'Your body can start to fall apart': B.C. woman to attempt 42 km swim around Manhattan

A B.C. woman says she will be pushing through garbage and pollution as she swims around Manhattan Island as part of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.

Jessi Harewicz has already swum the English Channel and the Catalina Channel as part of the trio of marathons.

Next up: the waters surrounding the Big Apple.

"I think for me, personally, [it's] going to be more difficult," Harewicz told The Early Edition's Angela Sterritt.

"There's a lot of noise, I think, off the city you have city on either side of you for most of the swim."

The Gotham leg of the challenge requires swimming in three rivers that surround New York's most populous borough: the Hudson, Harlem and the East River.

That's over 42 kilometres. Depending on the current strength, she said, it will take between eight and 12 hours.

"For any big swim ... You're always a little bit on edge," Harewicz said.

"I think if you weren't scared or nervous, I think there would be something wrong or you don't want to get overconfident because things can happen.

"Your body can start to fall apart. You mentally can start to fall apart."

New challenge

Harewicz spent Monday in the waters off Jericho Beach in Vancouver practising for the third act of her challenge.

She's been taking pills to counteract seasickness and steeling herself for "salt mouth" where the salt water acts like sandpaper in the mouth and creates sores.

"They have much different things to deal with," she explained when asked about the differences between Vancouver and New York conditions.

"We'll deal with seaweed and mulch and driftwood and, apparently, it's going to be garbage and pollution that I'm going to have to deal with there."

So why does she do it?

Empowerment, she said. The feeling of pushing through pain and misery. Being in the moment. The freedom of being out in the open water. Escape.

And, since she's doing her training with her dad, the chance to deepen the father-daughter bond.

"We managed to get through it together," she said. "It's created a bond that I don't think we've ever really anticipated happening in my 30s."

Harewicz will attempt her swim June 1. If she succeeds, she will be the third Canadian to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.