When I started open water swimming, Melissa told me that I absolutely had to read this book.  She was right.

 
The author, Lynne Cox, has completed a open water swims in the most extreme conditions imaginable.  A competitive swimmer since childhood, Cox switched to open water swimming as a teenager, at the age of 14 she swam the Catalina Channel and then went on to swim the English Channel at 15, one of the youngest swimmers to make the crossing.  She has completed all of her swims using the Channel Swimming Association rules, which means that she swims only in a suit, cap and goggles, no wet suit.  This includes swimming in the Bering Sea and waters off Antarctica.
My first read through the book I was somewhat frustrated with the repetition of the language that Cox uses when describing her swims.  Then I began writing about my own swim experiences and ran straight into the limitations of my own vocabulary when trying to describe the feel and temperature of the water.

 
I would recommend Swimming to Antarctica for open water swimmers, athletes and anyone interested in expanding the limits of the human body.  Cox is an inspiration.

The view from Mathews Beach

This is the most elusive of Seattle’s open water events.  Hosted in August and sponsored by Everyday Athlete, Park-to-Park is a fundraiser for Children’s Hospital.  A 1.5 mile swim across Lake Washington from Mathews Beach in Seattle to O.O. Denny Park in Kirkland.  The elusive part comes in because the race date is seldom announced before June and registration isn’t generally available until July.  As someone whose summer swim card tends to fill up, I like to have my dates/events lined up early.

This swim really was the perfect end to the season.  Jessica and I biked the Burke up to the start as a warm up of sorts.  Afterwards there were pastries and school busses to take us back to the finish.  Then more biking to a proper brunch.

In mid-August the Seattle Department of Parks & Recreation puts on the Emerald City Swim.

Seward Park

This is a one mile swim in Lake Washington at Seward Park.  As I’d discovered during the Danskin Triathlon in 2009, the water off Seward Park has a lot of seaweed.  But I digress.

This is one of the last swims of the season – Green Lake & Emerald City are nice bookends to the summer.  I was delighted to find that Montrel, the instructor from my spring lifeguarding course, was officiating.  The swimming community seems smaller when I am continually running into the same people at races and pools all over the metro area.

I finished in a respectable 33:15.  Someday I’ll get that mile down to 30 minutes…

Columbia City Bakery was the chosen post-race breakfast spot, however there was some sort of local parade happening on Rainier Ave which complicated things a bit.  I actually came to regret not riding my bike the 10+ miles to the race.

Before the start - Lake Samish - 2009

This was my second year swimming the Lake Samish Open Water Swim.  In August 2009 Bill and I drove to Bellingham at 6am on Saturday to swim the first annual Lake Samish swim.  This was a fundraiser for the local fire department and ran the same day as the Lake Samish Triathlon.  There were only 10-15 swimmers and we faced more than a little confusion over when we would be starting and the layout of the course (not enough buoys).  This was the first time I had attempted a 3 mile swim and it was a terrific experience.  The lake was warm (warmer than the air when we started) and very calm.  I finished in 2:02:36.

Lake Samish - 2010

In response to the confusion faced by the swim start conflicting with the triathlon start, for 2010 the race organizers not only scheduled the swim on a separate day but also comped the registration fee for any swimmer who had completed the 2009 swim.  This was more than enough to persuade Bill and me to register for the 3 miler again.  Unfortunately, by the time race day came around Bill was out of the country and I didn’t really feel like swimming the full 5k.  Fortunately a 1.5 mile race had been added (one lap around the lake instead of two) and so I stopped at the halfway point, finishing in 59:11.00, placing 5th overall (non-wetsuit women) and winning my age group.

The Lake Samish Swim has the best race swag that I’ve received: in 2009 participants were awarded a super-soft beach towel when they exited the water; in 2010 it was a hooded sweatshirt (warm and soft).  I was very much hoping to swim Lake Samish again in 2011, however the race is not being held this year.  It has been my favorite fresh water race the past two years, I am optimistic that it will go on in the future – especially since I have a personal goal of not only winning my age group but placing in the top 3 overall.  If anyone from Total Health Events is reading, the Samish swim has fans who would love to swim it again!

On my way back from the 2010 race I found a good brunch spot in Mount Vernon – in 2009 we drove all the way back to Seattle for the post-race eating but the Calico Cupboard offers delicious breakfast much closer to Bellingham.

On July 24, we completed our “50 States” swim for 2010, a 3 mile race in the Northeast Kingdom – otherwise known as Newport, Vermont.

Lake Memphremagog

The Kingdom Swim was my second 3 mile event, our first as a team.  The race was organized by and raising funds for I.R.O.C. and their Healthy Changes Initiative, which promotes fitness and recreation in Orleans County.

Just getting to this swim was an event in and of itself.  My original flight from Seattle was canceled, which meant arriving in Boston at 5pm and driving north during rush hour on a Friday, rather than midday as we had planned.  Our kayak escorts Jessica and Bartley, meanwhile, had arrived in Newport and attended the pre-race pasta dinner – and even saved plates of pasta for Mary-Jane and I so that we could fuel up once we finally made it to Vermont.

Thanks to Bartley’s research and planning we had rooms at the Carriage House Bed & Breakfast in Coventry.  Not only is it a charming B&B, but the owner was understanding about our late arrival and check in – she even made us a full breakfast early Saturday morning so that we’d have energy for the swim.  I highly recommend it if you find yourself vacationing in the area.

Many thanks to Jessica and Bartley, who drove from Portland, Maine with their kayaks to accompany us – they are both skilled kayakers and became quite adept at herding the more wayward swimmer (Becky).  There was a bit of confusion at the beginning of the race – the kayakers were all gathered in one area and were to find their swimmer as the pack rounded the first buoy.  Mary-Jane and Jessica found each other quickly – I had trouble spotting Bartley and didn’t actually meet up with him until a bit further on.  This was probably due to my zig-zag swimming style, something that I’m hoping will lessen with practice.

The water was in the high 70s which is quite balmy compared to the water that Mary-Jane and I are accustomed to, though a handful of swimmers did wear wetsuits.  Warm water combined with an overcast day made for terrific swimming conditions.  The water was relatively calm and no glare from the sun.

There were several races that day, the 3 mile being the mid-range swim.  While we were powering through the 3 miles, some 70 people were completing a 10 mile swim.  That’s right, 10 miles.  The bragging rights are tempting, but I think we’ll be sticking to under 3 miles in the future.

Despite the chaos at the beginning, we did all meet up together somewhere close to the halfway mark, at which point I swam directly into Jessica’s kayak.  I really am working to improve my sense of direction.  As with our past swims, we managed to finish within minutes of each other, despite being separated through most of the event.  Final times:

Mary-Jane: 2hrs 47sec

Becky: 1hr 56min

We had so much fun with Jessica and Bartley that we’re planning on swimming with their kayak escort in the Peaks to Portland swim next year!

First event of the season for me – a round trip across Seattle’s Green Lake with Jessica.

The course before the start.

The water was around 64 degrees, “bracing and refreshing” to quote Jessica.  The swim went off without a hitch, despite my having forgotten my contact lenses and so swimming without much of an ability to see where I was going.  Not that I ever have much of an idea where I’m going, but it is nice to be able to see the buoys occasionally.  Approx 33:12 for our finishing time.

This is an annual event sponsored by the City of Seattle Parks & Recreation.

Highlights included:

My mom swimming the event!  She signed up for the 1/2 mile, and though she hopped into the boat partway across due to the water temperature, she is already talking about getting a wetsuit so that she can try it again.

Biking to the lake!  This was a first for me, as I usually resist exercising before exercising.

Being told that we were crazy for not wearing wetsuits.  I get this a lot.  Perhaps I am crazy?  All I know is that the water felt great once I started moving.

Verdict:  a fun swim and a good way to kick off the summer.

July 2009 marked the second outing of our two-person swim team.  The swim across Buzzard’s Bay is just over 1 mile, we finished in just over 1/2 an hour (35:04:00 for Becky; 35:50:00 for Mary-Jane).  We were joined by Judd, a friend of Mary-Jane’s from upstate.  Remarkably, we all finished within a few minutes of one another despite losing track of each other shortly after the start.  So much for the buddy system!

The swim is a fundraiser for the Coalition for Buzzard’s Bay, an organization that promotes restoration and sustainable use of Buzzard’s Bay and the surrounding watershed.

This swim marked the beginning of the “Swim 50 States” project.  Both Mary-Jane and I had completed 1/2 mile swims as part of the Danskin triathlon series, but this was the first long distance open water event either of us had tried.  The swim is 1.7 miles across Narragansett Bay from Newport to Jamestown.  The shipping channel is some 300 feet deep at the center, and was closed to boat traffic during the swim.  We finished in just over an hour (1:04:21 for Mary-Jane; 1:04:26 for Becky) with some energy to spare.

The event is a fund raiser for Save the Bay, an organization that works to restore the bay watershed, protect the bay and improve water quality.  The Bay Swim began in 1977 to raise awareness about water quality.