Kiki kicks her way across the English Channel

Kiki Marx (second from the right) pictured with (from left to right) her sister, Maxine Marx; her mother, Dorothy Marcus; her niece, Isabelle Marx; and her partner, Hedley Isserow - together in Dover after the swim.

By Jaime Uranovsky

On 25 August this year, Karon ‘Kiki’ Marx became the first Jewish South African woman and the fifteenth South African woman to complete the English Channel swim. Kiki, a Johannesburg-based anaesthetist, covered the distance in an impressive 16.5 hours. 

For Kiki, this goal has been a long time coming. She recounts, “When I was a little girl of six or seven, I told my folks that I was going to do the Channel. But the seed was planted again on 24 November 2013 when I swam my first Robben Island. There was another swimmer next to me and I asked her why she’s doing the Robben Island swim and she said it’s a training swim for the English Channel and that kind of just replanted the seed of mine from when I was a little kid.”

From a young age, Kiki swam both for her school and for a private club until her first year of varsity. Then, in 2013, after a 20-year hiatus from swimming, Kiki set the goal of completing the Robben Island swim. She trained for just ten weeks and successfully finished the swim.

Over the last two years, Kiki’s training routine comprised waking up at 3:20 every morning and swimming for two to three hours in the gym before the start of her work day. She also trained a few times a week with her trainer at an outdoor pool. Kiki adds, “I’d go down to Cape Town once a month to do a swim camp with Big Bay Events run by Derrick and Debbie Frazer. That would be at Langebaan and we would swim Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday morning. I did that for ten months.”

The Channel swim was especially auspicious for Kiki, as it was scheduled for the day after her fiftieth birthday. She says, “It was a birthday present to myself.”

While Kiki never doubted that she would complete the swim, the final two hours proved difficult as the current was very strong. She was also disorientated at the end of the route, which Kiki attributes to mild hyperthermia and shock. “I was very proud but very emotional.”

Kiki’s Judaism is central to her life and accompanied her on her swim: ‘I davened during the swim for people who are ill and thanked Hashem for giving me a strong body and mind.” She also credits her strong support structure: “I’m just grateful for the love and support I’ve received from the entire community… because you can never do these challenges alone.”

On being asked what’s next, Kiki says, “I’m going to give myself a bit of time to rest and then I’ll look at what else there is. I think it’s important to have challenges and goals in one’s life and it’s something to work toward. This was a big one. …so, I’m very grateful that I accomplished it…. I want to continue swimming and we’ll see what lies ahead.”

To download a PDF of the Chronicle for October, click here

To read the editor’s column this month, titled ‘Why we need more difficult females’ click here

To read the most read story online in September, click here

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