A Life of Adventure: How One Swim Changed Everything for Elizabeth Scalice
At 65, Elizabeth Scalice completed a 13 kilometer swim down the River Thames. What she did next was an even bigger leap.
In September 2022, Elizabeth Scalice was hiking in the Grand Tetons with her best friend and her friend's daughter, who lived in England. When the younger woman decided to take a more challenging route, Elizabeth joined her. By the time they finished, Elizabeth was buzzing with adrenaline and feeling pretty invincible.
That's when the younger woman mentioned she'd just signed up for a swim in England and she urged her mother and Elizabeth to come visit and cheer her on?
Elizabeth had a better idea. "Watch? I'm going to do it!"
It was the kind of enthusiastic declaration that probably deserves a little research before saying it out loud. Elizabeth had no idea what she'd just committed to.
The event was the Thames Marathon, a 13 kilometer open water swim down the River Thames from Henley to Marlow. It would take place in August 2023, on Elizabeth's 65th birthday.
There was just one small problem.
Elizabeth didn't really know how to swim.
Learning to Swim at 64
To be clear, Elizabeth was no stranger to the water. She grew up surfing and had always felt at home in the ocean. But being comfortable in the ocean and swimming 13 kilometers are two very different things.
In November 2022, she joined the YMCA and started swimming laps. It didn't take long to realize that enthusiasm alone wasn't going to get her down the Thames. At her current pace, she wouldn't come close to making the event's six and a half hour cutoff.
A friend suggested she find a coach. The San Diego Triathlon Club recommended Sidney Russell. Elizabeth booked a private lesson and explained her ambitious plan. Then she got into the pool and started swimming.
She remembers seeing the expression on Sidney's face as she watched her stroke. Elizabeth was trying to absorb everything Sidney was telling her, but the reality was becoming pretty obvious. She had an enormous amount of work to do. Still, Elizabeth made one thing clear. She was going to England, she was getting into that river, and she was going to attempt the swim.
Sidney agreed to coach her.
That December, Elizabeth showed up at Ventura Cove Masters wearing a surfing wetsuit. She was inexperienced, struggling with technique, and a long way from being a marathon swimmer.
But she kept showing up.
She followed Sidney's workouts, put in the hours in the ocean, and immersed herself in swimming and sports psychology.
Week after week, she got better. She got stronger. She got faster.
And in August 2023, Elizabeth traveled to England to do what she had promised herself she would do. She completed the Thames Marathon in 4 hours, 37 minutes, and 27 seconds, comfortably inside the six and a half hour cutoff.
She had never felt more alive.
The Fire in Her Belly
Completing the Thames swim gave Elizabeth something much bigger than the satisfaction of accomplishing an athletic goal. It reminded her of a feeling she had known throughout her life, a fire in her belly that told her when something mattered. That fire had always been there, but she hadn't always listened to what it was asking of her.
Now she was paying attention.
Back in San Diego, Elizabeth returned to Architectural Salvage, the business she had founded in 1996 and spent nearly three decades building.
And she loved that business.
Elizabeth in her store in the 90s.
Architectural Salvage wasn't simply a store selling old doors, windows, and hardware. It was an extension of Elizabeth's identity as an artist, environmentalist, entrepreneur, and advocate for historic preservation. The sprawling Little Italy shop was a treasure trove of reclaimed architectural materials, where everything from vintage hardware to unusual objects from around the world found a second life.
Elizabeth had built a business around the idea that beautiful, useful things deserved another life. By rescuing architectural materials that might otherwise end up in landfills, she helped preserve pieces of San Diego's history while encouraging a more sustainable way of living. Over 28 years, Architectural Salvage had become part of the fabric of San Diego. It was meaningful, creative, satisfying work.
But after the Thames, something had shifted.
Elizabeth had discovered how extraordinary it felt to set an audacious goal, work toward it, and accomplish something she hadn't known was possible. She wanted more of that feeling, and not just in the water. She began to imagine a life with fewer obligations and more room for the unexpected.
By early 2024, she had announced the closure of Architectural Salvage. She found a buyer for the business and arranged to lease the property. After 28 years, she was ready for a new chapter.
She called it her life of adventure.
A Promise to Her 13 Year Old Self
For Elizabeth, this wasn't really about retirement. It was about reconnecting with someone she had been a long time ago. When she was 13, she made a promise to herself. She would always be the kind of person who would run into the ocean and jump in, even in the middle of winter.
Elizabeth didn't want to lose that girl.
Swimming had helped bring her back into focus, but the adventures she envisioned weren't limited to swimming. She wanted to say yes to experiences she hadn't even imagined yet. The Thames had shown her what could happen when she stopped questioning whether she could do something and started figuring out how.
It also deepened her relationship with the water.
Although she had been a surfer since childhood, learning to swim properly as an adult had been an entirely new experience. She loved discovering that she could ask her body to do something difficult, give it the training it needed, and feel it respond.
Swimming also offered something quieter. In the water, she could completely lose herself. The repetitive movement, the rhythm of breathing, and the sensation of moving through the water became a form of meditation.
And naturally, she started thinking about what she might swim next.
When Determination Isn't Enough
Elizabeth set her sights on swimming from Anacapa Island to the California mainland. This would be a different kind of challenge. Unlike the Thames, where she had worn a wetsuit, an officially recognized Anacapa Channel crossing would require her to swim without one.
Elizabeth approached the goal with the same determination that had carried her through her first marathon swim. She committed to training, worked on building endurance, and expected her body to respond.
But this time, it didn't.
Swimming in cold water without the protection of a wetsuit was far more difficult than she had anticipated. She could push herself mentally, but her body wasn't adapting the way she wanted it to. For someone who had built so much confidence around the idea that hard work and determination could carry her through almost anything, the experience was incredibly disheartening. Eventually, she made the difficult decision to postpone her Anacapa attempt.
It was a disappointment, and not one she could simply talk herself out of.
But somewhere along the way, Elizabeth began to recognize that she didn't need to turn every adventure into a test of whether she could accomplish a particular goal. She could let go of the deadline and enjoy the training. And she could still have a pretty spectacular adventure.
Seven Miles and a Jump for Joy
In September 2026, instead of swimming from Anacapa Island to the mainland, Sidney organized a different marathon swim for Elizabeth.
The route would take her from Two Harbors on Catalina Island to Doctor's Cove, the traditional starting point for many Catalina Channel crossings, and back again.
Elizabeth had already become increasingly involved in the Catalina Channel swimming community. That summer, she participated in a Catalina Channel relay, began supporting marathon swimmers from a kayak, and volunteered as an observer for the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation. She had seen Doctor's Cove several times before, always in the dark while helping other swimmers begin their crossings.
This time, she would get to see it in daylight. And she would be the swimmer.
The route was approximately 10 kilometers, but Elizabeth ended up swimming seven miles that day. More importantly, she completed the swim without a wetsuit. After months of struggling with cold water and dealing with the disappointment of postponing Anacapa, she had done something remarkable.
When she finished, she leaped out of the water, literally jumping for joy.
It was a fitting celebration for someone whose entire adventure had begun with an impulsive declaration on a mountain trail. Only this time, the joy wasn't tied to completing the swim she had originally planned. She had learned that changing the plan didn't mean giving up on the adventure.
The Adventure Continues
Three years after swimming the Thames, Elizabeth's life looks very different from the one she was living when she first walked into Sidney's coaching session.
She's no longer spending her days running a business, even one she loved deeply. She's swimming, kayaking, supporting other swimmers, and embracing opportunities that might never have appeared on her radar before.
And at 67, she's still learning.
The woman who once struggled to swim laps at the YMCA has now completed multiple long distance open water swims. She's experienced both the exhilaration of achieving an ambitious goal and the frustration of discovering that some things cannot be accomplished through determination alone.
Perhaps the most important lesson is that she doesn't have to know exactly what comes next.
When Elizabeth was 13, she promised herself she'd always be willing to jump into the ocean. More than five decades later, she's honoring that promise in ways her younger self could never have imagined.
The Thames swim didn't create Elizabeth's adventurous spirit. It reminded her that it was still there, waiting for her to listen. And these days, when something lights that fire in her belly, she's much more inclined to say yes.
Even if she has absolutely no idea what she's getting herself into.
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