Swimmer to tackle the English Channel in memory of beloved coach

By Linda Hutchison

When you’re a young woman returning from the funeral of another young woman, what do you think about?

For some, it might be returning safely, quickly and gratefully to normal life. But if you’re Allison (Alli) DeFrancesco, a competitive swimmer, and you’ve just lost your favorite swim coach to cancer, you think in different terms – especially if you’re a cancer survivor yourself.

Just a year after receiving a bone marrow transplant in 2010 to combat Hodgkin’s lymphoma, DeFrancesco attended the funeral of her NYU swim coach Lauren Beam, who died at 32 of colon cancer. On the long flight back to San Diego, DeFrancesco found herself exploring new territory.

“I felt I had to do something,” she said. “I had to turn a negative into a positive. I wanted to do something personal, yet universally meaningful.” Why not swim the English Channel, also known as the Everest of swimming? What better way to celebrate the memory of her coach and her own recovery?

“It was also a way of reclaiming my life and not letting cancer define it,” said DeFrancesco, who has been cancer-free for two years.

Once back home in Del Mar, she mentioned the idea to her swim club coach Joe Benjamin and he encouraged her to go forward. She reserved the required pilot boat and time slot, Sept. 23-24. (Because bad weather can delay English Channel swims, the date is not exact.)

Just as DeFrancesco will plunge into the Channel, she plunged into her rigorous training routine: swimming 40 miles, six mornings and evenings a week, alternating ocean (La Jolla Cove) and pool. She also cross-trains at a gym in Cardiff with a personal trainer. She fits her workouts around her full-time position as a registrar for the Museum of Contemporary Art.

In addition to the challenge of training, she also has to eat enough food to add 10-30 pounds to her lean 5’10” frame, so she’ll be able to handle the 60-degree English Channel water.

“Eating and preparing food has become my second full-time job,” she said, not always easy after a full day of training and working.

The routine is also helping her heal and learn patience, she said, both as a person and as a swimmer. A competitive sprinter by training, she must now call on her mental as well as physical strength to swim the distance.

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https://www.delmartimes.net/?p=39855

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