Manhattan swim tougher than the English Channel

The 20-bridges swim is a 28-mile course right around the coastline of the island, and as the name suggests those who do it end up swimming under 20 bridges.

Miss Williams, 27, decided to undertake this challenge following a successful Channel swim, but she found this one much harder.

‘It was really good and an amazing experience but also really really hard,’ she said.

She had hoped to complete the swim in about eight hours, but in the end made it home in just over nine.

‘I think I just had not done enough training for it. I was in quite a lot of pain when I was doing it and it just seemed like a really long way.’

There were compensations, though, she said. At the start of the race she saw the Statue of Liberty: ‘And then you see all of the bridges which were all amazing.

‘At one point I was swimming through and I saw the Empire State Building – I just looked up and it was there, and then 20 minutes later I looked up again and saw the Rockefeller Centre.

‘Very few people have that experience, to see Manhattan from that angle so I was really lucky.’

Her long-term goal is to complete the Triple Crown swims – the English Channel, the 20 Bridges and the Catalina swim.

The Catalina Channel is between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles in California and is is 21 miles long.

But Miss Williams said she is not looking to tackle this just yet: ‘I think I may take a year off doing any really long swims. I may focus a bit more on running and do Catalina the year afterwards.

‘There’ll be a lot more training for Catalina.'