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Earlier this month, Aleksei Averchenko, 32, swam a marathon in Burgess Pool to raise money for the youth triathlon team he coaches. His feat was perhaps even more inspiring as it came after surviving an accident with a drunk driver.
To swim a marathon in the 25-yard pool, Averchenko needed to complete over 900 laps. He started swimming at 6 a.m. and did not finish until after 6 p.m.
“I try not to think much when swimming. When you start thinking, you start counting your laps and it makes it so much longer,” Averchenko said. “I did have some thoughts: about life, how much I love swimming and how much I appreciate the community here in Menlo Park.”
Averchenko began swimming as a 6-year-old in Siberia. He immigrated to the United States from Russia in college to swim at an NCAA Division II program.. Averchenko won Division II All-American 12 times, meaning he was one of the top swimmers in his division. He also set multiple schoolwide records at Fresno Pacific University and Nova Southeastern University. He graduated medical school in 2019, the same year he was named best athlete in the Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference.
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic, Averchenko moved to California and pursued being a professional triathlete. Averchenko won the Santa Cruz Olympic Triathlon and started to make money participating in the sport he loved.
On Nov. 24, 2023, tragedy struck as Averchenko was involved in a fatal collision at Stage Road and Highway 1 near San Gregorio. He was hit by a drunk driver while biking. California Highway Patrol found the driver, who was killed at the scene, was intoxicated and at fault for the accident.
Averchenko suffered severe injuries. “It was a bad fracture,” Averchenko said. “It’s called a burst fracture so all my lower vertebrae just shattered.” Averchenko still suffers severe pain from the accident and said he needs to take over-the-counter pain medication daily.
He said his surgeon was optimistic he could recover but that he would not be able to compete as he once had. Averchenko could not run or bike due to the pain, but nearly a year after the accident, he came back to swimming.
“I figured that I cannot bike, for sure, I can not sit and it hurts all the time. I cannot run because of pounding. It’s very unpleasant. But I can swim: swimming doesn’t really hurt my spine, at least,” he said.
“I was still spending a lot of time in bed because of the pain, but I told myself, ‘Either I’m swimming or I’m going for a long walk.’ I started from, like, 500 yards around three times a week. Little by little, I was building it up,” Averchenko said.
To stay motivated while recovering, Averchenko made a “very ballsy plan” to swim one million yards in six months but due to setbacks, he ended up doing 650,000, which is still a lot of swimming, but not the goal he set for himself.
Averchenko said his setbacks were mostly emotional rather than physical pain.
“Sometimes I was just so fed up that I didn’t want to swim at all so I would skip
the whole week and then I had to start again the next week,” he said.
Before the accident, Averchenko said Tim Sheeper, CEO of the group that runs Burgess Pool on behalf of the city, helped him get started with triathlons. He started as a lifeguard but quickly became a coach and more involved in the Menlo Park aquatics community.
“At the beginning, he gave me a lot of equipment, he gave me the bike, and I started doing triathlons. I was winning pretty much all the races and I started to do Iron Man. I was winning those races too,” Averchenko said.
Menlo Park aquatics has continued to be an important part of his life since the accident.
“Before, it was all about supporting and training myself. You know I was the guy who was eager to achieve something in the sport for myself. I was probably selfish but it is what it is. All athletes are selfish at some point,” Averchenko said. “I think I shifted my attention from my own goals, to educating the next generation.”
“In October, we launched the youth triathlon team for the kids in the Belle Haven location. We work with underprivileged kids and with the community,” Averchenko said. “It’s literally the first child triathlon team for the youngest people. It’s about building the next generation, helping others.”
Averchenko, with encouragement from his coach, decided to swim the triathlon in Burgess Pool to raise money for the team for equipment, scholarships, races and prizes. He was unable to swim it in open waters due to continuing health complications.
He set up a GoFundMe and set the goal as $10,000.
“I didn’t even expect we’re gonna get $10,000. I just put it because I was thinking whatever we’re gonna get, whatever amount, is going to be perfect,” Averchenko said.
Before the day of the marathon, he had already exceeded his goal. The GoFundMe raised $20,000 by the time it ended a few days after the swim.
Averchenko thanked the community for donating and coming out to watch him swim and Sheeper specifically for his support.
Averchenko said he had some dark days following the accident. “I was at the point when I wanted to just drop everything and stop doing it… You know, a lot of things have changed, work wise, lifestyle, health wise, how I sleep, what I eat. Everything changed, to be honest,” Averchenko said.
But now, he is putting renewed focus into building the triathlon team. His advice to others recovering from serious injuries: “never stop grinding.”
“It’s easy to give up, but you pursue you for the rest of your life, and it’s a heavy, heavy weight to carry,” he added.
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