Jellyfish and bad weather? So what? Elgin man swims English Channel

A 47-year-old Elgin man did more than swim the English Channel this week.

John Muenzer learned a lot about life, himself and setting an inspiring example for his family: Don't be afraid to take chances and never, ever give up.

"I'm really happy. It was something I wanted to do," he said via telephone of his 13-hour, 12-minute swim on his first try. "It met all my expectations of it being hard."

Muenzer, a former college swimmer, set his sights on the English Channel after a long-distance swim in 1983 in Lake Erie, but a career and family put that goal on hold until last August.

He began training five hours a day and his 6-foot, 5-inch frame slimmed from 260 pounds to 228.

He worked out in Lake Michigan to get used to the cold water, logged plenty of time at the pool at the Centre of Elgin, and completed a 24-mile race in Florida.

Muenzer booked a 10-day trip to England, figuring that would be a long enough window even with the area's notoriously fickle weather to give him a shot.

But nothing could have prepared him for the cold water, a blitz of jellyfish that stung him nearly 20 times, changing currents and swimming in the middle of the night from Abbot's Cliff in England to Wissant Beach in France.

"He's definitely a mind-over-matter type guy," said Kate Muenzer, 23, the oldest of his seven kids. "The English Channel is one of the toughest swims in the world."

Weather conditions were poor until the ninth day. So at about 10:40 p.m. Monday (England time), Muenzer set out in swim trunks, a swim cap and goggles with his friend Mike Carson of Elmhurst next to him in a boat.

About four hours in, Muenzer ran into a huge mass of jellyfish, requiring him to swat them away with a pole as he pressed onward. He even got bumped by a dolphin during the journey.

"I thought it was over when I swam into the jellyfish field," he recalled. "My wife (Mary) and kids gave up a lot to let me train for this. I knew I wasn't going to get another shot."

But the jellyfish set him back and he missed the tide toward the end of the swim, making him swim more than the standard 21-mile crossing and work three hours longer than his goal.

Still, if the peak of climbing is scaling Mt. Everest, the apex of long distance swimming is crossing the English Channel, and Muenzer is enjoying his view from the top.

He hopes his story might inspire others who want to swim the channel to pursue their dream.

"It's overcoming your fears and overcoming pain," he said. "When you swim through something like this, you have a lot of time to think. It was a time to reflect."

He's kicking around the idea of organizing a relay swim from Florida to Cuba in a few years, but for now he plans to spend more time with his family after he returns to Elgin Wednesday.