Many often say that age is just a number and this is something that swimmer and triathlete Txaro Tomasena (Elgeta, Guipúzcoa, 1946) has followed to the letter at 80 years old. Last Monday, October 5, the woman from Gipuzkoa managed to swim the ten kilometers separating the island of Lobos and Lanzarote in six hours, a feat that hides many years of training and a careful diet behind it.
When she was 65 years old, Tomasena got lost at sea one day during a crossing in San Sebastián. "I gave my husband such a scare that he almost had a heart attack because I told him I would be back in an hour and a half, but it took me almost two hours," she says. Her love for the sea, combined with this scare, led her to learn to swim with a coach and also to navigate at sea. "I thought that splashing around a bit was swimming, but no, because for that you have to talk to a coach," she points out.
"I told the first coach I had that I wanted to swim well and beautifully, with style, and he found faults everywhere," she continues. One of the faults was that she kicked her legs very little, and since she liked hiking and walking, he recommended that she do triathlons. "At 69 years old I started cycling and doing triathlons, I got so hooked on them that I love them," she reveals.
In fact, last year, this athlete participated in the Taiwan Masters Olympic Games where she won her first Olympic gold medal in a sprint triathlon. She also has another gold medal in open water.
Years of training to cross La Bocaina
To prepare for the challenge of swimming across La Bocaina, Txaro Tomasena has participated in all kinds of demanding competitions to prepare herself physically and mentally. "For me it was unthinkable to swim it, just as the Strait of Gibraltar was four years ago," she assures. Until then, the athlete competed at the state, European, and world level, but "training for the pool and training in open water have nothing to do with each other."
Therefore, her coach began training her for crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. "The training was so brutal that I got sick and decided to go to Corralejo where I have La Bocaina right in front of me and I'm going to reflect there and see if I could continue with the training," she recalls. "I stayed for fifteen days, I looked at La Bocaina, I went to Lobos, then I went to Playa Blanca in Lanzarote and looked at it from there. I took the plane back and thought that if my coach trusted me, she should push me and I'll go for the Strait," she continues.
After managing to cross the Strait and reach land in Morocco, she says she dedicated it to her parents. "Right after, I told myself: Txaro, now you have to go for La Bocaina, and that's when I came back and we started training," she recalls. That was when her coach told her that the training to swim across La Bocaina should be even harder than that for the Strait.
And it is that, as she explains, the currents of the Strait of Gibraltar "are very tough" and "they drag you west, towards America." "When you go a little further in, there are currents that favor you and that is fundamental," she indicates. The final part of this crossing becomes very complicated due to the entry of a very powerful current from the Atlantic that enters the Mediterranean and that "you have to have a lot of strength to be able to dominate it."
For both times, the swimmer has worked on strength and power. In the case of La Bocaina, she trained for three years, as her intention was to undertake this challenge in 2024, but a car accident caused her shoulder injuries. Because of this, last year she was still not able to give her best to swim La Bocaina, so her coach told her it was better to leave it because they had not been able to train enough.
"I answered her that at 80 years old how I was going to do something so hard and she answered me that I don't have an age, that I had to develop my abilities and that age was no impediment," she declares. Thanks to her constant work with training sessions of up to 30,000 meters of swimming per week, Tomasena was ready this year to fulfill this challenge.
Three factors to consider: currents, tides, and winds
In the La Bocaina strait, the factors that the athlete had to take into account were three: the currents, the tides, and the winds. Therefore, she had to postpone her departure from October 3rd and make it on the 5th, as the previous day there was a lot of wind. "The wind in La Bocaina creates a high and tough wave that is very complicated to swim," she explains.
After leaving Papagayo, during the first hour of the crossing, the strong current was displacing her to the east, while for another half hour, she did not notice this displacement. However, later the currents pushed her to the west. "Three kilometers before arriving, the current was so strong that it was taking me towards the ferry line, so they decided to direct me towards Lobos, since the objective was to reach land on this island or in Corralejo," she recounts.
During the crossing, the swimmer did not touch any boat or any person, and with a landing net (a fishing net with a handle), her companions administered some food and energy drinks to her from the boat Jilorio II.
After six hours of crossing, she reached land on the island of Lobos, but as she approached the rocks, a wave hit her against them. "Two waves caught me, they slammed me against the rocks and now I walk with a limp," she says. To record this feat, a referee judge from the Spanish Swimming Federation accompanied Txaro Tomasena during this adventure because "there has been no one who, at 80 years old, has crossed La Bocaina." Now, this judge will prepare the corresponding certificate to present it to the Guinness Book of Records.
Upon reaching land on the island of Lobos, the athlete assures that it was "not surprising" for her to arrive. "When you are training, you realize what you are doing, and the level of training was such that I knew I was prepared to achieve it," she explains. In this regard, the swimmer reveals that she prefers to swim alone because "I establish a dialogue with the sea, and if you go in a group, you are paying attention to the rest." "I was very happy when I finished," she points out.
To establish the starting point, time, and route, she relied on Óscar Fernández de Pinedo from Bitácora Academia Náutica de Lanzarote, with the guide boat being the Ávila Mariano Aura Marina vessel.
Genetics, diet, rest, and sport, the keys to her vitality
When you have a car, to make it last many years, you must take care of it by putting in the best fuel and taking it for its check-ups. Txaro Tomasena compares her body in the same way. "The human body is the same, and I take care of my diet with total scruple because I realize the benefit it brings me, and this creates happiness," she comments. This, she explains, makes "the brain start working and work in your favor."
On the other hand, rest is another of the factors that the swimmer sees as essential in her life because without it "you cannot work". Even though her partner is in delicate health, she is best with her. "I decided two years ago to be her cook, nurse, and hairdresser, to do everything for her," she indicates. Although she could not rest enough for training, she chose to take care of her husband.
Genetics is another of the characteristics that she believes influences her vitality. According to her, her maternal family, surnamed Alzuri, "have something and were something special, they were impressive women."
Looking to the future, Tomasena reveals that she has two more years of work to meet new challenges, although for the moment she has chosen not to reveal what they are.
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