🏊 Swim Recaps

The Leadup

It was a little bit of a chaotic Journey leadung up to race day!

Back in February 2023, I knew that I really wanted to try and swim Lake Erie in 2024. So, once I had emailed the people over at LEOWSA, they had let me know that I needed to do a documented swim before that of at least 12/13 miles. This sent me into a little bit of a panic as I was only planning on doing a 10-mile swim as my longest event this year! What I also didn’t realize was how soon afterwards I needed to sign up for a race this year so that it could even be done before next year! The two options that I saw that were available close by were the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Marathon Swim in PA, or the Kingdom Swim Boarder Buster in VT. I decided that the Kingdom Swim would be it as it was less money upfront and you even got to cross the Canadian boarder doing the 25k one! It seemed like it would be a whole lot of fun and a good story.

The next thing to add to the chaos was the training schedule and overextending myself. I was consistently swimming for a good amount of February, but In March this year I had a 2-week stint of being away from the pool as I went out to California to see a friend, and then went to Mexico for work 2 days after I got back from Cali! Really slowed down my progression with swimming. I went all out trying to regain what I had lost, swimming ~6 days a week extremely consistently going well into mid-April. However, at this point I think I had overdone it a little and my shoulders started to hurt quite a bit. I pushed on into May which was not a good idea. Sometime during this month, I had to take a week or two off just because my shoulders were not recovering like I had hoped. What probably saved me was another work trip – this time to France for 2 weeks. I was able to swim once to just kind of keep the feel of everything, but not a whole lot of working out otherwise (crap tons of walking though, which was great!).

I was finally feeling better, and trying to not over exert myself again. The first weekend of July, I did my first and only training session with my kayaker Brian (my older cousin!). It was a good 2-mile swim off the coast of Edgewater beach in Cleveland. It was a really good trial run with figuring out feeding as well as getting used to the rougher open water of Lake Erie. I was also a bit thrown off as I decided that it was still a little too cold for my liking to do it in just a suit; So, I rented a wetsuit just for the occasion. This was my first time wearing one while doing more serious open water swimming, so it was a bit awkward. At this point, there were 4 weeks until the Kingdom Swim and I was still feeling excited!

About 2 weeks out from the swim, huge storms started to hit upper Vermont where the swim was supposed to take place. Then, about a week out, we got word from Phil White (the event organizer) saying that they would be unable to host the swim in Lake Memphremagog (the big lake that crossed into Canada) due to it being fed by 4 rivers, causing the water level to raise by 30in. Thankfully, he proposed a backup plan of swimming at Lake Willoughby, a lake about 30 minutes south and further elevated in the water table, thus not flooded as bad! It was a little up in the air if the governing bodies of Lake Willoughby would allow for this huge swim on such short notice, but thankfully Phil and his team pulled through! The race was on!

After work on Wednesday July 26th, I headed up to Cleveland from Cincinnati so that my parents and I could kickstart our journey to Vermont a little early. We stopped in Rochester after a little bit of a mishap with hotel bookings. We got to our Airbnb on the 27th around 5PM. We met up with my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins, got dinner, and then went to bed.

We had originally scheduled a boat ride on Lake Memphremagog for that day so that we could see the racecourse a little bit better. Even though it got cancelled, we took the ride anyway! Very beautiful up there and a ton of really cool history and housing! Afterwards, we went to the check-in, got some lunch, then walked in the town parade.

After the parade, we had some dinner while having a safety meeting. Got to talk with another swimmer who was doing the 5mi the day after me which was also nice. Then, went home, got my nutrition ready, and went to bed. I had a really rough time staying asleep with the amount of adrenaline pumping through my body. I work up probably 3-4 times starting at midnight until 3am. Alarm went off at 5:30 or so. I hopped out of bed and went to the south end of the lake where we were waiting for the event to start.

This was also another great opportunity to talk with some of the other swimmers. Got some good advice from Eric Durban, Adina O'Neill, and Paula Yankauskas. Eric was especially helpful, telling me to keep thinking when you're feeling tired, to just make it to the next feed - taking it one feed at a time.

The Race

My goal for going out was to not go totally all out. When the air horn went off to start the race, I just walked into the water nice and easy, letting everyone running in pass me up. I was more focused on getting to Brian and going at a nice steady pace. I couldn’t really see where everyone was during the swim before the first feed. After the 30 minute mark when I finally did drink some water for the first time, Brian told me that I was probably 10-15 minutes behind the first group and 10-15 minutes in front of the second group. At the time I didn’t realize that there were only three people in front of me and everyone else behind. I had just assumed that there were maybe seven people in either direction.

The next few miles were not as eventful. I believe on my second feed I saw my parents, aunt/uncle, and cousin cheering us on from the shoreline. I remember waiving over to them as well. Ended up feeding two more times before I made it to the north beach for the first time at about the 2h25m mark. I went ahead and ate some honey on bread with some water to wash it down. My support group told me that I was not that far behind the people in front of me which was nice. I felt good and not as tired as I thought that I’d might be.

After standing for a few minutes and conversing while I rested up and ate a little, I walked around the buoy and walked back into the water. At this point, I took my first stroke after my break and could feel the lactic acid buildup immediately. At the halfway point I was starting to struggle a little bit as I began to feel some soreness in my left tricep and right shoulder. I just continued to push through without trying to expend too much energy as I wanted to make sure that I had enough in the tank for the last five miles.

Probably the one thing that I will say that I would change already was to do more strokes breathing every three, as I had been mostly breathing every other on my right-hand side. I did start to introduce a little bit of breathing every three strokes at this point, as I did feel more comfortable in the water not looking at Brian as a guide to make sure that I was swimming straight.

By the time I was getting back to the south beach, I was looking at the clouds and it was getting a little bit dark again. I do admit I had the slight hope that there would be a bolt of lightning or something and I would be able to just get out at the south beach :D. I knew I could continue the swim at this point, I just figured it would be a nice excuse to have some rest. I hopped out and ate a stroopwafel and drank some water. One lady ended up passing me while I was standing on the beach taking a little bit of a break. I ended up not staying as long as I did previously so that I could hurry up and finish.

I felt somewhere in between how I was the first lap and the second. Not terrible, but a little more tired. What didn’t help at this point was the wind between the two cliffs that surrounded the south end of the lake was picking up. This caused some slightly more annoying waves for me and made Brian paddle harder while making him colder. Ultimately it was not a huge deal for me as I still felt comfortable (yet sore), I just felt bad for Brian as I figured that he is probably ready for this to be done. At this point I had also taken a few extra stops trying to stretch out to feel more comfortable.

There was a point just after the midway buoy that I asked Brian the time and it was just over seven hours and 16 minutes in. He said that he figured we had about another hour ahead of us. At this point I knew that I needed to work harder if I wanted to get under my sub eight-hour goal. Additionally, I could see the lady who had passed me at the south beach just ahead of us and wanted to see if I could catch up. I really worked for it for the last hour. At this point I did try and do a couple of feeds every 15 minutes instead of the normal 30, but I told Brian to forgo the last feed so that I could just get into shore ASAP. By the time we were probably 1,000 yards out. I was really trying to sprint the best that I could. I had also been toying in my head since lap two that it would be funny to do some butterfly strokes for my last few strokes. I was really on the fence at the end as I was getting tired/sore quick, but I managed to eke out four or five strokes before I stood up and ran the last 25 yards. Thankfully I made it under my eight-hour mark with a good amount to spare @7:45:00. As of me writing this, the official time has not been posted, but I will link here to it's entry on the LongSwim db once it is.

Post Race

Immediately after I finished, I honestly felt good! A little sore of course, but if I hadn’t sprinted/went quick that last hour, I probably could have gotten back in and done another five miles. The soreness and exhaustion didn’t catch me until after I had showered and gotten my metal and some food. Probably around 4PMish I was so tired. I could not keep my eyes open, and my muscles were starting to hurt. I had a hard time lifting my arms at all and my throat was super sore. At the time, I thought that this was because I was choaking down my food, but it was almost definitely because I was mostly only breathing to the right side. It took a few days to not be as sore anymore, but I was good a few days after getting back home.

Epilogue

Overall, I would say this was probably the best first marathon swim that I could have asked for; especially given all the shoulder issues I was having leading up to the event. I could have trained some more for this, done some slightly longer swims than my normal 2-mile practice. In the end, I think I was saved by reading up online of other people’s swims, my swimming history, and my support team. My food prep was pretty much there I think. I drank carb powder mixed with light blue Gatorade. I ate honey stingers which I found to be the easiest to dissolve in your mouth. I think I might also either add in some gu or switch out the stingers for gu. I also still would like to try some baby food or cutup peaches or something else similar. I was using desitin as sunscreen which worked pretty alright I think. It wasn’t particularly that sunny, so I could not be 100% certain how effective it was. It fortunately did not take too much baby oil to get off at the end of the swim. Very happy that I made it under my self-imposed eight-hour time limit. Like I said, I really did start to push more during the last 45 minutes or so to make sure that I would make it. Had it not been for that last hour going hard, I probably would have still been comfortable turning back around and doing an additional five miles! This makes me more confident for some of the longer distances that I wish to do too! Super looking forward to swimming this again eventually! Hopefully next time it is the Canadian border buster!