Shenandoah resident Christine Coppola will attempt to swim the English Channel next month, a feat she expects will take her 14 hours in 60-degree water.
Shenandoah resident Christine Coppola wears many hats.
She’s a mother, a wife, an HR executive at NBCUniversal, and a 49-year-old open-water swimmer.
Next month, weather permitting, she’ll swim the English Channel – her second attempt – as members of her training tribe in Miami cheer her on.
Erinne Guthrie, a triathlon coach who knows Coppola and her family, is confident Coppola will complete the crossing.
“She’s going to make it. There’s no doubt in my mind,” said Guthrie, the founder of Full Circle Coaching in Miami. “She’s an amazing woman.”
At its narrowest, the English Channel is 21 miles wide, with depths over 200 feet, strong currents and tides, and intense ferry boat traffic.
Coppola has a window for her second attempt – August 19 to 26 – and a goal to keep her focused. If she can conquer the English Channel, Coppola will have completed the Triple Crown of open-water swimming.
She’s two-thirds of the way there already, having successfully completed a Catalina Channel swim in California and the 20 Bridges Swim around Manhattan.
Her first attempt at swimming the English Channel in 2025 was torpedoed by nasty weather.
“I trained for a year. I went out there but the weather was terrible during the entire window so I sat there for basically two weeks and then had to come home,” Coppola said. “I’m going back for redemption.”
Coppola, who’s from Connecticut, started swimming when she was about nine years old. Her love for swimming, and for what would become open-water long-distance swimming, stemmed from her dad, an athlete who encouraged her love of sports.
“He was a basketball player and he really instilled a love of sports in me,” she said.
Her father passed away from a Covid-related illness during the pandemic. Swimming has been a way to honor his memory and stay strong, she said.
Coppola has lived in Miami since 2014. During the pandemic, when everything was closed, she took to the sea. “The ocean was open, so I started swimming there and I fell back in love with swimming,” she said.
For her upcoming swim, Coppola has been training in Miami, but she often travels to the northeast to swim in colder water.
The Channel’s water temperature is expected to be around 60 degrees when Coppola swims, a stark difference from Miami’s water temperature, which currently averages in the mid-eighties.
She estimates the Channel swim will take her 14 hours to complete.
“You have to keep a forward momentum and you have to be expeditious about it,” she said. “You can’t really be hanging about. The more time you spend not moving forward could take you exponentially longer if the tides switch.”
To train for her English Channel swim, Coppola does a combination of workouts during the week. “I’m in the pool as soon as they open,” she said.
She trains at the Shenandoah Park pool on weekdays, and does long-distance ocean swims on the weekends in Miami or the Northeast.
“Generally, I have a recovery week, a speed week and a bulk week,” she said of how she arranges her swim workout schedule.
She funds her own training and swimming events. The English Channel crossing this year will cost approximately $10,000, she said.
So, what are some of the challenges she foresees for her upcoming swim?
Water temperature, for one.
Participants in the Channel swim are not allowed to wear wetsuits or any type of neoprene that might provide buoyancy.
The Channel Swimming Association (CSA) and Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation (CS&PF) strictly regulate official crossings “to ensure no thermal or mechanical advantage,” according to their website.
Coppola’s attire will consist of her bathing suit, goggles and a swim cap.
She’s also wary of the Channel’s strong currents.
Closer to home, Coppola’s biggest challenge may be time management, though she seems to have a good grip on her routine.
Her daily swim schedule, combined with working full-time as the vice president of human resources at NBCUniversal, while being a mom and a wife, seems almost impossible to balance.
“I have to stay pretty organized about my time and get up really early in the morning and try to get the workouts done, the cleaning done, the food prep done,” before she starts her job at NBC, where she’s been for 15 years, Coppola said.
She and her husband are both triathletes, and their 8-year-old son does three sports, including sailing at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, where they are members.
“I had a hard time meeting people when I first moved and then once we joined the Sailing Club, we met amazing groups of people from everywhere,” she said. “I have found the best community.”
Coppola has also found support among the Dolphins & Rainbows open-water swim group in Miami Beach. Coppola has been swimming with the group since 2019.
Next month, her fellow swimmers including Jennifer Samway and Kathryn Mikesell, the co-captains of Dolphins & Rainbows, will be cheering her on from Miami.
“Christine is proof that you can chase big goals and still show up for everyone around you, and we couldn’t be prouder to cheer her on,” they told the Spotlight.
