The Night-Shift Swimmer
A feature about an emergency-room nurse who started swimming at 35 and became an open-water marathon swimmer.
Tap any word to hear it · dotted words have a definition in the glossary
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1When Michelle Avrahami finishes a twelve-hour night in the emergency department of a hospital in northern Israel, most of her go straight home to sleep. Michelle drives to the beach. By seven in the morning she is already in the water, swimming steadily to the shore while the city wakes up behind her. "People think I'm crazy," she laughs. "But after a night of other people's emergencies, the sea is the quietest place I know."
2Michelle, 41, did not grow up as an athlete. She learned to swim properly only at the age of thirty-five, when a back injury forced her to give up running. Her recommended swimming as gentle exercise. At first she could barely complete two lengths of the local pool without stopping. "I was embarrassed," she admits. "Teenagers were overtaking me in the slow lane." Yet she kept returning, three mornings a week, and gradually the distances grew.
3Two years later, a friend her to enter a short open-water race. The experience changed everything. Swimming in the sea, with no walls and no black line on the floor to follow, was frightening at first, but it also gave her a sense of freedom she had never felt in a pool. Soon she was entering longer and longer events, and last summer she completed a twenty-kilometre marathon swim, which took her almost seven hours.
4Marathon swimming is as much a mental challenge as a physical one. Swimmers are by a support boat, but according to the rules they may not touch it or hold on to anything. Food and drink are passed to them on a rope or a long pole, and they must eat while floating. Cold water, jellyfish and waves that push a swimmer off course can all end a race early. Michelle believes her work as a nurse has prepared her well. "In the emergency room you learn to stay calm when everything around you is chaotic. In the sea, it's the same. You stop thinking about the finish line and just concentrate on the next ."
5Her have become her biggest fans, and several of them now join her for early-morning swims. Michelle hopes her story will encourage people who believe it is too late to start something new. "I'm not the fastest swimmer, and I never will be," she says. "But I've discovered that being is a kind of talent too."
📘 Glossary
- shift - a period of time when someone works
- colleagues - people you work with
- parallel - going in the same direction, side by side
- physiotherapist - a person who helps injured people move and exercise
- persuaded - made someone agree to do something
- accompanied - went along with
- stroke - one arm movement in swimming
- stubborn - not willing to change your mind or give up
Questions
Finding details
1. What does Michelle usually do after a night shift?Making inferences
2. Why does Michelle call the sea "the quietest place I know"?Finding details
3. Why did Michelle start swimming at the age of thirty-five?Word meaning
4. The word "overtaking" in paragraph 2 means…Reference words
5. What does the word "it" in "it also gave her a sense of freedom" (paragraph 3) refer to?Finding details
6. Give ONE difference between swimming in a pool and swimming in the sea, according to paragraph 3.Finding details
7. According to the rules of marathon swimming, swimmers…Finding details
8. Give TWO things that can end a marathon swim early.Word meaning
9. The word "chaotic" in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to…Making inferences
10. What does Michelle mean when she says that "being stubborn is a kind of talent too"?Main idea
11. What message does Michelle hope her story will send?
Answer every question to get a score (0/11)