For the past several months, Li Ling Yung-Hryniewiecki has engaged in a peculiar bath-time routine. She fills her bath with cold water and ice to reach a temperature of 13 to 15 degrees Celsius (55 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit), and instead of having wine or reading a book, she will put on YouTube and, quite literally, chill out. That’s part of...
Li Ling Yung-Hryniewiecki hopes to become the first Singaporean woman to swim across the English Channel.For the past several months, Li Ling Yung-Hryniewiecki has engaged in a peculiar bath-time routine. She fills her bath with cold water and ice to reach a temperature of 13 to 15 degrees Celsius , and instead of having wine or reading a book, she will put on YouTube and, quite literally, chill out.
She started swimming at around four years of age, stopped around the age of 10, and only resumed about 10 years ago. “I was never fast enough to be competitive in the pool anyway,” Yung-Hryniewiecki says. Swimming in the open sea adds an element of unfamiliarity. “Every time you swim somewhere else [in] open water, it’s always an adventure, because the scenery is different, the challenges are different, the type of water is different,” she says.
She considers the cold to be among her biggest nemeses. For the Channel swim, she’ll only be allowed the basics: a swimsuit, goggles, swim cap and earplugs. A nose clip is permitted, but she doesn’t wear one. “One of my weaknesses, which helps a lot in weight gain, is [that] I love ice cream and milkshakes,” she says with a laugh.
Her husband, Adam, her past swimming coach and a CSA observer will be on the boat too, while a friend, Alec Stuart, will swim alongside her at intervals of an hour at a time for moral support.