53-Year Old Tries to Swim from Upstate New York to NYC, Did He Finish It?

A 53-year old British-South African endurance swimmer sought out to do something that sounds nearly impossible: swim all 315 miles of the Hudson River. The swim began in the Adirondack Mountains, with an intended destination of New York City in a journey that was slated to take one month to complete.

Somehow, some way, that swim was completed successfully on Wednesday.

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53-Year Old Lewis Pugh Completes Swim of Entire Hudson River This Week

A story from New York Upstate and other sources told the story of 53-year old Lewis Pugh, a world-renowned endurance swimmer, who successfully completed his 315-mile swimming journey down the Hudson River earlier this week.

Pugh started on August 13th at Lake Tear of the Clouds, high on Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains, and after swimming roughly 10 miles per day for a month straight, finished Wednesday at the lower tip of Manhattan.

As noted by Upstate, Pugh chose to run for some of the early portions of the journey, as areas of the Hudson River in the Adirondacks are too shallow for swimming. He also avoided areas with heavy currents and large rocks in the water.

Pugh was the first swimmer to attempt, and complete, this task since Christopher Swain, who accomplished the feat back in 2004.

Both Swain and Pugh had similar goals in-mind when attempting this swim: promote the continued clean-up of the Hudson River. It is noted in the article that, due to heavy amounts of pollution in the water, Pugh would consistently drink Pepto Bismol before starting each day's swim.

He would also regularly have to swim around floating plastic and other garbage during his journey.

That said, Pugh still shared a few glowing remarks to share about the potential of the Hudson River in the coming years, should clean-up efforts continue:

“There is no other river in the whole world where at the source, you’ve got beavers, you’ve got bears, you’ve got vultures,” Pugh told The Associated Press before a leg of his swim recently. “And then at the end, you come underneath the George Washington Bridge and you breathe to your left-hand side and you see these amazing skyscrapers.” - Lewis Pugh, via New York Upstate