On November 6th, at the Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center in Lawrence, Kan., Bill Durell, 75, and Dave Kough, 62, each completed a 4000-yard IM, consisting of a 1000 of each stroke.
Kough completed this feat in 1 hour 6 minutes and 8 seconds, while Durell finished in 1 hour 30 minutes and 51 seconds.
Each swimmer had timers and authenticators helping record this event.
4000 IM Splits:
| Dave Kough, 62 | Bill Durrell, 75 | |
| 1000 Fly | 17:22 | 28:24 |
| 1000 Back | 16:25 | 20:42 |
| 1000 Breast | 18:19 | 23:24 |
| 1000 Free | 14:02 | 18:21 |
| Total Time | 1:06:08 | 1:30:51 |
Durrell was recently featured in the October 25th edition of SwimSwam’s Spectrum Aquatics Weekly Wonders of Age Group Swimming, when he broke the Borboleta mile butterfly age group record, finishing with a time of 46:54.15. He became the oldest swimmer to accomplish that milestone at the age of 75.
The Barboleta challenge was an event that had been previously held each March in Palo Alto, Calif. In 2019, the founding organization of Rinconada Masters disbanded, and the contest was moved to Albany Armada Aquatics and occurs every summer. Event options include 500/1000/1650 yard distances of either butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke.
To date, 173 swimmers have completed the 1650-yard butterfly distance, with some having completed the swim as many as 25 times.
Durrell also swam the 1500 freestyle at the 2021 US Masters National meet as a butterfly event, and competed in the 800 free as an IM.
In a message to SwimSwam, Durrell commented, “We hope this will motivate others to duplicate the feat. If these old farts can do it, so can you!”
Alright, I read this, listened to the SwimSwam breakdown where Coleman asked David if he thought he could do it, and then thought I might be able to do it, if I could get through the butterfly. Here are my splits as a non-competitive swimmer. I’m a 34-year-old woman who is 26 weeks pregnant:
1000 fly: 22:20
1000 back: 22:45
1000 breast: 23:41
1000 free: 22:04
Total: 1:30:10
Hi Jess Z.,
This year I am adding this event, the 4000 IM, to my virtual swim meet, the Distance Non-Free Virtual Challenge. I’ll be posting times of people who do it, as part of my meet or independently. If you could contact me with your complete info, I’ll add your time, too! You can contact me via this web site: https://www.gomotionapp.com/team/pcaa/page/masters-/distance-fly-challenge.
Mental health professionals are standing by to assist. 😂
Wow! What a tremendous feat for these gentlemen! Inspirational to say the least!
AMAZING!!! Great dedication to their sport!
Both of these guys are the coolest, nicest people you’ll ever meet. Also, amazing splits. I’ll stick to 25’s 🙂
Rock Chalk! Well done guys! Keep it going
Wow. Way to make the rest of us look like a bunch of lazy asses! Very impressive.
They should make this an Olympic event. Competitive swimming is always looking for ways to raise its popularity and public profile. An event that required body bags would do that. Seriously, I’d be dead after the first 200.
Sounds like these guys might enjoy the Golden Gate IM swim…
Read about the Golden Gate IM swim here: https://www.openwaterpedia.com/wiki/Golden_Gate_Medley_Swim, or the Alcatraz IM swim (5 miles total) here: https://data.pacificmasters.org/content/one-year-later-conny%E2%80%99s-ultra-alcatraz-im-swim