I copied this from the Back Story section of this morning's NY Times email. I'm skeptical of the claims that he can't produce lactic acid. Maybe he has spectacular aerobic metabolism (muscle cells chock full of mitochondria), but in anaerobic conditions, where would the output of glycolysis go?
Say you swam the full length of the Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi, Danube and Paraná rivers and you’re wondering: How do I top that?
For Martin Strel, the answer is obvious. Starting today, World Water Day, he’ll try to swim the entire circumference of Earth.
Mr. Strel, a 61-year-old Slovene, plans to swim about 25,000 miles, passing through 107 countries, in about 450 days. That means he would finish around July 2017.
That’s a great deal farther than his 3,278-mile Amazon swim, which was chronicled in the 2009 documentary “Big River Man.” Boats escorting him down the river poured blood over the side to distract piranhas. (He still got bit.)
Mr. Strel appears to be different from other people. His team says that his body cannot develop lactic acid, which is produced during exercise and causes muscle fatigue.
His past swims have promoted environmental awareness, and this time will be no different.
Over the next 15 months, Mr. Strel hopes to draw attention to water pollution. It’s an issue he’ll literally jump into when he swims in waters like the Nile, the Yangtze and the Ganges.
Mr. Strel, a 61-year-old Slovene, plans to swim about 25,000 miles, passing through 107 countries, in about 450 days. That means he would finish around July 2017.
That's 55.5 miles per day (24 hour period). Maybe his muscles don't fatigue, but he still has to sleep...say 6 hours. And another 1-2 hour per 24 hour period (broken up) for eating, and various sundry other things (like taking a poop) . So he's swimming 55 miles in 16 hours. That's almost 3.5 miles per hour.
Dan
If he's swimming mostly on rivers with the current, then I agree 3.5mph should be easily doable. The one article I glanced at said that he lost most of his skin on the Amazon, got bitten by piranha, and had parasites and other no-fun critters by the end.
