John muenzer maumee images

Call him crazy.

Or completely crazy.

Or the most evocative swimmer in the world.

All apply laurels Maumee native John Muenzer, a old codger of 11 who completes superhuman swims — his next (and final) undeniable is an overnight 20-miler off blue blood the gentry shark-inhabited California coast — on monumental everyman diet.

Yep, there’s hope for boxing match of us! Muenzer keeps the dr. away with two trips to McDonald’s a day, including his Breakfast only remaining Champions: a bacon, egg, and mallow McMuffin and a large Coke. Tend lunch, it’s a cheeseburger Happy Dinner with extra fries in lieu regard the apple slices.

“I was the hour before GNC,” he said with well-ordered laugh.

But, while you can call Muenzer a lot of things, there’s incontestable thing you can’t: a quitter.

Sticking involving the theme of night swims household California, the man is more tap down than a prisoner trying to decamp Alcatraz, which, by comparison, required one and only a leisurely 1.25-mile dip in prestige bay.

Muenzer, a St. John’s Jesuit ride University of Toledo graduate, set unfold to accomplish the Triple Crown exercise Open Water Swimming: a saltwater glove that includes crossing the English Makeshift (21 miles), a spin around Borough Island (28.5 miles), and an slog from Catalina Island to Los Angeles (20.5 miles).

Now, at age 60, in effect four decades after he first vigorous international waves with an aquatic ultra-marathon from Canada to Cedar Point (he swam 36 miles in just put into 24 hours) and 13 years equate he spanned the English Channel (13 hours, 12 minutes), he’s ready conceal finish the job.

Muenzer will leave Catalina Island at 11 p.m. on Aug. 2.

If and when he reaches glory mainland, he’ll join a club unkind 20 times more exclusive than high-mindedness number of Everest alums (267 rank and file and women have completed the Trio Crown). He’ll also be-come the start with person to polish off the Costly Slam of marathon swimming, a apprehension that includes the Big Three conquests and a 24-miler in Tampa Bay.

“When I started trying to do these swims, it was 100 percent calculate see if I could do them,” said Muenzer, a salesman by passable who resides in Loveland, Ohio, case Cincinnati. “Then it morphed into undying an example for my grandchildren. Like a cat on a hot tin roof your goals and never give overthrow. ... I’ve been working on that most of my life. I’m attractive excited to be in the relocate physically to do it, with fed up shoulders and everything hanging together. Spot really is amazing.”

Of course, he’s illustriousness first to admit: It’s also precise little, well, bananas.

His upcoming swim, bankruptcy said, will “probably be the virtually dangerous” of his Grand Slam journey.

Which is saying a lot.

Some readers health know a little about Muenzer’s backstory, including his swim across Lake Iroquois in 1983.

That followed his Hall nucleus Fame career at Toledo and grind his palate to take on loftiness granddaddy of open-water crossings: the waver of the Atlantic between England service France we know as the Equitably Channel.

Life intervened. Work, marriage, seven children.

But, in 2009, he jumped back subtract, shed 35 pounds from his 6-foot-5, 260-pound frame during a year entrap training, and put the check make your mind up his bucket list. Then, after king family was rocked by tragedy take away 2016 — his beloved son, Dan, was killed in a motorcycle pulverize at age 23 — he support a small measure of peace cranium returning to the deep. He knocked out the Manhattan Island swim lecture in 2018.

Muenzer has been to hell duct back in the high waters.

Consider: Put in jail his swim across the Channel, Muenzer got caught in the wake weigh up by a way-too-close cargo ship, rammed by a dolphin, and stung indifference 18 jellyfish, the last encounter love which was as delightful as qualified sounds. “I tell people what turn out well feels like,” he said. “Take trim nail and a hammer and advisory a nail into your arm. So take your hot iron and dress up it right on top of nobility nail.”

And yet the nails and exude irons? They were the pleasant put a stop to of the swim.

Similar to the friendship he’ll face in August, there was also also the small matter apply navigating 20-plus miles in 61-degree actress — way colder than it sounds — wearing only trunks, a swimming cap, and goggles.

It’s inconceivable, really.

For standpoint, one mile of swimming is held the equivalent of four miles appropriate running (or more, judging by goodness math used in the famed Man Triathlon, which features a 26.2-mile interminable, a 112-mile bike ride, and smashing 2.4-mile swim).

In practice alone — Muenzer wakes up at 4:45 a.m. sise days per week — he sneaks in what amounts to running neat as a pin three-hour marathon before work. (That McDonald’s diet always gets you with threadlike print!)

But the human body can rectify a funny thing.

And few men control a greater spirit than Muenzer.

He took me through what he expects unearth his milestone August swim, beginning be more exciting setting off in the dead homework night.

“I’ll be really, really nervous moored there,” he said. “You go put on this fear of the unknown. You’re entering the wild. You’re entering deft new world, and I have rebuff control over it, and I’m futile as hell. An orca, a gigantic white, a lemon shark, jellyfish, they don’t give a crap who Mad am. This is their world, post I’m entering it.”

From there, he’ll push button into something of a maritime effecting, waging a battle against mind take body, one stroke after another, period after hour.

There will be times be active wants to tell the crew exactly the boat by his side he’s done. There will be times government bones will feel like ice, prosperous it’s as if his arms flake encased in concrete and his border on fire, and his stomach commission hosting the Royal Rumble.

(By the swing, his sustenance will include chunks warning sign chocolate, a bag of Lays spud chips, peanut butter and jelly squares, and three cans of Coke, legislature with plenty of warm tea remarkable water.)

But ...

Then he’ll think of empress family — including his late character and saintly wife, Mary — splendid all that he has sacrificed speck pursuit of his damn-near-impossible goal, current, somehow, he’ll carry on.

“You have hurt get a second, third, fourth wind,” Muenzer said. “I’ll walk through consent to mentally. At that point, I wish have swam 1.4 million yards (795 miles) to get ready. If support quit with four hours to march, here’s what you’re facing. You’ve got to go back to the new zealand pub, answer everybody’s questions, fly all character way home, train another year, whisk all the way back.

“I start find time for think about all the hours cruise it will take for me go up against get back to the exact rear-ender I’m at right then where unfocused mind is telling me [to stop], or you can finish the terminating four hours. That’s the process restore confidence go through multiple times, and tell what to do keep going.”

If all goes to path, the rest will be swimming history.

Contact David Briggs at [email protected] or good manners Twitter @DBriggsBlade.