Ben Hooper reaches milestone in training for Atlantic crossing

This weekend, Ben Hooper, who’s training to swim across the Atlantic, reached the 100,000-length milestone. And it’s taken just a year. It’s a wonder he’s still counting!
To give it some perspective, 100,000 lengths of the 25m pool is equivalent to 1,566 miles: the same distance as swimming from London to Madrid and back. It means he’s had to swim more than 50km each week.
Ben has been training for up to six hours per day at indoor and outdoor venues around the UK, the US and the Mediterranean. However, the 100,000th length was clocked up in his local pool at Leisure At, Cheltenham.
Starting in November this year, Ben plans to become the first person to swim “every single mile” of the entire width of the Atlantic Ocean – 2,000 miles between Africa and Brazil.

The ‘Swim The Big Blue’ challenge, which will raise money for a number of good causes, has been described as one of the “greatest unconquered feats of human endurance” by patron Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

For an interview with Ben from last year, please see: http://www.h2openmagazine.com/features/africa-south-america-ben-hooper-plans-do-first-complete-cross-atlantic-swim/
Ben will be a guest speaker at this year’s Open Water Swimming Show on 12 July.