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H.S. Girls Swimming: Ridgewood freshman competes in Manhattan marathon
Friday, June 28, 2013
BY RON FOX
CORRESPONDENT
The Ridgewood News
Charlotte Samuels has a desire to immerse herself in nature, so what better way to do it than attempt to swim 28.5 miles through several rivers?
That is precisely what the 15-year-old Ridgewood High School freshman went for on June 8 when she joined a small group of competitors trying to circumnavigate Manhattan Island in their bathing suits.
The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim is one leg of the Triple Crown of Swimming, along with the English Channel and Catalina (Calif.) Channel crossings, both of which Samuels plans to attack in the near future.
“I started swimming competitively at age 6 with the Ridgewood Breakers, and I liked it a lot,” said the 5-foot-8 Samuels, who continued with the Breakers for nine years before switching over this year to the Bergen Barracudas.
However, pools could not contain Samuels’ desire for further challenges. A friend’s mother mentioned a 1.2-mile swim in the National Harbor portion of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. in 2010, and the young swimmer was hooked by the mystery and challenge.