Wilkerson Follows Leader, Catches Up at End to Win

As soon as Jay Wilkerson crossed the finish line Saturday, he sat down in the shallow water and did nothing but gasp for several minutes with the surf lapping over him.

Wilkerson had been chasing defending champion Chad Hundeby throughout the national championship 16-mile course at the 22nd annual Seal Beach Rough Water Swim. He finally overtook Hundeby in the final 100 yards to win the race in a course-record time of five hours five minutes 21 seconds.

“I wanted to let him go out and chase him,” said Wilkerson after he caught his breath. “We (Wilkerson and his partner Andrew Thien, who went alongside him on a paddleboard) chased him and we were lucky.”

At the start at Seal Beach, the 21-year-old Florida State University swimmer trailed Hundeby, of Irvine, and Chuck Whiley, who placed second to Hundeby in last year’s Rough Water Swim. Wilkerson quickly overtook Whiley, then stuck to his strategy of chasing Hundeby and forcing him to expend energy by occasionally looking back.

The swimmers began from Seal Beach and raced along a course that brought them around a buoy in the Anaheim Bay Jetty and back to the finish on the northern side of the Seal Beach Pier.

Wilkerson and Hundeby will advance to the world championships of long-distance swimming in January in Perth, Australia, along with Martha Jahn and Karen Burton, the top two women finishers in the 16-mile race.

Jahn, 27 from Palos Heights, Ill., did not follow Wilkerson’s strategy. Jahn jumped out to an early lead and held it the entire way. Jahn finished a minute and 11 seconds ahead of Air Force Cadet Karen Burton.

Brian Fischer, a former Laguna Hills High School swimmer, became the national champion in the three-mile and one-mile long-distance races after having taken more than a year off because of an injury sustained in a jet-skiing accident.

After his second victory of the day, Fischer credited his success to “mental training” techniques he has been using. “I just relax in my room and visualize my stroke,” Fischer said. “I cut my (physical) training down from six hours a day to about three or four, and I’m doing better.”

Fischer plans to swim for Saddleback College this year.

Eva Zakrzewski, 18, of Mission Viejo became the national champion three-mile swimmer in her first three-mile race. Zakrzewski made her jump from the pack about two thirds of the way through the race, exactly as she planned. “Since it’s a three-mile race, you have to pace yourself appropriately,” Zakrzewski said.

Natalie Norberg, 16, of Irvine won the women’s division of the Seal Beach Mile for the second consecutive year.

The men’s 10-mile race, which wasn’t a national championship event, was won by 36-year-old Michael Nelson of San Diego in a course-record two hours 42 minutes 48 seconds.

Donna Friedman, 28, of Irvine won the women’s 10-mile.