“Anything is possible”: From the pool to the English Channel

Graphic by Matias Pacheco-Ramirez, Photographer

11 hours and 41 minutes.

To most of us, it sounds like a great night of sleep. But to Carly Miller, it sounded like a challenge.

That 11 hours and 41 minutes is the approximate time it took Miller to swim 21.5 miles from England to France via the English Channel.

Upon her completion of the English Channel, Miller joined an elite club of 400 individuals across the globe to have completed the prestigious “triple crown of open water swims.” Aspiring members of the distinguished club must not only complete the English Channel swim, but the Catalina Channel and 20 Bridges swim around Manhattan as well.

Despite learning about open water swimming at age 40, Miller’s not new to the pool. Growing up on the East Coast and swimming for high school teams and local clubs, Miller moved to California in 2001, where she eventually got back into swimming and finally the open water in 2015. 

“My first open water swim out here was September 2016, so I’m literally coming up on my 10-year anniversary of open water. I went from that first swim to doing my first channel in two years. So I think the progression was really rapid once I got into it.”

Miller remembers her first swim vividly: finding a group of triathlon athletes online to swim with near Manhattan Pier who were planning on running a mile, hopping in the water and swimming back.

By the time Miller got there, the triathletes were all gone and had begun their swim.

“I couldn’t run, so I just did the swim myself, and it was really hard for me. To say I thought I was gonna die is a little exaggeratory but it was tough,” she said. “Getting through the break, I was hyperventilating. After I got through the waves, I had to roll on my back and catch my breath for a solid few minutes. Then rolling over and seeing Manhattan Pier a mile away and being like, ‘You’ve swam over six miles in a pool, you can do this.’”

Miller describes herself finally coming out of the water at Manhattan Beach Pier as something you would see in the movies when a character finally makes it to shore.

“I was by myself, those people (I swam with) were gone, I saw this dude in a speedo walking toward me and he was like, ‘Are you ok?’ because I probably had a look of trauma on my face and I joked, ‘Yeah I’m fine, triathletes just left me to die out there, but I made it, I'm good,’ and he told me I should come back next week and swim with his group,” she said. “I came back and swam with these people the following week, and they were nice and helped me figure out the waves and how to get in and out of the ocean. They became my family.”

After some initial struggles, once she began to find her rhythm, Miller was hooked. Reading up on marathon swimming and becoming more and more intrigued with the possibility of competing. Her newfound passion eventually became an obsession.

Other than her prestigious title of open water triple crown holder, Miller has completed amazing feats such as swimming all five lengths of Tahoe, 11.56 miles around Coronado, 27 miles across Santa Monica Bay and many more in her time competing as an ultra-marathon swimmer. 

Three years ago, Chapman was lucky enough to acquire her as an assistant coach. And for the last three swim and dive seasons, she’s helped the swimmers not only improve in their sport, but as men and women as overall.

“Honestly, coaching at Chapman has been life-changing for me,” she said. “I think that it’s a really special place and that the swim and dive team is incredibly special. I am super lucky to be able to work with approximately 70 amazing athletes on a daily, seasonal and annual basis now. I think overall, because this is a Division Three school, and having the ability to focus on the whole athlete.”

She remembers back to when 12 members of the swim and dive team, in two teams of six swimmers each, successfully swam the length of the Catalina Channel on the night of September 14 as part of a relay.

“Coaching those guys to do that, way more fulfilling than what I just did (swimming the English Channel) and anything that I’ve done solo. So that’s what I’m trying to do more of. Honestly, that is the stuff that creates lasting joy.”

Before her coaching career at Chapman, Miller worked as a coach at the all-girls Notre Dame Academy in Culver City, running her own private training sessions for kids of all ages and working as a Master’s coach, helping adults who want to continue swimming at a high level pursue their goals.

“I’ve worked with kids who are just learning to swim, I’ve worked with high school kids…I guess Chapman was just the next evolution for me. I really enjoyed high school but wanted to be able to talk about the mental aspect of the athlete as well.”

Coach Miller spoke a lot about developing “the whole athlete.” Given her past struggles with depression, anxiety and addiction, she finds it instrumental to not only focus on how the athlete is performing in their sport, but how they’re feeling in their head.

“I think what I try to bring to my coaching at Chapman is coaching the whole athlete, it’s not just about what we’re doing on the pool deck all the time…If we’re ignoring the whole athlete we’re doing ourselves a disservice as coaches and as team leaders… I’m a person who believes that a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer.”

Miller's challenges are some that nobody is ever prepared to deal with. After losing her late mother Emily Miller to cancer, she then learned of her own hereditary cancer risk. She got a prophylactic double mastectomy, leading her to anxiety, depression and addiction before her discovery of open water swimming.

All of her swims for the last decade have been to raise money for a hereditary cancer charity called FORCE, in memory of her late mother. You can donate or read more about FORCE here.

Miller has raised over $19,000 just this year from her swims, and believes she’s raised around $70,000 since she started a decade ago. 

Carly Miller has fought through things most people won't ever have to deal with in their lives, and she still found a way to help others while doing something she loves.

“A lot of people have said to me already, ‘What's next?’ Don’t forget to celebrate your achievements, the things you worked so hard for; don’t just blow by them, celebrate them before you move onto the next. For me it’s not so much about the triple crown, and don’t get me wrong, I love doing things not a lot of people have done,” she said. “But for me, now it’s inspiring other people like the athletes that I work with to dream big and know that literally anything is possible if you want it bad enough.”

For more information about Carly Miller and her journey, visit her website.