Wright State Newsroom – Wright State alum celebrates fiftieth birthday whereas swimming the English Channel « Wright State University

Wright State MBA graduate Amy Wamsley fulfilled a childhood dream by swimming the English Channel final summer season.

A fiftieth birthday is usually marked with particular events and presents. But Wright State University alum Amy Wamsley’s fiftieth birthday was additional particular. She celebrated her milestone birthday in the course of a grueling swim throughout the English Channel, a feat achieved by fewer than 3,000 folks since 1875.

The birthday was coincidental, however the swim definitely was not. It was the results of a childhood dream and 15 months of intensive coaching.

Wamsley, who earned an MBA with concentrations in management and project management from Wright State in 2005, entered the water off Dover, England, round 1 a.m. native time on June 13. Nearly 17 hours later, she made her technique to a seashore in France, masking greater than 25 miles.

The Yellow Springs resident was accompanied on the swim by a piloted small boat carrying two buddies for medical and ethical assist and a crew member who offered her diet all through the swim.

Rules of the swim, overseen by the Channel Swimming Association, required Wamsley to remain about 16 ft from the boat, and nobody was to the touch her for the length, till she stepped onto dry land in France.

“I first dreamed of swimming the English Channel when I was 12,” Wamsley stated. “I came across a magazine article about swimmers who completed the challenge. At the time, I was a competitive swimmer, and I remember thinking, ‘If they can do it, so can I.’”

Over the years, Wamsley constructed a profession within the nonprofit sector, specializing in human sources. She earned a certification from the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance and continued to pursue her ardour for swimming.

In January 2024, she determined to completely decide to her swimming journey. After reaching a crossroads between pursuing new employment or persevering with her coaching, she selected to comply with her dream. That selection led her to take the tougher path, dedicating herself to coaching whereas launching her nonprofit, Amy’s SwimVenture, and Variegated Solutions, LLC, which supplies strategic HR and enterprise consulting providers.

So Wamsley dived in, so to talk. She educated domestically, in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay, which, she stated, is taken into account by specialists to have circumstances much like the Channel. She raised funds to assist her effort by her nonprofit and occasions organized by buddies in Yellow Springs.

Wamsley additionally used the swim to lift consciousness about two key points: water conservation and defying stereotypes about physique picture and getting old in girls.

“I don’t look like someone who’s going to swim the English Channel,” Wamsely stated. “It doesn’t matter what our bodies look like. We can still encourage each other to succeed in whatever it is in life that we want to succeed in.”

Swimming the Channel was bodily and mentally demanding. Wamsley stated she smelled and tasted what gave the impression to be gasoline early within the swim, which, together with movement illness, prompted her to vomit. After taking remedy, she settled right into a freestyle rhythm and stayed centered for the rest of the 16-hour, 56-minute, and 40-second journey.

In addition to coaching to swim the English Channel, Amy Wamsley launched a nonprofit, Amy’s SwimVenture, which focuses on water conservation and defying stereotypes about physique picture and getting old in girls, and Variegated Solutions, LLC, which supplies strategic HR and enterprise consulting providers.

About midway by the swim, her buddies hung a “Happy Birthday” signal on the boat, a second she known as “a rejuvenation.”

As she neared a French seashore, fatigue set in.

“I was exhausted, but my body wasn’t sore,” she stated. “I knew I was prepared. I had to dig deep, but I knew I could do this.”

As she rose from the water to make her technique to the seashore, a surfer approached her to supply assist. “I told him not to touch me or I would be disqualified,” she stated.

Fulfilling the foundations of the swim, she then boarded the boat to return to Dover.

Wamsley isn’t carried out swimming but. In September, she was certainly one of 500 swimmers chosen to participate within the first organized swim down the Chicago River in practically a century, an occasion made attainable after enhancements in water high quality. Participants raised funds to assist ALS analysis and swim classes for Chicago youth.

She additionally plans to swim all 16 of Ohio’s designated scenic rivers to lift consciousness about water high quality, in collaboration with native stream conservation teams, and proceed selling optimistic physique picture.

She was not too long ago honored by the State of Ohio for excellent achievement and acknowledged as a superior athlete and an exemplary Ohioan for crossing the channel.

Wamsley stated a lot has occurred to her up to now yr: “I got laid off. My father died, I started an LLC and the nonprofit. And I’m still here. Every once in a while, I cry. I did it.”