Cathedral Prep’s own Norman Stark is taking on a major feat this summer: swimming across Lake Erie. He has been training since November 2013, but he’s been swimming nearly his entire life. This daring swim is 24.3 miles and will take an upwards of 13 hours to complete. He is hoping to find someone to pace him, but he won’t have any help until the first five miles.
Norman will have a large boat along with him, along with several others in kayaks, but he will remain in the water without any kind of floatation device for the entirety of the swim. He is not even allowed to make physical contact with the side of any of the boats or touch an oar. To eat, he will have to tread water, and hope to catch a Gatorade or PowerBar that someone in the boat throws in his direction. If he completes this swim, he will join the small and elite club of people to do so.
I know you’re all wondering why on earth somebody would ever want to do this, but he does have a cause. The cause he is swimming for is the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which provides financial support for the families of veterans, along with giving medical help to vets with PTSD and other post-war ailments. The swim will take place the week of July 13th. He has yet to pick an official date, due to the fact that the weather in Erie is rather unpredictable. To learn more about Norman’s swim and the Intrepid Fallen Fund, feel free to visit his website at www.iswimforvets.com. During the swim, the website will show a GPS location of where Norman currently is during his swim, so we can all watch from home.