Not sure why Huffington Post files this under "Weird News" though. (Along with "Fattest Athlete Is Ready To Lose It" and "Taxidermist Puts Stuffed Animals in Strange Outfits.")
It would be nice if some article described her first as a marathon swimmer or athlete, and saved the grandmotherliness for later in the article.
Or when discussing men's accomplishments, refer to them as fathers or grandfathers first, then as athletes.
Setting that aside for now, though I have immense respect for what she attempted and what she accomplished enroute! She definitely stretched boundaries. And each time a person does that--and knows the obstacles better--s/he will find ways to deal with those obstacles. It might take a while but it took a while between Mallory and Irvine's (?) Everest climb and the one made by Hillary. And it took a lot of attempts before Bannister finally broke four minutes in the mile--he had predecessors who tried... and no doubt he learned from their attempts. So will Palfrey or whoever else makes it across. It's not a swim I could even daydream about doing, and I have pretty wild daydreams!
Kudos to her!
Here's an interesting thread on Penny Palfrey's swim from evmo's Marathon Swimmers site:
www.marathonswimmers.org/.../penny-palfrey-cuba-to-florida
Scroll down to bottom to find the post (with map) on Gulf Stream dividing into two currents, one being the Yucatan current that may have worked against completion of the swim.
80 miles completed (out of ca. 107) before encountering a current pushing wayward from course too strongly to proceed against.
(Other posts on the thread have the FB page and Twitter, for those who want to go back and review the swim as it unfolded.)
It would be nice if some article described her first as a marathon swimmer or athlete, and saved the grandmotherliness for later in the article.
That annoyed me too. It sounds like a "granny" is trying to cross the bay instead of an athlete who just happens to have a grandchild.
