Bulking up for a record Swift swim across the Irish Sea

HE’S Swift by name and now he’s hoping to show he’s also Swift by nature.

Twenty-four-year-old Jim Swift is hoping to make the record books by swimming from Ireland to Wales in August.

The postgraduate student says he’s looking forward to the challenge of the ‘mere’ 54-mile swim.

But if that’s not torturous enough, he’s been whipping himself with nettles for the past few weeks to get his body used to jellyfish stings.

In the build up to the swim, he’s also bulking up — consuming a whopping 10,000 calories a day in an effort to gain a massive three-and-a-half stone.

“I’ve been doing things like having a big bowl of spaghetti bolognese for breakfast. It’s a tough task in the early hours of the morning.

“Robert de Niro is my inspiration at the moment. He actually moved to Italy in the run up to Raging Bull because he had to gain so much weight for the film.”

The nettles torture is difficult. “I went down to the sea for a swim over the weekend and lashed myself with the nettles before an hour-long swim. I don’t know which was more torture,” the gutsy young man from Tramore, Co Waterford, says.

Jim successfully swam the English Channel in 2003. Only 39 people have ever completed the challenge, and no one has conquered the longer Irish Sea strip between Ireland and Wales.

Swift has been training for the past nine months.

His schedule revolves around arduous hours in the sea and in swimming pools, as well as gluttonous eating to gain enough body fat to swell from 12.5 to 16 stone. This fat insulates the cold water from the muscles and is consumed as fuel during the swim.

Jim lost 14 pounds in 14 hours on the Channel swim. This next swim will last around 35 hours.