While we’re scarfing down Egg McMuffins before starting our resolutions tomorrow, there’s one lady putting all of us to shame.
Marcia Cleveland, a 54-year-old marathon swimmer from Illinois, is spending her New Year’s Eve swimming across Tampa Bay.
She started near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge around 6 a.m. and is swimming all the way to Ben T. Davis beach on the Tampa side of the Courtney Campbell Causeway.
Cleveland — who swam the English Channel, Lake Tahoe and water around Manhattan — will be joined in the Bay by all kinds of marine life like sharks and whatever our cities are spilling into Tampa Bay these days.
The best part is you can follow along by visiting Cleveland’s GPS tracker (as of 9 a.m. she was approaching the place where the St. Petersburg pier used to be). She expects to finish the swim in less than 12 hours, which is just in time for all of the live music you can take part in this New Year’s Eve.
If you’re looking for a taste of this experience, you can sign up for the 5K Tampa Bay Frogman Swim, which is set to take place on January 13, 2019. We'll see you at the pool.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2018 – Jan 3, 2019.