The day of the swim was glorious. Rain featured in the days prior but Saturday was sunny. The morning was cool, in the low 50s, so the boat launch was resplendent with hoodies and winter caps. The worst part was not doffing the warmth to be marked up with your number. No, the worst part, as always, was standing in line on the rough concrete in bare feet, being counted and waiting for the call to enter the water.
The last time I swam this (2019), and each time before, we stood from #1 (some A-last name) to the last swimmer (Z? Y?). I was always at the end and thus had much more real estate to march over before hitting the water. Learned after my first Swim the Suck (StS) in 2012 to bring throw-away shoes: Dollar-fifty black flip-flops. Still, those micro-thin bottoms don’t leave much to the imagination, but better than bare feet. At some point, though, I have to toss them and walk the final feet to the rocky entry, still torture to my delicate, princely foot-bottoms.
This year, we were in four columns, grouped by cap color, which itself designated which start buoy we had to swim to (but not past!) to await meet-up with our kayaker. I was buoy #4 of 4, a half-mile into the swim (felt shorter).
As usual, I got to the boat launch way too early. I’m always concerned I’ll be late and have to rush (“If you’re on time, you’re late!” the military drilled into me), so I got there, thanks to an Uber driver whose English was so accented I truly thought he was speaking another language, at 8 am. And we weren’t swimming till 9:30. No worries.
I found my kayaker, Derrick and his friend Denny. I got numbered (lucky #123!), brrr…, then walked around more. We got Derrick’s chair out of Denny’s car and took my feeds and gear to his kayak. Other swimmers started to show up (if you were driving you parked your car at the finish and boarded a school bus back to the boat launch). Lines formed. Nervous swimmers queued for the porta-potties.
Each swimmer was given a red plastic bag the night before with his/her number on it. Point was to put your clothing and whatever else you wanted at the finish in the bag. That meant taking off your warm clothing. Like most of my fellows, I waited till the last minute. At 51F, standing in your grape-smugglers would chill you quickly (and we all were looking forward to the ~76F water!); thankfully, we could drop the red bags at anytime, and many of us waited till the last minute.
A few of us had kayakers known to us, while a lot of us had volunteer kayakers. When you’re swimming in a group of over 100 flopping pairs of arms, it is hard to find your support boat. Especially when many of them look the same. Some kayakers dress up their boats so their swimmer can find them, others wear outlandish gear: the best was the guy who decided Barbie himself up, complete in bright pink speedo and pink cap. His kayaker wore a fetching tassled pink cowboy hat. She looked fierce! Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of this pair (hopefully when official race photos come out…).
Derrick was easy to find in the water due to him being one of the few kayakers not covered completely. He was wearing a very short sleeve white shirt with my number stenciled on the back; poor guy forgot my official number tag on this kitchen table. In short order we got Derrick in the water and his chair in Kris’s (the keto swimmer I met the night prior) truck. Before Derrick launched I started my phone’s tracker, sealed it in the otter box with a back-up battery, and carabinered it to his kayak.
Of course, as luck would have it, and as I watched my phone float away along with the other 100+ kayaks, a bald eagle flew over us. And spent quite a bit of time doing it. I saw the official photographer taking pictures so hope to have one to add here soon. After the swimmer brief we had one swimmer actually sing the National Anthem, but before she could start, Karah (RD) saw another swimmer standing next to me who wore a U.S. flag suit, and dragged her to stand next to the singer. We all moved ourselves toward the flag, hands on hearts and listened. I was secretly hoping the eagle would alight on the speaker: what a sign that would be, yes?!
This was followed by lining up and the USMS official counting. The water looked inviting. Doffed my flip-flops and inched along to the water, “dove” in as soon as I could. Deliciously warm water. I hung back as far as I could to avoid the flailing, impatient swimmers at the start (not really impatient, just faster than I). In no time at all Karah counted down and we were off. Buoy #4 came quick and I treaded for a while till Derrick and I found each other, then it was head down and to work.
My rule, as my dear reader(s) know, is: leave me alone the first hour so I can get the nerves calmed and the kinks out. Derrick set alarms on his phone, the first to go off at 10:30 based on a 9:30 start. Unfortunately we didn’t start until around 9:45, so I knew my first feed would be sooner than usual. No bother. Swim I did. Paddle Derrick did.
There was a headwind early and I had to fight the waves. I kept telling myself that we had a good current (the dam was sked for 20,000 cfs) so I was still going down the river despite what the surface looked like. But soon that headwind ended (or maybe we just left it behind as we turned; not easy to tell when you turn swimming in a river at my slow speed) and I got in my “forever” pace and settled to the business at hand.
The feeds came and went. At some point, maybe the 2:00 feed (?) I had one of those little dark chocolate peanut butter cups (thank you Justin’s). I think I held off the ibuprofen till 3:30 or so. Also had a peanut butter packet at some point too. Never had the flattened soda; I think I’ll stop prepping one of those in the future. The Crystal Lite’s I used (grape and lemonade) had caffeine in them so never had an issue with headache.
Like I said previously, I have three stages in these long swims. Early on I usually think “What the hell did I sign up and pay for this for? I’m an idiot.” (Never had this feeling this time, w00t!) Then the middle stage. Followed by the this can end anytime now stage. For this year’s StS, the middle stage lasted for most of the swim, probably from feed 1:30 to mile 9.
No I didn’t cheat and ask Derrick where I was at any point. He did think we were close once and pointed it out during the feed, but I remember what the end looks like: wasn’t it. I told him what it would look like then put my head down and got back to work. (I also knew that the last bit would be due south, and the sun at that point wasn’t right in front of us. Not yet.)
Then, hell for a long time. Headwind again hours into the swim. Yeah, I’m ready for this swim to end. I knew from earlier that if Derrick was having to fight to paddle, I should just swim and he’ll catch up. So I did. It wasn’t easy. The stroking was hard and I had to fight through the wind. When would it end?!
Finally it did, and IIRC it was when I started to turn south (or I turned south shortly after the wind calmed). Holy crap, am I that close to the finish? Answer: yes. Last feed I saw the finish. No cow buoy this year (where’d the COWS buoy go, Karah?), but the promontory with the blue shelter is easy to see. I sprinted. Which at this point, past 10 miles (the swim is closer to 10.5 than 10 miles) looks very much like my forever pace. Yet, I did manage to increase my stroke rate when I got really close to the buoy, so that’s nice. Touched the buoy, flipped to my back, and the river carried me to where we could get Derrick and his boat out. (After I squatted in the water for a couple minutes, returning some water back to Nature.) Based on what time Derrick said I tagged the buoy, I guessed my final time was 5:27-ish. I’ll take it!*
Then the after-party. Great food (thanks to Old Man Rivers Table & Tavern, owned by Karah’s husband) and great beer (5Wits). And of course the pottery. Tried to get something very different this year. Karah got cups from 423 Pottery (my 2018 and 2019 cups) but also from a potter named Susan Cordell, whose StS-stamped cup I picked this year. Best finisher prizes of any race!
I stuffed myself, had a beer and walked around to delay stiffness. We had to wait for kayaker Alan whose swimmer was still on the course; Alan had used one of Derrick’s boats. In due time he and his swimmer came in, we loaded the boat, and got on our way. Turns out we were only a few miles from my hotel, so Derrick and Denny dropped me off before going back to the boat launch and Denny’s car. I said goodbye to those wonderful gents and took the best shower of the trip.
Another Swim the Suck in the books! Great work as always and thanks to Karah and all the volunteers!
*(Found out a couple days later my time was 5:24.03.)