Strawberry swimmer circles Lake Tahoe as training for 840-mile California coast swim

Catherine Breed swims through choppy waters during her 60-mile circumference swim around Lake Tahoe from July 16 to 21. The Strawberry resident followed the Lake Tahoe Water Trail over six consecutive days, spending 25 hours and 13 minutes in active swimming time. At right is her swim-tracking map showing her route along the trail. (via Catherine Breed)

After Catherine Breed graduated in 2015 from the University of California at Berkeley, where she cemented herself in the Golden Bears’ swim history books, she knew she wanted to continue in the sport, but she didn’t want to race.

Her love of ocean swims, which she’d complete as practice while at Cal, eventually led her to San Francisco’s Dolphin Club, known for its open-water swimming. Members there suggested to her that because “you’re pretty fast and you’re not intimidated by the cold and the current and the waves, you should try the English Channel.”

“That’s crazy,” the Strawberry resident recalls of her initial response. “Why would anyone swim 21 miles?”

Breed, 32, has since built a name for herself as an endurance and long-distance swimmer, taking on the English Channel, Monterey Bay, Catalina Channel and the Cook Strait, which separates New Zealand’s North and South islands.

More recently, she swam the roughly 60-mile circumference of Lake Tahoe, following the length of the Lake Tahoe Water Trail from July 16 to 21. While others have swam the lake’s circumference, Breed is believed to be the first swimmer to take on the trail over consecutive days as training for her planned endeavor to swim the roughly 840 miles of California’s coast, from its border with Oregon to the international border with Mexico.

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