HOLLAND, Mich. — A man from Holland is taking on a large body of water for a cause he says is just as big.
Bryan Huffman hopes to be the 10th person to swim across Lake michigan — and he says he's doing it for the kids in West Michigan.
Swimming has been a long-time passion for Huffman. He competed in high school and college, and was even a coach. Now, he gets his laps in at the Holland Aquatic Center, where he’s training for a new adventure. He’ll be swimming across Lake Michigan and it’s a challenging task to say the least.
“So you're talking, like, nine to ten marathons consecutively to get across, and so you can stop and tread water or float, but you can’t have anything and you can't hold on to the boat or anything else to hold me up,” said Huffman.
But it’s for an important cause:raising money to offer free swim lessons for West Michigan kids.
“In West Michigan, we're surrounded by water and you can't live here as a child without being exposed to water,” said Huffman.
His goal is $25,000, but he says his ultimate goal is for any kid to be able to come to the aquatic center for swim lessons, regardless of their finances.
Dan Christian is the Instructional Program manager at Holland Aquatics Center. He says they’re able to reduce the chance of drowning by 88% when they get children for their structured swim lessons. He’s grateful for what Huffman is doing but says swimming 50+ miles is tough to wrap his head around.
“The amount of training that goes into it — and on top of that, the generosity — it's just something special you don’t see every day,” said Christian.
Huffman previously swam 22 miles across the English Channel back in October. He says the challenges he encountered in those waters won’t be the same as Lake Michigan, despite it being twice as long. Some of the challenges he encountered in the English Channel included rough currents and cold water temperatures.
There are concerns of hypothermia, other health risks and even death. But Huffman says there will be an escort boat nearby with a medical team in case anything goes wrong. They will guide him to his final destination, but he will be disqualified if he touches the boat. The official rules say that he must reach the shore on his own power in order for it to count. People on the escort boat will also toss him food to make sure he eats along the way, as he works to help keep West Michigan’s children a little safer.
Huffman plans to begin his swim across Lake Michigan in August.
You can track his journey as it happens here.
If you'd like to donate to help provide free swim lessons to kids in West Michigan, click here.
