Jim Mcdonnell Lake Swim
The Jim McDonnell Lake Swim (JMLS) is a 2-race open water swimming competition that has served as a U.S. Masters Swimming championship event and is one of America's Top 100 Open Water Swims.
The Jim McDonnell Lake Swims and Open Water Clinic is a two-day event sanctioned by United States Masters Swimming that is held each year over Memorial Day weekend in Lake Audubon in Reston, Virginia. It has continued for 28 years and includes an open water swimming clinic and 1-mile practice swim on Day 1 and 1- and 2-mile competitive races on Day 2 (23-24 May 2015).
Contents
Distances
1 mile, 2 miles
Type
Lake
Location
City Lake Audubon, Reston
State/County/Province Virginia
Country USA
Region Americas
Event Information
Month: May
Event Date: 23-24 May 2015
Website: Reston Masters
Class: 1-mile has 400 swimmer limit, 2-mile has 400 swimmer limit
Namesake, Jim McDonnell
The event is named after Jim McDonnell.
Jim McDonnell was a long-time Reston, Virginia resident and involved as a coach of Reston summer league swim teams, coaching several of the current Reston Masters Swim Team members when they were young swimmers. He was one of the founding members of Reston Masters Swim Team which started as a team in 1974. In those days, establishing swim teams was a matter of hard work by a small number of people. U.S. Masters Swimming was in its infancy and McDonnell was one of the first who thought the Reston Masters Swim Team should share with charitable organizations and expressed those thoughts shortly before he died.
McDonnell was member of the first Reston Masters Swim Team lake swim meet committee and the lake swim Safety Directory for many years. He swam in the inaugural lake swim in 1988, finishing third in his age group.
He died of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. That year, the Reston Masters Swim Team changed the name of its event to honor him and began our charitable giving to the Lymphoma research organizations. That also gave impetus to expand its charitable giving to other organizations. The majority of the JMLS donations go to Lymphoma Research Foundation (www.lymphoma.org) and the local Reston community through the CornerStones organization (formerly Reston Interfaith), www.cornerstonesva.org/. In the past, smaller donations have been given to charities that have an association with current Reston Masters Swim Team members.
