The character arc of Sarah Thomas
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born in 1982 in the United States, and living in Colorado. Between then and now sit a year-round swimming team from the age of ten, the sport given up during a master's degree and taken up again after it, a first open water race in August 2007, a triple crown completed in 2012, two first-ever double crossings in 2013, a world record at Lake Powell in October 2016, a 104 mile record swim in August 2017, a breast cancer diagnosis that November, and four consecutive Channel crossings on 17 September 2019. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Sarah Thomas?
Diagnosed in November, and four Channel crossings after.
She was on a year-round swimming team by ten and swam through high school and at university, where she read political science and journalism. She gave the sport up while taking a master's in legal administration, and took it up again afterwards with a masters swim team, which is the ordinary adult version of the thing. In August 2007 she entered her first long open water swim, a ten kilometre race in a reservoir in Colorado at sixteen hundred metres above sea level, and finished second among the women. She has said she got out of the water fighting back tears because she loved it so much.
From there the distances get absurd. She became the fifty ninth person to complete the triple crown of open water swimming in 2012. In 2013 she made the first two-way crossing of Lake Tahoe, forty two and a half miles in twenty two and a half hours, and eight weeks later the first two-way crossing of another lake, fifty miles in just over thirty hours. In October 2016 she set a world record for the longest current-neutral swim with an eighty mile crossing of Lake Powell. In August 2017 she broke her own record by more than twenty miles: a hundred and four and a half mile loop of Lake Champlain, sixty seven hours and sixteen minutes in the water, the first current-neutral swim of over a hundred miles.
Two months after that, in November 2017, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and had surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, swimming as much as she could during the treatment. On 17 September 2019, a year after finishing it, she became the first person to swim four consecutive crossings of the English Channel, fifty four hours and ten minutes without stopping. She has kept going since: a crossing of the Cook Strait in March 2019 and, on 10 July 2022, the first double crossing of the North Channel between Britain and Ireland. She works as a recruiter for a health care company.
The moments
Sarah Thomas's timeline.
The 1990s
A swimming team at ten
Everyday. The ordinary path: a club, a pool, a school team.
The 2000s
She stops swimming
Setback, and it changed her direction. She gave it up entirely for a while, which most people never come back from.
Her first open water race
Milestone, and it changed everything. One race in a reservoir, and it decided the next fifteen years.
The 2010s
The triple crown
Milestone, and it changed her direction. The fifty ninth person ever to do it.
Both ways across Tahoe
Milestone, and it changed everything. Two first-ever double crossings in eight weeks.
Eighty miles of Lake Powell
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Eighty miles, in a lake, with no current to help.
A hundred and four miles
Milestone, and it changed everything. Sixty seven hours in the water, and nobody had ever swum a hundred miles like that.
A diagnosis
Setback, and it changed everything. Eight weeks after the biggest swim in the sport's history.
Swim the Channel four times
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: attempt all four, taken, or swim within herself. She finished in fifty four hours and ten minutes, the first person ever to do it.
Four times across
Milestone, and it changed everything. There and back, and there and back again, without getting out.
The 2020s
The North Channel, twice
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Some of the coldest water in the sport, crossed twice in one go.
Colorado is a long way from any ocean, and she trains there anyway, around a full time job. What it has set moving is a very specific kind of encouragement for anybody in the middle of treatment: the person who holds the longest open water swim ever recorded did the hardest one of all a year after finishing chemotherapy.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
Hers went from a hospital to the longest Channel swim anybody has done, in about two years. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Sarah Thomas: frequently asked questions
What people ask about her line.
What is Sarah Thomas's character arc?
What record does Sarah Thomas hold?
Did Sarah Thomas swim the Channel four times?
When was Sarah Thomas diagnosed with cancer?
How did Sarah Thomas start open water swimming?
What is Sarah Thomas's job?
Where does this timeline of Sarah Thomas's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with her.
Sources
- Sarah Thomas, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Marathon swimming records for Lake Powell, Lake Champlain and the English Channel.
- World Open Water Swimming Association award records.