How a Rock Hill High swim coach is still breaking records and winning races at age 60

Cheryl Reinke cherishes her two favorite compliments she’s received in her swimming career.

The 60-year-old Rock Hill High School swim coach competes regularly in open water swimming, in lakes, rivers and oceans.

And Reinke doesn’t do well just for her age group; she places high overall in open water swim competitions that draw hundreds of competitors around the world.

“(One compliment) came at the end of the (2015 S.C.A.R. Swim Series) in Arizona, and the guy who was first was like 24, and I finished second,” Reinke said. “And his comment was ‘I hope when I’m 50 I swim as good as you do.’ And at my most recent event (in June) ... it was the same thing. The winner afterwards was like, ‘I’m just amazed at your age that you can do this.’”

Reinke has always had a love for swimming.

She started when she was 9 years old and was a three-time all-state swimmer at Westlake High School in Ohio before continuing her career at Wright State. However, following a shoulder surgery her freshman year of college, Reinke couldn’t get cleared to return to the pool, thus ending her competitive swimming career.

She then turned her focus to her family and her career as an engineer, and she didn’t fully return to the water for 25 years.

It wasn’t until Reinke moved to York and joined a triathlon club with a friend when she considered getting back into swimming.

“I realized that I really love the swim more than I like the run,” Reinke said. “I didn’t mind the bike...but I realized I didn’t like the run, so I got out of triathlons and got back heavy into swimming.”

Reinke, however, was hesitant about getting into open water swimming.

Swimming in a pool is more about speed and the quickness of your turns; open water swimming is a battle of endurance and being able to power through the currents.

Reinke’s first attempt at open water swimming came at the 2010 Lowcountry Splash: a 2.4-mile swim race in the Wando River in Charleston.

She finished 20th overall and third among women with a time of 45 minutes, 11 seconds.

“It was over in the blink of an eye,” Reinke said. “And it was super easy to sight because you have the big Ravenel Bridge and then you have the (U.S.S. Yorktown). There’s not a whole lot to it aside from understanding the course.”

After that, Reinke’s interest in open water swimming turned into a love for it. She started to seek out longer-distanced open water races like a 10K in Bermuda she did while on vacation.

As the races got longer, however, Reinke could no longer complete these races on her own. She needed someone to help her navigate through larger stretches of water and currents.

That’s where her husband, Christian, comes in.

Christian had no previous interest in swimming before meeting his future wife in college. However, her relatively new love for open water swimming thrust him into the role of navigator and “supportive husband.”

“I look for the different currents and try to keep her in a good current,” Christian said. “I feed her every 20 minutes. I keep track of her pacing, and I give her that information. I keep track of her stroke counts. I don’t really look at her at all when I’m in support mode; I’m looking at navigation. That’s my job, and I can keep her in my peripheral vision.”

With Christian by her side, Reinke went for one of the most prestigious races in open water swimming — the 8 Bridges Hudson River Swim in New York.

It’s a seven-stage, eight-day, 120-mile course down the Hudson River, starting in Catskill and ending in New York City, that only four people had ever completed before Reinke attempted it in 2016.

She completed all seven stages with an overall time of 38:43:12, winning the race outright. She became the oldest “seven-stager” and oldest winner in the event’s history at age 52.

“That one was a big mental game, controlling your efforts,” Reinke said. “When I finished, I felt like a Mack truck had hit me...I had a 22-year-old girl (Paige Christie, who also completed all seven stages with a time of 39:07:11) that was challenging me for the win, she was younger than my daughter. So at the same time, it was kind of fun. It kind of became a battle of the ages. The young swimmers were rooting for (Christie), all the people over 50 were rooting for me.”

Reinke still competes in open water swimming events.

She finished second at the 2024 END-WET competition, a 36-mile swim along the Red River of the North from Belmont Park, North Dakota to East Grand Forks, Minnesota, with a time of 9:45, an hour better than her time in 2018.

Training for Reinke is swimming an average of 7 miles a day for six days a week, splitting time among the Rock Hill and Clover aquatic centers. Her peak days hit around 10 to 11 miles, while her days leading up to a big event are around 5-6 miles. In preparation for colder races like END-WET or the 8 Bridges Hudson River Swim, Reinke practices in an endless pool in her backyard, which is hooked up to a chiller that lowers the water temperature to simulate the river.

Open water isn’t the most lucrative venture in the world, and most events don’t award prize money. However for Reinke and the majority of open water swimmers, finishing first isn’t the most important thing for her.

“(We do it) for the love of the game,” she said. “The bragging rights, a lot of us do it for the personal challenge...At some of these races, (my husband and I) are competing against men, we’re competing against kids younger than us...The kid (that won END-WET) was 27, maybe. And if he’s the only one that beats you, I consider that a win if you can keep up with them. But a lot of it’s not about winning; it’s about challenging yourself.”

When Reinke isn’t training for competitions, she’s coaching.

Reinke is entering her second season coaching Rock Hill High School’s swim team after two years of coaching at South Pointe. She also leads the Upper Palmetto Rays, a youth club swim program based in the YMCA Upper Palmetto division.

Through this, Reinke brought several high school swimmers into her world of open water swimming like former Northwestern High School swimmer Carsten Hoerschgens-Ham.

Now a sophomore communications major at Clemson University, Hoerschgens-Ham still participates in some open water swimming events like Swim Around Charleston 20K in October.

He’s always been a long-distance specialist but said that one of the biggest lessons he learned had nothing to do with swimming at all.

“Hydration is absolutely so important,” Hoerschgens-Ham said. “When you’re swimming for that long, you don’t really feel it like you would if you were running, but you’re still sweating. ...There’s a lot of hydration that needs to go into it.”

Looking ahead, Reinke still has some big swims she wants to accomplish. For her 60th birthday, she wants to complete the Search of Memphre: a 25-mile swim from Newport, Vermont to Magog, Canada through Lake Memphremagog —a journey of roughly 15 hours.

The window for the swim is August 27-29.