What Swimming Down the Hudson River Taught Me About Teamwork

I recently spent a week swimming 120 miles down the Hudson River. I was in pursuit of becoming the first person to complete all seven stages of the world’s longest marathon swim, “8 Bridges,” in seven consecutive days. Throughout that journey, both in and out of the water, I observed some valuable lessons in teamwork.

Now it may look like a solo endeavor, but ultra-marathon swimming is undoubtably a team sport. I can say with full confidence that I wouldn’t have been successful without my best-in-class team. This team consisted of a boat captain, an official observer, a kayaker, personal crew members, and me of course.

I want to share seven memories from the swim, each giving a glimpse into the challenge I undertook and the lesson in teamwork that was brought to light.

STAGE 1: Calm Your Nerves

Over 18 miles on the docket for day one. It wouldn’t typically be an issue for me to get into the groove and begin enjoying myself; however, restless sleep the night prior and what felt like immense pressure on my back had me tense. I was unable to relax my shoulders and felt robotic in my swim stroke. The rules of the event allow your personal crew member to swim alongside you each day for hour-long blocks with minimum hour-long breaks in between. The relief I had at the 1- and 3-hour marks when my friend and training partner Claire joined me in the water was game-changing. The familiarity of Claire’s smooth swim stroke to my left immediately calmed my nerves and took me to the river and ocean venues that we frequent back home for morning training swims.

Surrounding myself with good team members helps to bring out my best, especially in situations of high stress. I, like many, have a bad habit of feeling like I need to take the brunt of the pressure by myself and shelter my team, but this was a good reminder that I have people willing to stand (or swim) by my side and to embrace them.

STAGE 2: The Team Behind the Team

The first of two 20-milers and what is considered the 2nd hardest stage of this seven-day challenge awaited me in Stage 2. Now sore from the day prior and wanting to give this swim the respect it deserved, my mood was stoic, quiet, and serious. I was looking for motivation anywhere I could find it and luckily, Claire forgot her swim gear in the car. After handing her an extra pair of goggles, I started looking through my swim caps. For context, back home Claire and I are part of a summer open water swim group and winter pool swim team, each of which have their own swim caps. One for each of us felt like a perfect pairing on Claire’s last day supporting me. After a few hours, it turned into just the motivation I needed. As I repeatedly looked at the logo on Claire’s cap, stroke after stroke, I spent hours thinking about our community of friends and training partners. I thought about the emotional goodbyes at my last training swims. Knowing the magnitude of the challenge I was taking on and the work that I had put in, big hugs had been given and tears were shed.

My 8 Bridges team may have just been the five of us on any given day, but I always felt the support of my broader team. From friends and family back home to the organizers of this event, there is a strong cohort of people in my life that made this endeavor a possibility and supported me in different ways. 

STAGE 3: Trenches, Rolled Sleeves… Hard Work Together

Stage 3 was supposed to be a short and quick 13 miles from Poughkeepsie to Beacon, but as one of my coaches always says about the open water, “you never know what you’re gonna git!” Headwinds equal head chop on the water, meaning that I had to swim straight into oncoming waves. From start to finish, I swam through the toughest conditions I’d ever experienced. The day’s swim took an hour longer than what I had accounted for. I repeatedly got buried by waves that were cresting over my head and swatting my arms away as I tried to take strokes. As mentioned, the event allows for your personal crew to swim alongside you in intervals and when all was said and done, my crew members Claire and Davis swam a combined ~52 miles by my side during this 120-mile journey. On this day though, I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for not wanting to get in the water with me and endure what the river was putting me through, but Davis was there. As Davis picked up on day 3 where Claire left off, he swam the max amount of time allowed, putting in the hard work to cut through the waves and chop staying right next to me.

Rest assured, being in the kayak or on the boat that day were no easy tasks either (ask me for a video), but my team was ready to stay in the fight. Even as the conditions worsened with each passing hour, everybody worked hard and everyone battled together on that day to give us a chance for the next.  

STAGE 4: Outlets During Hardship

On one hand, 15 miles through the lower Hudson Valley was set to be beautiful and sentimental but on the other, I knew a storm was lurking and had the potential to play the role of spoiler. After a sunny first few hours with amazing views of Bannerman’s Island and Breakneck Ridge, the sky turned dark and the rain began to pour. My biggest fear was to be pulled out for reasons beyond my control and I was swimming scared. Any moment, the whistle could blow and I’d be called back to the boat. That fear had paralyzed my mind and this outcome felt inevitable. What I got instead… was my best friend pulling up alongside me with a big goofy smile and an overexaggerated loping swim stroke that he later described as trying to look like a camel. I couldn’t help but laugh at him between breaths. At the next “feed,” where I would briefly stop to tread water while taking on nutrition and hydration, Davis immediately started talking to Alex, my kayaker, about how fun this is. In torrential downpour, the three of us were joking about this being “house painting weather” and “bocce ball weather.”

This storm was one of several hardships faced over the seven days, but each was met with the resilience of our team. There wasn’t a level of fear, doubt, pain, or soreness that the team couldn’t take off my mind with humor or incessant positivity.

STAGE 5: Working in the Background

In the months leading up, one stage haunted me. It was the 20 miles from Garrison to Tarrytown. Ranked the toughest stage and carrying a low completion rate, this swim is named “the Beast.” I could recount the difficulties of swimming against the current for the first three hours, the cuts and scrapes on my hands and torso from jagged rocks in the shallows, or the last five hours of relentless chop that was once again pulling me under the surface. Instead, I want to reflect on something I learned about only after the swim was over. As Davis and I later debriefed on the day, he told me about how Matt, our boat captain, was constantly checking our position in the river. Using the boat's sonar to trace the deepest areas of the river, he was communicating over the radio to Alex non-stop, directing him to spots where we would best benefit from the current after it had turned in our favor.

Unseen to me at the time, my team was persistently working to give me the absolute best chance to beat the odds and complete this stage. Everyone on the team had their jobs and every day, each team member was going above and beyond to help us get to the finish.

STAGE 6: Helping Enjoy What You Do

Everything about day 6 felt like a dream. Just under 16 miles to the George Washington Bridge, surpassing the 100-mile threshold, and landing in Manhattan… home. I came to the Hudson River to be challenged and for five days I had been challenged; but I felt no grief with the blue skies and calm waters we got on this day. As we zipped down, all five of us were having fun and enjoying ourselves. Davis and I were chasing each other around and basically playing in the water while still traveling south at an elite-level swim speed. Camilla, my official observer, had jumped in herself and swam around to cool off. I’d catch a glimpse of Alex reclining in his kayak, soaking up some rays. Then when it finished all too quickly, we fired up the grills at the Inwood Canoe Club and ate burgers. This is what it’s all about.

The five days prior and the looming difficulty of Stage 7, and the New York Harbor waiting for me next, were nothing short of emotional rollercoasters. But when the opportunity showed itself to remove the pressures for a day and just be present doing the thing that I love, my team was ready and made sure that I took full advantage.

STAGE 7: Trust. Your. Team.

Over 18 miles separates the George Washington and Verrazano Narrows bridges in New York City. Over 18 miles separated me from etching a small piece of history into the record book of the open water swimming community. I’d come this far but by no means was this stage a given. The prolific route down the west side of Manhattan, through the New York Harbor, passing Governor’s Island and the Statue of Liberty, and finishing between Brooklyn and Staten Island drew six other swimmers to join me for Stage 7. I woke up that morning to an update that my splash time was pushed back, and I’d start my swim an hour after the other participants. Alex and my team made this decision, believing that my speed would allow me to avoid an extra hour of swimming against the current at the start and still get me to the Verrazano within the next tidal window. Knowing the difficulty of this stage, I was a little nervous about this. However, at this point in the journey, there was no question about it… I trust my team. Of the seven, I was the only swimmer to complete the stage on that final day.

Across seven days and 120 miles of river, there were a lot of things I needed to trust my team with. All I really had was a cap, goggles, and the job of putting one hand in front of the other. It was my team in the decision-making roles around logistics, safety, weather, boat traffic, etc. They trusted me to swim and give everything I had… I trusted them to take care of me while I did so.

In my professional life, I am constantly thinking about team composition. It plays a role in every search, team build, and advisory that our clients engage my team on. These seven lessons aren’t necessarily novel but observing them in a new way and in such a unique and challenging context has been enlightening.

I don’t think I’m anywhere close to absorbing all the insights that I’ll ultimately take away from my swim endeavor, but I look forward to carrying them through into the rest of my life as they come.

And to my team, thank you.