Pat Gallant-Charette is a 73-year-old record-breaking marathon swimmer with nine Guinness World Records under her belt. From swimming across the English Channel to navigating Lake Ontario and Lake Zurich, Pat has proven that age is no barrier to big dreams. When she’s not taking on epic swims, you’ll find her tending to her garden, beekeeping, or tapping her own maple trees.
Pat Gallant-Charette is a 73-year-old record-breaking marathon swimmer with nine Guinness World Records under her belt. From swimming across the English Channel to navigating Lake Ontario and Lake Zurich, Pat has proven that age is no barrier to big dreams. When she’s not taking on epic swims, you’ll find her tending to her garden, beekeeping, or tapping her own maple trees.
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Pat Gallant-Charette:
They used to tell a lot of athletes, "You get a certain age and it's all downhill." Well, it's downhill if you're going to be sitting on the couch all day watching TV. But if you're active, the sky's the limit. You just go for it and enjoy it. And I think that's the key, is enjoyment. I've enjoyed this.
Shelby Stanger:
Pat Gallant-Charette is a 73-year-old record-breaking marathon swimmer. Technically speaking, a marathon swim is anything over 6.2 miles, but Pat swims are usually two to three times farther than that. She's set nine Guinness World Records for being the oldest woman to swim across bodies of water like the English Channel, Lake Ontario and Lake Zurich. She's been swimming marathon distances for more than two decades and has even been inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame.
Unlike a lot of record-breaking athletes, Pat doesn't use a fancy fitness tracker and she doesn't have a crazy training schedule or an intensive nutrition plan. Instead, she keeps things pretty natural. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production brought to you by Capital One. Pat Gallant-Charette has lived in Maine her entire life, and she has the accent to prove it. Listen to how she says words like yards and shark.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
We only had a short distance to go, a couple of hundred yards, but at the halfway mark, my brother screamed, "Shark."
Shelby Stanger:
When she's not swimming, Pat loves working in her garden, beekeeping and tapping her own maple trees. She has two kids, three grandchildren, and she worked as a nurse for much of her life. Pat didn't take up open water swimming until she was in her 40s. She started at the beach near her home, which brought back memories from when she was a kid spending her summer days swimming with her siblings. Pat Gallant-Charette, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm really excited to talk to you about open ocean swimming and record-breaking.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. You are such a badass. I didn't realize you had nine Guinness Records. I want to talk to you. I'm a little bit of a swimmer, mostly because I'm always a broken runner, so then I go swimming. But I'm curious, you're this really badass open ocean swimmer, and in this world you're an absolute legend. But what were you like as a kid and young adult? What was your relationship with swimming?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Well, I grew up with six brothers and a sister, and we loved going to the lakes and the ocean and really enjoyed it. I was a strong swimmer as a teenager. But as I got older, I went on to nursing school, got married at the age of 21, started having children. And all of a sudden, 20 years goes by and here I am in my 40s. And then, tragedy struck my family. My youngest brother, Robbie, at the age of 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. And he was a competitive swimmer at Northeastern University. He did some open water swims. One was the Peaks to Portland here in Portland, Maine, that's a 2.4 ocean mile swim. And at the time, I was in my mid-40s, and my son, who was in high school, he was 16, said he wanted to swim the Peaks to Portland as a tribute to his Uncle Robbie.
And I remember saying to my son, "Tom, that's so sweet. I wish I could do the same." And he said to me, "Well, ma, you can if you try." And I took a step back from that because I considered myself a spectator mom. I was the mom that brought my kids to soccer games and swim meets, and I just didn't consider myself an athlete. But I thought, "Well, I'll give it a try." And my intention was to swim that race just one time, and that was it, because I have a fear of the ocean.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, wait. Time out. You have a fear of the ocean?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yes. When I was 13 years old, my brothers and a couple of their friends, we were going to go clam digging off the coast of Maine. And as we were leaving the house, my mother said, "Be very careful of that incoming tide." So, as a 13-year-old, I didn't listen to her.
Shelby Stanger:
Standard. Okay. Fair enough.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yeah. So we got out there, we were on the sandbar, and we were getting loads and loads of clams, and we filled the bushel baskets and we were ready to go home. And when we turned around, the sandbar was now an island. We had to abandon our bushel baskets, our shovels, and we had to swim for it. And I had, at that age, no fear at all of the ocean. And we only had a short distance to go, a couple of hundred yards. And I had no worries. But at the halfway mark, my brother, who was 14, screamed, "Shark." And when he screamed the word shark, I could tell, by the tone of his voice, that he wasn't kidding. So, I turned real quick and over my shoulder, something went underneath me and it scared me and I panicked and I almost drowned.
And all of a sudden, within a few feet of me, a seal popped its head up out of the water. It was never a shark, what I saw was a seal. But it frightened me so that from that day forward, the only time I would go into the ocean, the depth was up to my waist. And a lot of people don't realize that when I train for the English Channel or any of these major swims, when I was swimming here in Maine off the coast, I would never go in deep water. It was always waist depth, and I would swim parallel to the shore. That's why, for the Peaks to Portland, I was only going to swim at that one time. And the day of that event, I can remember just feeling overwhelmed because I was about the age of 48 at the time, and I remember just being around all these young athletes. And here I was, an older athlete. And I said I was only going to do it one time.
But at the halfway mark of the 2.4 ocean mile swim, something clicked. I just fell in love with the sport. I mean, it was so unique to swim pass this historic Fort Gorges that we have in the middle of Casco Bay. And to see lobster boats going by and hear the sounds of seagulls squawking. I just loved that environment, that I decided that I was going to continue swimming that. And it was a yearly event. But then, I noticed, about the third year of swimming the Peaks to Portland, that I was getting stronger. And I didn't expect that because, as a nurse, I was taught in nursing school that after the age of 30, 40, it's all downhill. And I was never expecting that I was going to be getting stronger, and my endurance was going to skyrocket. Never imagined that.
So, I decided that I was going to swim twice the distance, but at a lake. And I did that. And I remember it took me about four hours to swim it, and I felt fine. And I said to my husband, "I think I can go twice the distance." So I trained for another year and I ended up swimming across big Sebago Lake. And the distance was probably, I don't know, 10 miles. And I remember when I finished, I wasn't tired. And I remember saying to my husband, I said, "I think I can go much further than this." And I said, "I think I'm one of those endurance athletes." And he says, "Well, why don't you try the English Channel?"
Shelby Stanger:
The English Channel is one of the most famous marathon swims in the world. It's almost 21 miles long, and the waters there hover around 60 degrees Fahrenheit with strong currents. Pat took her husband's suggestion seriously, and she started looking into what it would actually take to do this swim herself.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
They have very strict rules, and the rules are you start on dry land, you end on dry land, you wear a regular swimsuit, you do not wear wetsuits, you don't wear special watches for timing. You follow the tradition.
Shelby Stanger:
In order to make an attempt, swimmers also have to hire an official observer and use one of the English Channel's certified boats. Swimmers can't be touched by their support team or come within 20 to 30 feet of the boat, which makes eating and drinking really tricky. To maintain her energy, Pat doesn't use gels or smoothies like most endurance athletes. Instead, she concocts a very simple drink with water and the maple syrup that she harvests from her very own maple trees. It's the perfect fuel to keep her going on swims that can last between seven and 27 hours.
When Pat started wading into the world of marathon swimming, she couldn't find a local coach. So, she got creative. She found training plans for marathon running and adapted them for the water. For instance, Pat would do shorter training swims on weekdays, and then on the weekends she would do a long swim working her way up to six plus hours in the water at a time. Finally, in 2008, Pat made her first official attempt at the 20-mile swim across the English Channel. When you decided to do the English Channel, was that your first big marathon swim?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yes. And the first one was not successful. When I got 1.7 miles from the finish line, the currents changed. And back then, if the currents were not helping a swimmer, they could stop the swim. So, they stopped the swim. But I felt as though I had the endurance to continue. But that was okay. That's all part of marathon swimming. You're not going to be successful in all your swims. And a lot of time, Mother Nature, she'll deal you a hand that you didn't expect. And so, I knew I was going to go back, and I did.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So, for that first English Channel swim. You fly all the way out there, you must have some sort of support crew, and you get almost all the way. I mean 1.6 miles after you've done 24, however many miles you've already done, it's really frustrating.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yeah. And it was. I remember swearing up a storm when I was climbing up that ladder. But the thing is, it was discouraging, but I was not overwhelmed by it. And a true marathon swimmer learns they don't throw the towel in for something like this because it was Mother Nature. And what you do, you just brush yourself off and say, "I'm going to try this again." And I've done that for several swims. Between Ireland and Scotland, that is known as one of the toughest swims in the world, the North Channel.
Shelby Stanger:
How far is that?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
It's about the same distance. 22 miles.
Shelby Stanger:
22 miles? And how old were you when you did this one?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
I was 66.
Shelby Stanger:
66? Okay.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
And I got stung every inch of my body from jellyfish. And when I got less than one mile from the finish line, I still felt strong. I had no doubt that I was going to reach Scotland. And all of a sudden, the rip tides started and I started going backwards because of the rip tides. So, they stopped the swim. But that brought so much confidence because I knew if it wasn't for those darn rip tides, I would have made it. So, the following year I went back out and it was high winds the whole time. And I returned to Maine with no swim. And then, the following year I went back out again and I was successful and I got the record for the oldest woman to swim that.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so the jellyfish. You watch movies of swimmers dealing with jellyfish and it's horrendous. How did you deal with it? Because too many jellyfish stings could be pretty life-threatening.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yes. Yeah. And it depends on the type of jellyfish. Between Ireland and Scotland, they're known for their lion's mane jellyfish. And again, I got stung every inch of my body. But I was one of the fortunate ones. I didn't get any reactions, any anaphylactic shock. What happened the following day? I felt as though I had a very bad sunburn. But also, I've been stung by jellyfish when I was swimming from Molokai Island in Hawaii to Oahu, and I got stung in my mouth, and that was extremely painful. I felt as though I was being electrocuted. Jellyfish is different and every person reacts differently too.
Shelby Stanger:
I don't understand why you're not one of the most famous people in the world. I've never heard a grandma talk about getting stung in the mouth by a jellyfish and feeling electrocuted. I don't think you realize how badass you are.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Thanks. Well, if you want to watch a funny video. At the end of the swim, when I got to Oahu, Sandy beaches, I was nearing the finish line, I noticed there was a television camera and I was wondering, "Geez, I wonder who they're filming down here." I was like 100 feet from the finish line. I was looking to see what they were filming. And then, it dawned on me they were filming me, but they didn't realize that I got stung in the mouth. And when they went to interview me, I mean, it really sounded like I had a stroke because I had difficulty speaking because of the swelling that was in my mouth. But I kind of laugh now. It's like, "Well, what can you do?" And that swim took me just under 24 hours.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you not sleep?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Well, you just see a focus on the finish line. And plus 43 as a nurse, that kind of toughened me up. And after having children, you pull some all-nighters with your kids when they're crying or sick. But the longest swim I had ever done was Lake Ontario between the United States, the mouth of the Niagara River, and the Port of Toronto in Canada. That was about 34 miles. And that took me just over 24 hours. And that was probably, out of all the swims in my career, the toughest one.
Shelby Stanger:
Why was it so tough?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
They have these upwellings, it's like a jet stream of cold water coming from the depths. So, you could be swimming in comfortable water temperature, like high sixties, and all of a sudden with one stroke, you're in this pool of water that feels like it's the low forties. So when I started my swim, water temperature was comfortable and I was out probably three miles when all of a sudden I felt the first upwelling and I felt like I was swimming in ice water. That was for a short time, and then I was back in comfortable water. And no sooner than I was in the comfortable water, and all of a sudden I was right back in that cold water again. And that went throughout the whole swim. But again, it's all part of marathon swimming, Mother Nature wins every single time.
Shelby Stanger:
When we come back, Pat tells us about some of her most memorable swims and shares her advice for trying new sports as you age.
Pat Gallant-Charette is an accomplished marathon swimmer with nine Guinness World Records to her name as well as a number of awards and honors. Pat has crossed huge bodies of water like the Molokai Channel in Hawaii and Lake Ontario in Canada. She set her most recent record last year when she became the oldest woman to swim 15 miles across Lake Malawi in East Africa. When she isn't attempting to break a record, Pat swims at the beach near her home. She doesn't have a coach or an official training plan to do any of these swims. Instead, Pat follows her intuition. To adapt to the cold she sits outside in her bathing suit in the winter. She fuels her long record attempts with her homemade maple syrup. And instead of cross-training at a gym, she tends to her garden and bees. Whatever she's doing, it's clearly working.Since her first marathon swim in 2008, Pat has traveled all over, spending hour after hour crossing lakes and channels around the world. Many of the swims she's completed last between 10 and 24 hours. To spend so long in the water pushing herself physically, Pat has had to figure out how to keep up her mental endurance.
So, you're in the water for hours at a time, almost up to a day, up to a day, just swimming. What the heck goes through your head? What are you saying to yourself? Are you singing? Talk to me about this.
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Okay. It's changed drastically over the years. In my early years, I focused on my stroke, and that was boring as heck. And then, mid-years, I started focusing on people who inspired me, and that helped out tremendously. I would dedicate a mile to... One of my neighbors had cancer, and I dedicated that mile to her. Then as time went past, I started getting into this zone of where I wouldn't think of anything, I would just zone out and I would totally lose the concept of time. I couldn't tell you if four hours went by or if 10 hours went by. It's I would just be very relaxed. But now, what I do, I pray. I'm a very spiritual person and I pray through all my swims.
Shelby Stanger:
Will you dive into that? What does prayer look like for you?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
For many years, I grew up under the Christian faith, and I was a Catholic. And I left the church because of some abuse that was going on. I never lost my faith. One of my swims was the Sea of Galilee in Israel. I brought a Bible with me. And in this Bible it had a map, and it showed where all the different miracles had occurred. And I found out we were going to be starting the swim by Capernaum, that's where Jesus got his apostles, he walked on water. So here, over those years, it was 30, 40 years I hadn't been to church except for funerals, weddings. I decided I was going to pray.
So, for eight hours and 22 minutes, I prayed. And the prayer that I had was not to have a successful swim, but I just prayed for a direction in life, and it was just incredible. And so now, all my swims, I pray. Two months ago I was in the state of Washington to swim the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which was not a successful swim because water temperature was 49. But the whole time there, I prayed. But it was not so much for a successful swim, I just prayed for world peace. There's a friend of the family that's very sick, prayed for him. So, my focus was prayer.
Shelby Stanger:
It's interesting. We're not of the same faith, and I have somewhat of a spiritual practice, but wish I had more. But what you also did was gratitude and sending love to other people. And you're calling it prayer, but I think it's... Whatever you call it, I think it's such a powerful practice getting out of your own head and giving that energy to someone else while you're expending an immense amount of energy. It's a real incredible thing. And I hear that from endurance athletes, that they have a strong spiritual practice. They're able to do these really hard things.
Besides that swim in Israel, what have been some of your more memorable swims?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
I've had so many. I told you about the Catalina swim, about the dolphins.
Shelby Stanger:
Let's talk about Catalina. We haven't talked about that. And that's actually in my backyard, so I can relate to Catalina. I know what that's like. You swam from Long Beach?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
No, we took the boat out to Catalina and I got sick along the way. It was like a three-hour boat ride. We arrived about midnight, and they said to me, the Catalina observers, they read the rules, that I had to start on dry land, end on dry land, which is the coast of California. And they said I could not touch the boat. Anyway. They took a big spotlight and they were shining it on the beach. And it was maybe, I don't know, 100 yards that I had to jump off the boat and swim. Well, when they put the light on, all of a sudden this big brown pelican lands on the water, and I'm looking at this brown pelican. And the next thing I know, Catalina flying fish. I have never seen flying fish in my life, but Catalina is known for their flying fish.
And I saw first 10 were coming out of the water, then 20. They were going all over the place. And I'm thinking, "My heavens, I got to jump in this?" And next thing I know, a sea lion popped his head out of the water and it's like 10 feet from the boat. And I'm thinking, "Oh, my... I have to jump into this water? There's the pelican, the flying fish, the sea lions." And then, I looked and saw all these anchovies, and I'm thinking, "Okay. A school of anchovies, there's probably something behind it following that's a lot bigger." And next thing I know, we hear this whooshing sound, and it was the sound of a whale behind the boat. Couldn't see it, but we knew it was there and it was a short distance from us.
Anyway, the observer said, "Well, Pat, it's time for you to jump in." And I'm thinking, "Oh, my..." And all of a sudden, six dolphins came right alongside the boat. So, I jumped in the water and I got to the shore. And when I started, I had read about their giant kelp and they said it would be difficult to swim through. And they were right on that. I felt like I was swimming on a hard floor. I could not believe I was even in water, but I was. Then after that, I was listening to the sounds of the whales communicating for probably, I'd say, maybe 70% of the swim. And then, when I got close to the finish line... I had told my crew, because of the Catalina rules, that if a shark shows up, they stop the swim for safety reasons, they pull the swimmer and the swimmer's disqualified. Understandably. I said, "It'd be my luck to be one mile from the finish and have a shark show up."
So anyway, I'm one mile from the finish and all of a sudden something's underneath me and I could have touched it with my hand, it was bigger than me. And I screamed. I mean, it was a blood-curdling scream because I thought it was a great white shark. Well, the boat, which was a short distance from me, my crew, the boat crew, they were all laughing. They said, "Look around you. You're being surrounded by dolphins." Well, apparently they came from the north, south, east and west, and there was about 100 dolphins that came right with me and brought me into the finish line, and I set the record for the oldest woman. And it was such an exciting finish. And then, when I reached the dry land, I turned around and not one dolphin was in sight. It was incredible.
Shelby Stanger:
Marathon swimming has opened Pat's eyes to her own physical abilities and the value of challenging herself. She's setting a pretty great example for others too. Can you imagine your grandma leaving town for a couple of weeks to swim across Lake Malawi and coming back as a world record holder? I asked Pat if her grandkids were impressed, but she said they mostly think of her as a babysitter. Still, Pat proves that you're never too old to chase a wild dream.
How have other people been inspired by your swims? There's got to be this community of older women who are like, "If Pat can do it, I should be able to do it"?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yeah. I've had quite a few people come up to me and just didn't realize that in my late 60s, early 70s, that it was possible to accomplish swimming great distances. And it's inspired them to try something that they didn't try before. And I hope that's the message that I send, for anyone, as they get older, to try something new in life. And it may bring them down a road they never imagined.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you deal with fear?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Again, I put it on the back burner. I look at it, what would I rather do? Would I'd rather go on an adventure or sit home and knit on my couch all day long? And I have nothing against knitting, I love crafts. But I love the adventure. I'll stick to the adventure than sitting on the couch all day.
Shelby Stanger:
Any advice to give to people who are looking to get into a new sport in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, maybe even 90s?
Pat Gallant-Charette:
Yeah, there's plenty. First, check with your doctor. This is the nurse part of me saying, make sure that you're physically capable of doing this. But start off slow. Let's say if you want to start running, start walking short distances and then just slowly increase. And after you feel comfortable doing that, just incorporate running for maybe a minute and then walking for 10 minutes and just slowly do this. But it doesn't have to be running. It could be swimming or skiing, whatever they find interesting that piques their curiosity to give it a try, because there's so many sports out there, whether it's hiking or fishing or swimming, it's just the opportunity. There's just so much to do.
Shelby Stanger:
I can only dream that I'm training for something as wild as a marathon swim when I'm in my 70s. I love that Pat isn't letting age hold her back. Sometimes you have to push beyond the boundary of what those around you think is possible in order to find your joy. If you want to stay up to date on Pat's swims, plus see pictures of her and her family tapping maple trees, head to her Instagram @Gallantcharette. That's G-A-L-L-A-N-T-C-H-A-R-E-T-T-E. Next year, Pat's hoping to swim 12 and a half miles across Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, which is 12,500 feet above sea level.
If you liked this episode, you should check out our interview with Melissa Kegler, who set a world record swimming the ice mile. That's when you swim 1.2 miles in 39 degree water. We'll link to Melissa's episode in our show notes.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.