For Melbourne marathon swimmers Sally Catt and Denise Clarke, the open water isn’t a racetrack. It’s a place to practise patience, test resilience, and surrender to the long, unpredictable journey between coastlines. Both women freely admit they aren’t fast, and they don’t pretend to be.

Yet between them, they’ve conquered some of the world’s toughest swims, earning Triple Crown status not through speed or spectacle, but through persistence, preparation, and an unshakeable belief that marathon swimming belongs to everyone, not just the quick.

For Ms Catt and Ms Clarke, the magic isn’t in nailing the perfect tide or touching the wall first. It’s in moving steadily through hours of shifting water, managing bodies and minds over long distances, and trusting deeply in their crews, their training, and themselves.

“I’m definitely not a fast swimmer,” said Ms Clarke.

“But as long as there are no time restrictions, I get the job done.”

“I never think of not making it… I’m a glass-is-full type of person.”

Ms Catt shares that same sense of humour and acceptance around pace, openly acknowledging where she sits in the field and proving that joy, grit, and big swims don’t belong exclusively to the front of the pack.

“In shorter swims, I’m happy if I’m not on the last page of the results, but often I am!” she laughed.

“So if I can’t beat them, I just go longer until there’s only one page of results.”

Both swimmers say the same thing in their own way: speed is optional. Commitment isn’t.

A journey powered by determination, not pace

Neither Sally nor Denise fits the traditional image of a marathon swimmer. They’re not the swimmers who slip effortlessly through the water like seals, nor the first names etched into finish-line boards.
Their superpower is different, a blend of patience, preparation, and a quiet willingness to keep moving forward, one stroke at a time.

“I always focus on what I can control,” said Ms Clarke.

“I think about improving my stroke, keeping feeds to a minimum, and trusting my crew.”

“If you put the effort into training, whatever happens on the day is up to the gods.”

Time, more than speed, has been the great challenge for Ms Clarke, not just the hours spent moving through the water, but the cut-offs, clock-watching, and quiet battles that come with being a slower swimmer.

“The biggest challenge that I have encountered being a slower swimmer is time,” said Ms Clarke

“I like to say I get value for money, but being pulled from the water because I don’t meet cut-off times is frustrating.”

Being in the water longer means everything has to be managed more carefully, from nutrition and hydration to skin protection, pacing, and the small decisions that can make or break a long day in open water.

“Nutrition becomes critical,” said Ms Clarke.

“I’ve had my nutritional plan since my first English Channel swim in 2018. I rotate five different drinks and make sure I’ve got plenty ready to go if I’m in longer than planned.”

“I lather myself really well in a combination of lanolin and Vaseline to avoid chafing, because when you’re in the water for that long, small things can become big problems.”

For Ms Catt, success comes from finding a pace that’s sustainable and staying there, trusting that consistency, rather than surges or speed, is what carries her through the long hours of an ultra swim.

“On ultra swims, it helps to think it’s not a race,” said Ms Catt.

“Start evenly, stay steady, and trust your training. I’ve learned I can hold the same pace for hours and hours.”

“Like Denise, I just keep swimming. It’s always ‘feed to feed’ every 30 minutes. I focus on my stroke, I talk to my body. There’s usually something grumbling, but the grumbles move around.”

Learning to live with time and conditions

Both women speak with a calm acceptance about swims that last 10, 12, 14, even 16 hours, timeframes that would rattle many swimmers but barely register for them.

“What makes a slow swimmer successful isn’t speed,” said Ms Clarke.

“It’s persistence. It’s being able to say, ‘I’m still moving forward.’”

That persistence has been tested repeatedly. Ms Clarke recalls challenging conditions across many swims, including a Catalina Channel crossing where unexpected wind added more than an hour to her swim, and a Rottnest crossing that was abandoned due to weather.

“I didn’t think it was that bad and wanted to keep swimming,” said Ms Clarke.

“But I train in all conditions, so I’m prepared for whatever gets thrown at me.”

Ms Clarke’s first English Channel attempt was particularly brutal, unfolding as a long, punishing lesson in tides, rules, and resilience that tested her physically and mentally well beyond anything she had faced before.

“The tide took me way north, then back towards Cape Gris Nez, then towards the Calais Harbour entrance,” said Ms Clarke.

“I couldn’t land because of the tide, couldn’t cross the harbour entrance due to the French police, and couldn’t touch the breakwater because of ratification rules. So I had to get out.”

“I also later realised that I had pneumonia during the swim, which I thought was asthma.”

“But I didn’t let that failed attempt get to me, and I went back the next year and got the job done, successfully completing the English Channel.”

Finding marathon swimming, almost by accident

What’s striking about both women is that neither set out with marathon ambitions. Both were drawn in gradually, by community, curiosity, and a growing love for long water.

Ms Clarke learned to swim as a child in New Zealand, but didn’t truly discover open water until moving to Melbourne.

“I joined the Brighton Baths gym, and one Saturday in May 2015, I was invited to join a swim group,” said Ms Clarke.

“The water was 10 degrees. They swam in skins but were happy for me to wear a wetsuit because I wasn’t used to water that cold.”

By October, when the water had warmed to 14 degrees, Ms Clarke had ditched the wetsuit and was swimming just in her togs, just like the others in her group.

Soon after, Ms Clarke was talked into swimming Rottnest, without fully understanding what that meant.

“I had no idea what Rottnest was, but thought it sounded like fun,” said Ms Clarke.

“I went to swim squad for the first time ever, and my coach Butch helped me with stroke and pace.”

“I then completed the 19.6km swim in 2016, fueled purely on bananas and multiple Powerades, which was not fun and still to this day I can’t eat a banana.”

For Ms Catt, the pathway began earlier, growing up landlocked in Yorkshire, England.

“I loved swimming as a kid. I did swim squad in our local 27.5-yard pool, entered a few galas, but medals didn’t come my way very often, and I retired at 11,” said Ms Catt.

“It wasn’t until much later in life, when I was 40 and living in Sydney, that I did my first ocean swim from Coogee to Bondi.”

“I came nearly last, but absolutely loved it and definitely got the ocean swimming bug.”

Ms Catt later moved to Melbourne, and that’s when her marathon swimming journey really started to take place.

“When I moved, everyone was wearing wetsuits for the open water events,” said Ms Catt.

“My wetsuit days were short-lived and only lasted one event because I was so claustrophobic in it.”

“I found the Brighton ice-burgers, and they were all about swimming long, cold, and without wetsuits. So I rose to their challenge and jumped on the no-wetsuit train.”

When slow swimmers go longer

Neither Ms Clarke nor Ms Catt initially dreamed of the English Channel, but qualifying wasn’t straightforward, with pathways shaped by cut-off times, qualifying swims, and the quiet persistence required to keep chasing opportunities when speed wasn’t on their side.

“My sights were set on Rottnest,” said Ms Catt.

“The Bloody Big Swim (11km) on the Mornington Peninsula was a qualifier, so I signed up and prepared to do it.”

“The cut-off time was 4 hours 15 minutes. My time was 4 hours 30 minutes, so my qualifying journey continued.”

“I ended up going to Canberra to do a 9km swim at Lake Burleigh Griffin, and I qualified.”

Ms Catt’s first Rottnest crossing, completed at 52 years old in 8 hours and 13 minutes, offered a stark lesson in how conditions often hit slower swimmers hardest.

“I was 237th out of 252 swimmers, so I was on the last page of results,” said Ms Catt.

“The faster swimmers start early in the Rottnest Channel Swim and are in the pub by 1 pm. But unfortunately for us slower swimmers, we’re still out there when the Fremantle Doctor blows in, so we have four hours of tough conditions instead of 30 minutes.”

During her first Rottnest swim, Ms Catt vomited for the final four hours but refused to stop.

“It’s just a case of keeping the mindset that you’re going to finish, and eventually you do, unless there’s a time restriction.”

Time cut-offs would later derail a Port-to-Pub attempt, part of the Australian Triple Crown, when she and Ms Clarke were stopped after 20km.

“We knew that given the opportunity, we wouldn’t stop until the job was done,” she said.

“I don’t think there should be time restrictions on ultra-marathon challenges if swimmers have proven themselves.”

Advice from swimmers who stayed the course

For those dreaming of big swims, Ms Clarke’s advice is practical and hard-earned.

“Do your research. Choose the best time of year for your swim. Make sure you’re comfortable with your pilot or captain and put the hard yards into training,” said Ms Clarke.

“Preparation is also key to being prepared for having a successful swim.”

“Have a solid nutritional plan. Practise with any medication well before your swim. And if you don’t succeed the first time, don’t give up.”

Ms Catt agrees, her own experiences reinforcing the idea that persistence, preparation, and self-belief matter far more than raw speed in marathon swimming.

“If all the conditions gang up on you, just persist at whatever pace you can,” said Ms Catt.

“Try to save a little energy, so if you’re told to push, if conditions change, you can for a period of time, without becoming too exhausted.”

Ms Catt and Ms Clarke are proof that marathon swimming doesn’t belong exclusively to the fast, the fearless, or the flawless.

Sometimes, it belongs to those who simply refuse to stop because slow, steady and unstoppable is key.