{"id":38717,"date":"2022-08-26T22:48:55","date_gmt":"2022-08-27T04:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lang-swims-from-england-to-france\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:46:10","slug":"lang-swims-from-england-to-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lang-swims-from-england-to-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Lang swims from England to France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Natalie
Natalie Mooney Lang celebrates after swimming across the English Channel and arriving in France on Monday. She completed the 21-mile open-water swim in 12 hours and 6 minutes. (Courtesy Natalie Mooney Lang)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Natalie Mooney Lang swam 21 miles across the English Channel on Monday, leaving Dover, England at 6:30 a.m. and arriving in France 12 hours and 6 minutes later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no guarantee that I\u2019d make it or how good the weather would be, so to get there and have made it was indescribable,\u201d Lang said.<\/p>\n

Lang has completed other big open-water swims, including the 21-mile Catalina Channel to California last year. The English Channel, <\/a>however, is known for its cold and choppy water. Many swimmers who attempted the feat failed, and 10 have died. Lang, however, didn\u2019t read much into other people\u2019s performances when she signed up for the challenge three years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to know how many had failed,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to compartmentalize it and focus on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Natalie
Natalie Mooney Lang swims across the English Channel on Monday. She completed the 21-mile open-water swim in 12 hours and 6 minutes. (Courtesy Natalie Mooney Lang)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In addition to swimming five days a week, Lang did a nine-day training camp in Ireland to get used to the cold, open water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat water was really cold and really good preparation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When she got the call to swim the English Channel, they gave her a nine-day weather window, and she had to be ready to swim the channel on any of the days.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentally and emotionally, this one was more taxing (than the Catalina Channel),\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said the Catalina swim, however, was scarier since she did it in the dark, when the water was calmer, beginning at 10 p.m.<\/p>\n

When she arrived at the beach in Dover on Monday morning to swim the English Channel, however, everything kind of lined up for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a beautiful start with the sunrise and the sea was totally still,\u201d she said. \u201cIt all stopped for me and this endeavor. It was energizing because I had worked for years for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lang, however, did experience a little trouble on the swim. Before the halfway point, a jelly fish wrapped itself around her left leg and stung her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, my leg was burning,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes you can see them and dodge them, but I didn\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lang said she spun around to kick the jelly fish off her leg. She described the sting as \u201ca moderate level of pain,\u201d but said it actually helped her ignore that her shoulder was also hurting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a wicked jellyfish sting, but it was nice because the pain distracted me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a nice pain because it occupied my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the jelly fish attack, the swim went pretty smooth for her and she was able to swim pretty straight. It also took her an hour and seven minutes less than the Catalina Channel, even though the English Channel is considered more challenging.<\/p>\n

\"Natalie
Natalie Mooney Lang feeds while swimming across the English Channel. She consumed two Nalgene bottles of supplements every 45 minutes during the swim. (Courtesy Natalie Mooney Lang)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The weather helped. She also had a strong plan to consume calories, drinking two Nalgene bottles containing supplements every 45 minutes, while never stopping.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to get it down in 30 seconds or the currents would carry you,\u201d she said. \u201cI rolled on my back and drank while I kicked because I didn\u2019t want to lose any ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the currents, some people swim 25 to 30 miles to cross the channel.<\/p>\n

Lang\u2019s swim was about 21 miles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a really good swim; I swam pretty straight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her crew also put on personalized T-shirts with her face on them, and wore berets when they entered French water, to keep her spirits high.<\/p>\n

And when she arrived in France, and saw her time, she said she was ecstatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt surreal and amazing on that beach,\u201d she said. \u201cI was prepared for the worse, and I was thinking it would take 13 to 14 hours, so 12:06 was huge for me. \u2026 It\u2019s amazing to finish because so many don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bout with COVID this summer put her English Channel swim in jeopardy, she said. In mid-July, after she had COVID, she did a 16-mile swim in Vermont, but it took her two hours longer than she expected. \u201cI felt defeated because it was so hard, but in retrospect it was really good training because I did push through,\u201d Lang said.<\/p>\n

Lang was also inducted into the Vermont Open Water Swimming Hall of Fame<\/a> in its 2022 class as a marathon swimmer. Lang grew up in Durango and graduated from Durango High School in 1995, but lives in the Boston area and began open-water swimming in Vermont.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I grew up as an open-water swimmer in Vermont, so to get recognized by them was really special,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her coach for the past five years, Charlotte Brynn, is also in Vermont and many of Lang\u2019s milestone swims, including her first big, 25-mile swim, have also taken place in Vermont.<\/p>\n

The Catalina and English Channel swims are part of the triple crown, along with the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. Lang, however, said she isn\u2019t sure that she\u2019ll attempt the Manhattan. \u201cI\u2019m not as drawn to urban swimming,\u201d she said. \u201cI love choppy, open oceans in the middle of nowhere; I love the moments when you\u2019re just a tiny, insignificant person in a huge well of water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she said she next plan is to swim an \u201cice mile,\u201d swimming a mile in water 41 degrees or colder.<\/p>\n

\"Calm
Calm weather helped Natalie Mooney Lang swim the English Channel, from England to France, in a pretty straight line on Monday. (Courtesy Natalie Mooney Lang)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

graduate completes English Channel swim in 12 hours, 6 minutes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,346,514],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-sports","tag-swimming"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84104,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38717\/revisions\/84104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38717"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}