Kim Middleton

Kim's three crossings of Lake Ontario between 1985 and 1995 fail to tell the complete story of her various attempts (1992, 1993 and 1994) to complete the elusive two-way swim - elusive because of the variable weather conditions on the lake.

Her first cross-lake swim on August 16-17, 1985 was completed in 18:34; it started at Niagara-on-the-Lake at 9:47 pm and she finished at Marilyn Bell Park. Apart from some chop during the first hour of the swim, it was generally calm, and Kim maintained a stroke rate of 64-68 per minute freestyle throughout the swim.

  She competed in the 32nd Lac St Jean race on 26-27 July 1986. That year, the race was a two-way swim, Roberval-Peribonka-Roberval, of 40-miles (64 km) . She completed the one-way 32 km crossing from Roberval to Peribonka in 16:43:10.

  In 1987, at age 28, she became the first person to complete a marathon swim on Lake Simcoe. Her swim started at Barrie on Lake Simcoe on July 31st, headed north and through The Narrows into Lake Couchiching, before heading west to finish at Orillia town dock on August 1st - a distance of 26 miles (42 km) in 17 hours 14 minutes. The last 15 km were completed in very choppy water with one-meter-high waves - making the swim tougher, she said, than her Lake Ontario crossing in the previous year. Kim was a counsellor at a group home and her swim was aimed at raising funds for associations for the handicapped in Guelph and Orillia.

  On 7th August 1988, Kim completed the first two-way crossing of Lake Erie. She started at 01:45 am from the eastern side of Port Abino lighthouse - due to the constraints of Private land in that area, Kim swam from the Zodiac to the shore to start her swim. She completed her crossing to Sturgeon Point in 7 hours 8 minutes and immediately resumed her return journey to land at Crystal Beach in a total time of 18:00. After the greetings at the shore, an ambulance took her to Fort Erie hospital for a check-up. Water temperature was around 25 degrees C throughout the swim, waves ranged up to 1.5 metres high, and her stroke-rate held at 64. 

  In 1989, Kim swam the English Channel in 16:33 from England to France.

  In 1992, Kim attempted to swim North to South as a first leg of a double crossing of Lake Ontario but the swim had to be evacuated due to high waves. On 04-06 Sep 1993 she completed a north to south swim from Humber Bay Park in Toronto to Jordan Harbour in 19:00 and got ___ km back but had to abandon the swim due to an asthma attack. Finally, on 30-31 Jul 1994, she swam from Humber Bay Park to Beamsville in 26:14 but had to abandon the swim after 10 km due to ___

 Kim has served regularly on SSO's board.