He's competed in a 1.2-mile swim across Buzzards Bay, circumnavigated Cape Ann in a 20-mile kayak trip, and paddled 12 miles from downtown Wareham to Bird Island in Marion. And that was just so far this summer.

On September 5, 80-year-old Onset resident Richard Wheeler will compete in Hawaii, participating in the Waikiki Roughwater Challenge, a 2.3-mile swim in the Kapua Channel across Waikiki.

It will make for a pretty laborious Labor Day.

“I can do the distance, but I said on my [race] application, 'You better not time me with the stop watch, you better use the calendar,” Wheeler joked.

It could probably be argued that Wheeler has spent more time on the water than on land in his lifetime.

An avid kayaker and environmentalist, he completed a 1,500-mile kayak trip from Newfoundland to Buzzards Bay in 1991 which followed the migratory path of the great auk, a bird humans drove to extinction in the 1800s. The trip was Wheeler's effort to raise awareness about extinction. The Coalition for Buzzards Bay, a nonprofit which works to protect and restore the bay, dedicated a learning center in its New Bedford headquarters to Wheeler last year for that journey. Wheeler's trip was documented by PBS and is still shown across the world.

Though he typically kayaks more often than he swims now, Wheeler is no stranger to that sport. When he was 50 years old, he won a 2-mile open-water swim race across a lake in Virginia, which landed him on an all-American long-distance swim team.

Wheeler also swam competitively in high school and while attending Harvard University and served as a frogman in the U.S. Navy. Frogmen are trained in scuba and swimming for combat.

“I volunteered to be a frogman,” Wheeler said. “It sounded like a good idea at the time.”

Wheeler continues to use his Navy-issued fins. He shows them off, still astounded by how heavy they are.

But Wheeler will not be using those fins during the Waikiki Roughwater Challenge, which he estimates will take him at least an hour-and-a-half to complete.

“You just keep going,” said Wheeler, who has participated in the swim twice before, the first time when he was 45 years old. “It's one of those things you're very fortunate to have done.”

Wheeler came in third place in the 65-70 age group when he last participated in the competition. He's had open-heart surgery since then.

“[The race] was an indication that I may have needed something [surgery],” Wheeler said, noting that he was out of breath at the end. He said swimmers should just feel sore at the end of the race, not short of breath.

“You have to get the breathing down,” he said.

Visibly excited about the race, Wheeler said this time around, he's mostly just concerned about getting leg cramps during the long haul.

“The big thing will be to make it without a cramp,” he said. But he's been preparing, “eating a lot of bananas. A lot of calcium and potassium.”

Wheeler has been training for the event since January. He did rowing workouts at the Gleason Family YMCA until the water out got warmer. He didn't start the swimming portion of his training until March

“I didn't want to get sick of it!” he said with a laugh.

More than 2,000 people participate in the Waikiki Roughwater Challenge, which is a sight to see, said Wheeler.

“You're swimming in arms and legs for a half-mile,” he said. “It's like [Route] 495 in an afternoon in the summertime, but people instead of cars!”

A feat at any age, Wheeler is humble about his participation in the race at age 80.

“You can't beat the aging process,” he said. “But you should give it a run for its money.”