Meet Brenda

Not your average PE teacher

Brenda Norman is a PDHPE teacher at Deniliquin High School and a passionate advocate of maintaining all forms of health. She is the founder of Channel 4 Change and swam the English Channel in 2018 as a means to promote the importance of mental health, especially for the young people with whom Brenda shares her day at school.

Brenda is currently training for her next swim, the Catalina Channel. She is on track for her crossing on 3 October, 2019.

Intense Training

6 Days a week

Brenda is coached by Robert ‘Butch’ Butcher. Butch is based in Melbourne and has been coaching for over 25 years. Not only has he coached three Australian swimming teams but he also competes and has represented Australia in more than 10 world veteran swimming championships.

Brenda swims between 35-65 kilometres each week. She lives in Deniliquin, so during winter the only body of water she has access to is the Edward River. Each week she completes three sessions in the river and two sessions in the Echuca War Memorial Aquatic Centre.

The Edward River height and temperature fluctuate during winter. The depth of the water is currently so low that Brenda can touch the bottom whilst swimming in the middle of the river. The water temperature has been as low as 8.3 degrees. Her sessions are usually between 1-2 hours in these conditions.

The Echuca pool is a 150 km round trip from her home. In these sessions, Brenda focuses on her speed and technique, with each session being approximately 2-3 hours in duration. This training, combined with travel, is a very time consuming exercise and difficult to manage when juggling full time work commitments.

Brenda also travels to Melbourne approximately once a month to swim in the ocean. These sessions are usually between 1-3 hours in duration. This open water swimming training is essential in order to equip Brenda with more realistic open water swimming experiences.

Brenda’s geographical isolation means it is not possible to be part of a swimming squad. All of her training is completed solo. She has one training buddy, Richard Jones, who resides in Melbourne and is also preparing for the Catalina Channel. In July, Brenda and Richard traveled to Jervis Bay to complete some 6-hour training swims.

Brenda has also sought the expertise of a nutritionist, who has advised her in the management of her diet. Brenda has been placed on a strict high protein and fat diet, completely restricting the intake of carbohydrates.

This allows her to train for longer time periods without depleting her energy stores. Brenda must consume measured amounts of energy, either in the form of liquid or solids, for each swim session.

The whole process to ready herself for her second Channel crossing is certainly not as easy as putting on a pair of swimmers and going for a quick swim!