I learned to swim when I was seven years old. The water was my safe place, my shelter, my escape — the place where I felt I could do something well, and it was as simple as swimming. I was part of the competition team until I was 16, and I made friends who are still with me today. It was my foundation, where I learned so much about willpower, hard work, and resilience. During college, I swam for a few months. Swimming went on pause, but it never stopped being part of me.
In 2022, after the pandemic, feeling emotionally distant from who I was, I started going to the gym. That’s where I reconnected with the swimming pool. By chance, I came across the LIDL Swim Challenge on social media.
Sem nunca ter nadado nas águas frias e profundas de Portugal, sem conhecer ninguém que praticasse natação no mar, sem saber nada sobre equipamentos ou preparação, após alguns videos no youtube sobre nadar no mar, decidi que estava pronta para nadar 1000 metros.
On the eve of the event, I found out I needed a wetsuit. I had never worn one before. I managed to find a used one and picked it up just a few hours before the race. Everything seemed to be falling into place for a good experience. Sweet illusion.
I had no idea what it meant to move away from the shore. I didn’t know what an open-water start was, the physical contact, the frenzy effect at the beginning, the wetsuit collar tight around my neck, the freezing water. And then, the question that has stayed with me in every race since appeared for the first time:
What am I doing here?
I wanted to believe that all it took was to start and things would get better. I rounded the first buoy… The second one seemed infinitely far away. The Cascais pier was fading into the distance, in my mind the shoreline was disappearing, the bottom was invisible — just darkness.
Today I know the sea was calm, almost without waves. But at that moment, it felt like era it felt like a storm within me.
I tried to hold on to a kayak to get out of the race — not knowing it belonged to the Iron Brothers. Yes… I did myself the disservice of clinging to their boat. I was told to let go. Panic hit me, I felt unprepared… – How do I get out of here? Everything’s wrong, what now?!?!
**“In that moment, I realized I was lost… I had entered the water without knowing why, I had made it that far, and I felt fear. Despite the number of kayaks and jet skis around me, I couldn’t see or even sense that I was being accompanied. And as dramatic as it sounds, the movie of my life ran through my mind — the fear of being there alone, feeling incapable, powerless, thinking I might die right there… A kayak arrived, and I asked to be taken out of the water, and then a jet ski came to escort me. It was a conversation of few words, summarizing: ‘I’ll stay with you the whole time. You can do this.’ A person seeing me for the first time believed in me — something I couldn’t even do myself. I hesitated, but I had to keep going. I stopped a few more times. I swam on my back, breaststroke, doggy paddle… I saw the other people so far away. I felt like a failure. In the last few meters, with the support of the jet ski, which kept its promise and encouraged me until the end, I managed to overtake a few swimmers. It took 34 minutes and 57 seconds, which felt like hours. I cried a lot. And there, I knew for certain: for the second time, swimming would change my life.
For over a year, I tried to reframe and face everything that this experience brought to the surface — not just in the water, but within myself.
n August 2023, I decided to return to open water — this time prepared. I enrolled in a swimming school. I met incredible people and lifelong partners! The following month, I faced the LIDL Swim Challenge again, this time to complete the 1.9 km, still in the process of finding myself, but confident that I was on the right path and always well accompanied
From 2023 until today, I’ve done over 35 open-water races, in distances ranging from 1,500m to 10,000m. In the last year alone, we’ve swum over 200 km together — national circuits and championships, the Algarve circuit, Faial-Pico, rivers and reservoirs all over Portugal. It’s been years of what we jokingly call ‘car-therapy’ — sometimes we cry, but there’s always lots of laughter. After each race, we discover a new goal for the years ahead.
And in 2025, we returned to the Swim Challenge (now Swim GP) — no longer to face the 1,000 meters where I started, but to complete my longest distance so far: 10 km in 4 hours and 35 minutes… in a far-from-friendly sea, with no current in our favor and wind against us. That’s when I realized that the sea where I swam the 1,000 meters in 2022 was really just a little pool!
I lost many fears and the need for control (forget about that in open water — at most, it’s knowing what to do if something goes wrong). I found myself, understood how free and small I feel in the water, and, above all, how present I feel in the moment. I learned that I wasn’t — and am not — alone, in or out of the water. I realized that not having feet isn’t the biggest problem for someone who knows how to swim (especially when there’s always someone nearby to touch your feet). I learned to trust that during races we are safe, and that this is real, only swimming, I created my routine, my preparation process, and I understand what I can and should do in each situation. I faced the animals that inhabit the water… (still with caution, and always with great respect). I overcame what may have been my greatest challenge: being ‘alone’ with my own thoughts. I found the ‘fun’ in swimming!
Swimming gave me a sense of belonging. It brought people who understand how brutal challenge and overcoming can be — both in and out of the water. Swimming helped me rethink priorities, to put myself at the center of some decisions, and to reorganize my life and my family’s, who had to adapt to the 6:30 a.m. noise when I leave home to train, to races from north to south, to my absence on some weekends, to wetsuits, gloves, and feet hanging almost the entire week to dry, to two backpacks packed with everything (and then some) the day before training… and that’s just the first session. As soon as I get out of the water, I have to rush to work. The logistics are tough — even more so being an immigrant with three children — plus the thousand other things I take on along the way (like earning my Level I coaching certification!). But the joy of moving in the water, the unsettling silence, the present moment that the sea offers… it’s all worth it. Each day in the water brings a different feeling. I can swim at the same beach every day — but it will never be the same water. Just like me, I will never be who I was yesterday.
And you… what are you doing here?
@mayskipgmail-com