| 词条 | Draft:Nick Irons |
| 释义 |
Nick Irons is the individual who swam approximately 1550 miles (nearly the entire navigable length) of the Mississippi River during the summer of 1997 as a fundraising event to benefit research into a cure for multiple sclerosis, a degenerative nerve disease. He was the second person in history to swim the length of the river, and the first to accomplish the feat with the river in its modern form, with locks, and dams built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Born in 1972, he was raised by his biological parents in Oklahoma City, OK with his two brothers. Through high school, Nick became a competitive swimmer and upon graduation, enrolled at Boston College, where he swam at the NCAA Division I level. After graduating from BC in 1994, Nick moved to Los Angeles, CA to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, while his parents relocated to the Washington, DC area. During a plane flight back to Los Angeles after visiting his parents for Christmas in 1996, Nick was inspired to swim the length of the Mississippi River to benefit research into a cure for multiple sclerosis, after witnessing his father's symptoms take a turn for the worse. He trained for 18 months, and on June 1, 1997 began his swim in Minneapolis MN. He swam six days a week, for an average of 6 hours a day. Volunteers from the Mississippi Power Squadron (a boating enthusiast club) provided on-river support for Nick, along with his younger brother who helped navigate from a small inflatable dinghy several yards in front of Nick. On September 26, 1997, he finished in Baton Rouge, LA, having raised approximately $150,000 for his cause. In the summer of 2001, Nick again embarked on a marathon athletic fundraising event to benefit MS, a 10,000-mile bicycle ride around the perimeter of the United States. The event began and ended in Washington, DC. In 2002 he wrote and published an autobiographical account of his swim and bike ride in the form of a self-help book entitled Swim Lessons: Ten Secrets for Making Any Dream Come True. In 2008, a documentary film about his life and fundraising swim, Swim Lessons: The Nick Irons Story won a First Place Best Short Documentary award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. The film was produced by filmmakers Alex Houston and Kendra Gahagan. Nick is currently a personal trainer and motivational speaker residing in Maryland near Washington DC. ReferencesExternal links
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