Swim for your Heart...Feb 14: Mountaineer to Swimmer

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Mountaineer to Swimmer

Badia Bonilla is one of Mexico's greatest mountain climbers. She took time out of her busy schedule to participate in the "Swim for your Heart..Feb 14" in Mexico. Congratulations to her and her husband Mauricio for reaching their eighth summit.

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Swim for your Heart...Feb 14

On February 14, 2011 swimmers throughout the world joined in thought and action, and brought an awareness of heart disease and prevention in their community. The event has been named "Swim for your Heart...Feb 14".

This event was prompted by the tragic death of USA's Fran Crippen. Fran died during the FINA Open Water World Championships on October 23, 2010. Preliminary reports suggested that Fran died of a heart attack. On April 15, 2011 the Associated Press released the final report and concluded that "Fran died from drowning and heat exhaustion in unfavorable race conditions. The report did not exclude that a heart abnormality or uncontrolled exercise-induced asthma could have been a factor."

Many athletes have died at a young age throughout the world. In the USA, swimmer Robbie Gallant, age 34, died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. He had broken several swim records during his swim career. In England, swimmer and coach Mark Rickhuss, age 41, died of a heart attack during a channel swim crossing. In his memory, several of his friends formed the "Big Rick's Swim Team". They have raised a substantial amount of money for the British Heart Association. Their team has joined the "Swim for your Heart...Feb 14" event to bring an awareness of this growing global health issue.

The inauguaral swim included swimmers from the United States, England, Mexico, Japan, India, and Australia. In some countries, swimmers went to their routine swim practice and talked with other swimmers about heart disease and prevention. In other countries, swimmers participated in a heart disease prevention campaign that included fundraising with proceeds going to their respective Heart Associations.

In Mexico, marathon swimmer Antonio Arguelles organized a Heart Disease Prevention Campaign. In 2008, before Antonio started his training for the Triple Crown of Swimming (English Channel, Manhattan Island Swim, and Catalina Channel), he was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Since then, he committed to do something about it.

He contacted Mariel Hawley, a top Mexican marathon swimmer, who is the Executive Director of Fundacion Marti and they called on their club, Sport City to participate. Sport City has 34 facilities with pools throughout Mexico. They invited swimmers to participate in the event called "1Km x tu Corazon" (1Km for your heart) (Swim for your Heart...Feb 14") nearly 1700 swimmers participated. Each swimmer had their blood pressure checked before entering the water and was given a swim cap with a red heart logo.

Also, in order the Heart Disease Awareness Campaign to be more effective, Sport City recommended a cardiologist to take charge of the logistics for the event and also, to be part of the spokespersons for the campaign and therefore invited Fundacion Mexicana del Corazon (Mexico Heart Foundation) to be part of this campaign. They accepted through Dr. Hermes Llarraza a leading cardiologist in Mexico.

Merck Laboratories participated in certain Sport City facilities. They conducted glucose and cholesterol tests for free for swimmers who participated in 1Km for your Heart (Swim for your Heart..Feb 14).

Fundacion Marti was in charge of donating funds to Fundacion Mexican del Corazon. These funds were donated to prevent heart disease and/or to give medical attention to low income Mexicans with heart disease or high blood pressure.

Our goal is to bring awareness to heart disease, it's prevention, and to educate, and support the Heart Associations and/or Cardiac facilities throughout the world. Please join our cause "Swim for your Heart...Feb14". You are invited to visit the website http://swimforyourheartfeb14.com and join us on Facebook. Thank you