For Niles-Buchanan YMCA head swim coach, Notre Dame graduate student and applied math major Maggie Regan, swimming is a break from the doldrums of doctoral research.
But for Regan, 24, who grew up swimming the ocean near her home in New Jersey and who took to the Notre Dame pools and Lake Michigan like a fish, the swimmer and student could not help but think about what she wanted to swim next.
“Ever since I graduated from college and stopped doing competitive swimming, I didn’t have a goal to work for,” Regan said.
So when a group of friends from home called in February to say they would be swimming the English Channel as a relay team to raise money to combat childhood cancer through Swim Across America, Regan felt it was the next perfect way to challenge her swimming abilities.

Growing up a swimmer
It wasn’t hard to find Regan when she was a child growing in New Jersey. It was likely that she was in the pool with her club swim team or exploring the water along Jersey shore.
By 8, she was swimming competitively and would continue to compete in high school and throughout her undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she swam as a division three swimmer.
When she moved to South Bend a little more than a year ago, she swam all the Notre Dame pools and Lake Michigan. In August, she was hired as a swim coach at the Niles-Buchanan YMCA.
“I love to swim and I love to train but having a goal helps get me there,” Regan said.
Preparing to swim in the English Channel first required practicing for a qualifying swim in San Francisco on Aug. 20 and then training, training and more training.
Each week, she would swim 12,000 meters, preferably in an outdoor lake to help her body be able to adjust to swim in varying temperatures.

Swimming the English Channel
“Half of the time I felt like it didn’t happen,” Regan said. “It was really cool to push myself in a way that I have never
done before.”
At 2 a.m. on Sept. 6, London time, 32 miles from the border of France, Regan was bobbing aboard a boat with a group of five other swimmers, including her close friends Mike Kerr and Sharon Clark, both in their 30s.
Regan was the fourth swimmer to pick up the relay and she had not anticipated how hard that first swim would be. It wasn’t that the water was too cold: a decently balmy 64 degrees – or that the weather was bad – slightly overcast, it was the darkness that suddenly got to her.
“That was pretty jarring for me,” Regan said.
But there was a voice inside Regan’s head that encouraged her to move forward. It was the voice of Justin Timberlake.
“(I) specifically download certain songs that I knew would pump me up to get me in a good place to do the swim,” Regan said.
During her daily practice she would play Timberlake’s “Drink You Away” and “Sunday Can Be Changed” by artist Chance. Now in the chilly darkness, those songs were like a beacon through the darkness and just like during practice, Regan put them on repeat inside her head as she swam the first few miles of her nearly 13- hour journey.
Regan and her friend Mike Kerr swam the last leg of the journey with the France shoreline in sight, after nearly 13 hours since their journey had began. Regan had swum about six of the 32 miles.
The group of six was able to raise $80,000 for Swim Across America. The money will aid in combatting childhood cancer through furthering research and also help families struggling to pay hospital bill. Regan said they thought it was a worthy cause and wanted to help raise awareness through their swim. All of the money raised went toward the nonprofit.

What’s next for Regan?
Regan said she is still letting her accomplishments on the English Channel sink in.
“I’m kind of letting this one settle a little bit,” she said. “And then I’m going to look into what other options there are.”
So for now, the graduate student and swimmer will be dreaming of the next goal while she helps local children learn to swim and love the water like she does.