‘Finding the enjoyable’ within the water once more • The Yellow Springs News

Local resident Amy Wamsley had assumed she wouldn’t be swimming the Chicago River once more this yr.

She was among the many 300 swimmers within the first organized open-water swim within the river in 98 years final September, and had utilized for this yr’s occasion, however wasn’t certain she’d been chosen. Still wanting to assist the hassle, she contacted organizers about volunteering as an alternative.

“They said, ‘Why are you volunteering? You’re swimming,’” Wamsley informed the News in a current interview.

So Wamsley will certainly return to Chicago for a two-mile swim Sunday, Sept. 20 — however the delayed information places her a few month behind on fundraising. To take part, she wants to lift $1,750 by Sept. 6.

The swim, organized by nonprofit A Long Swim, raises cash for ALS analysis and swim-safety training for youth in underserved Chicago communities. A Long Swim, based by marathon swimmer and ALS advocate Doug McConnell, has raised greater than $3 million for ALS analysis at Northwestern University’s Ozdinler Lab.

Folks eager about serving to Wamsley attain her fundraising objective can go to runsignup.com/Aswimventure to be taught extra.

Wamsley mentioned she’s a giant supporter of A Long Swim and the work they do — however signing up for Chicago had one other, quieter and extra private function for her. When she utilized, she mentioned, she was nonetheless struggling to return to the water after months of barely swimming in any respect.

Last yr’s inaugural Chicago River Swim got here three months after the defining swim of Wamsley’s life. On June 13, 2025 — her fiftieth birthday — she crossed the 21-mile English Channel in 16 hours and 56 minutes, fulfilling a objective she’d set when she was 12.

Taking up the mantle of that objective once more after greater than three many years, she mentioned, meant that the Channel turned the enduring rhythm to which she attuned her life: she swam every single day, coaching for hours. She organized her life round qualifying swims. Her focus narrowed to following by on a objective that had now develop into a promise — one she’d made each to herself and to a swath of family members and neighborhood supporters.

And when it was lastly completed — the monumental factor she had all the time mentioned she’d do — she got here dwelling. The neighborhood that had adopted her progress throughout the English Channel with bated breath rallied round her, stopping her on the road to congratulate her. Everyone — together with this information outlet — wished to know what was subsequent.

“And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I don’t even know,’” she mentioned.

She’d skilled the very best excessive of her life as much as that time when she stepped onto the sand in France, however she hadn’t recognized to anticipate the emotional crash that might come after. Other endurance athletes later informed Wamsley that it may be a typical response after reaching an unlimited, long-sought objective: with out the Channel forward of her, she discovered herself making an attempt to divine what mattered within the life that got here after it. She saved herself transferring by final September’s Chicago swim — the subsequent objective on her listing — however within the months after, she struggled to remain afloat amid a despair she mentioned was not like something she’d skilled earlier than.

Wamsley mentioned she began measuring herself in opposition to new targets, new deadlines of her personal making; if she missed one, she mentioned, it felt as if she’d failed publicly — even when nobody else knew the deadline existed.

“I put those made-up targets on myself,” she mentioned.

Before the Channel, Wamsley had typically skilled between two and 6 hours a day, however for about eight months after Chicago, she mentioned, there have been months when she swam solely a few times. She started retreating from social circles, stopped answering some emails and, for a time, stepped away from Amy’s Swimventure, the nonprofit she based in 2024 round water conservation and inspiring girls to pursue their targets.

“It was like, ‘Wait a minute — I can’t go out there and inspire people or help educate about saving rivers if I can’t even get up and take care of myself,’” she mentioned.

So she appeared for assist: She began working with a therapist, and began the gradual grind by reconsidering the strain she had placed on herself — and the way in which others had come to see her.

As if as an example that time, throughout her interview with the News, a girl passing close by overheard that Wamsley had swum the English Channel and approached to say how inspiring the accomplishment was to her. Wamsley acquired the reward warmly, and the lady parted with a smile.

Interactions like these, Wamsley mentioned, are one thing she’s been serious about for a lot of the final yr. She takes critically the truth that her swim has meant one thing to individuals past herself — significantly, she mentioned, at a time when individuals are in search of causes to imagine tough issues, good issues, are nonetheless potential.

“There’s not a lot to celebrate, and I’m glad that I was able … to do something people could celebrate,” she mentioned.

But for some time, Wamsley mentioned she struggled with the truth that being an instance additionally left her feeling that she wanted to maintain proving that she was worthy of it.

“I didn’t know how to handle it,” she mentioned.

Through the continuing work of attuning to her personal, smaller rhythms, Wamsley mentioned she’s grateful that individuals saved asking her, “What’s next?” If, at first, the strain to do one thing as massive because the English Channel felt like an excessive amount of, as soon as she started to work by how she felt, the query settled into one thing extra grounded and private.

“It helped drive me to think, ‘Remember who you are, and what you’ve done,’” she mentioned. “And that’s been really, really helpful.”

Wamsley mentioned she’s struggled with how a lot of her despair she desires individuals to find out about. When requested throughout the interview whether or not it was one thing she wished saved out of print, she mentioned it wasn’t — and that being sincere about what adopted the Channel can also be a part of taking the accountability of inspiring others critically.

“I know there’s so many other people who struggle with it,” she mentioned. “We don’t talk about it enough.”

One of the targets that had lingered by her most tough interval lastly took Wamsley again to the water this June: For her 51st birthday, she spent four-and-a-half days visiting every of Ohio’s 17 scenic rivers, moving into the water — typically swimming, typically solely briefly — and studying concerning the waterways alongside the way in which.

The journey started painfully. Stepping down a muddy financial institution into the Olentangy River, Wamsley slipped on a tree root and sliced open her hand.

“I lifted up my hand, and I had blood dripping all the way down,” she mentioned.

But she cleaned and bandaged the wound and went into the river anyway, then monitored the lower by the remainder of the journey. Other hazards introduced themselves: At one cease, a companion noticed {a partially} obscured signal warning of an undertow as Wamsley ready to enter. Heavy June storms additionally meant elevated micro organism ranges in some waterways, requiring her to examine obtainable water-quality info as she traveled — the form of remark she’d all the time completed as a part of Amy’s Swimventure.

To that finish, Wamsley mentioned she’s spoken at an Ohio Department of Natural Resources annual assembly about water conservation and “primary contact” — direct bodily contact with rivers and different waterways — and hopes to return to educating individuals about what she realized throughout the 17-river journey.

Thus, Wamsley is starting to make room for each swimming and her nonprofit work once more. Finding a distant job that enables her to coach within the mornings has helped: She’s again to swimming a number of days every week and has reconnected along with her coach, Dan Simonelli. She mentioned she intends to pursue some bigger open-water swims once more down the street.

Wamsley mused on a chunk of recommendation her coach has been providing her for months, time and again: Get into the water and “find the fun.” She mentioned she’s taken that recommendation very a lot to coronary heart.

“I’m finally starting to find the drive,” she mentioned. “I’m finally starting to find the fun.”

Those who want to contribute to Wamsley’s Chicago River Swim fundraiser can go to runsignup.com/Aswimventure.