Courtesy of Ellen Weinberg 40 usms.org MANHATTAN MARATHONER Ellen Weinberg isn’t the fastest person in the pool. But even among the most dedicated swimmers, few spend as much time in the water as this diehard from New York City. In a New York outdoor public pools competition last summer, Weinberg swam the most distance among more than 5,000 women in all five boroughs, racking up more than 80 miles in a five-week span. She also won a Hudsie Award in 2012 for being one of the swimmers who had completed the most Hudson River open water events in the history of the now-defunct NYC Swim organization. Weinberg, 58, became a dedicated swimmer in her 30s in or- der to lose weight. She plunked down $25 for a yearlong mem- bership at a West Side pool and got after it. “I still have some of the friends I met at the pool that very first day,” she says. “I started going every day because the people were amazing.” These days, Weinberg wakes up at 4 a.m., puts on her swim- suit right away, and leaves her East Side apartment by 5 a.m. Then she bikes or takes a cab across town to work out with the Chelsea Piers Fitness Masters group (or at the Dapolito Recre- ation Center during the summer) for two hours. “Routine is really important,” she says. “Getting up is hard, but once I’m up, I’m up. I love to swim, so I’m excited about be- ing up and getting to the pool. I have a coffee pot with a timer that I set to brew right when my alarm goes off. So I can smell the coffee and hear it dripping, and that’s a lot of motivation.” After the morning swim, she walks to her office at Intersec- tion, a firm at which she handles facilities and real estate man- agement. At 5:30 p.m., she heads to the Asser Levy Recreation Center pool near her home (summertime) or spin class (winter). She gets home around 8 or 9 p.m. and prepares dinner. While food is cooking, she packs her swim bag for the next day and goes to bed by 9 or 10 p.m. On weekends, she goes for longer swims, and during the sum- mer, she trains in open water with the Coney Island Brighton Beach Open Water Swimmers club in Brooklyn. It’s a demanding routine, but she does set aside time for a social life, competing in a nine-ball billiards league, occasionally joining friends for drinks, and spend- ing time with family on the weekends. To stay consistent, Weinberg suggests making a list. She writes down the distance she wants to tackle on a daily and weekly basis. Each day is part of the puzzle toward the weekly goal, and she relishes crossing each mark off the list. Like the rest of us, she occasionally misses a workout, which has the po- tential to break up her routine. Her advice to get back to normal? Dive back in, and don’t look back. “Forgiving yourself is hard,” she says. “Probably even harder than getting up. Realize that you’re worth the effort you put into it and that you’re going to feel great.” Chelsea Piers Fitness Masters member Ellen Weinberg won a Hudsie Award in 2012 for her Hudson River open water swims.