome rest from the other strokes as it is the easiest."
After completing the English Channel in 2005, Tom wanted to do "something new and different, local and cheap. I hurt my shoulder and after healing it, was finally able to put closure on a five year goal. Plus, after swimming way too much open water freestyle, I brainstormed ways to mix it up and came up with the Golden Gate Medley Swim."
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