2009 Trans Tahoe Relay Recap

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What a weekend!

The race was Saturday morning, but what would a big event be like without poor planning?? We reserved a boat in South Lake and the race was in North Lake. Yes, that’s about an hour drive!

So Saturday morning began with alarms going off throughout our team cabin at 5:00 a.m. UGGG! I’m NOT a morning person, but the adrenaline I felt jolted me out of bed. We hit the road at 5:30 to get to our boat. Our lead swimmer Ben drove a separate car to the starting line. We picked up the boat at 6:30 without a hitch, piled on and floored it to get to the start area by 7:30.

The crisp, cool mountain air blew right through us as we bundled up in towels and sweatshirts. We got to the start, and the sun was peaking over the snow-capped mountain tops. The race started and we spotted a pack of 4 swimmers. Our guy Ben was in that pack, so we waved him down. He was swimming fast and smiling!!

The leader from another team pulled away and was really putting some distance between us and his boat. Ben held strong in his 30 minutes, kept on course and kept us in 4th place. We looked behind us and there were dozens of boats!!

3 more swimmers took their 30 minute turn, and we were holding on to 6th place by a nose. I was able to get my tiny Blue Seventy Nero high tech suit on with some help from TriSlide, and with lots of excitement I dove into the water. WWHEW!!!! Water felt COLD, more so than I expected. Erin, the only female on our team, tagged my foot in the water and I was off!

I went out hard and fast! I was way too excited. Within 5 minutes I felt completely out of breath. I had to slow it down. The pockets of arctic water weren’t helping, I felt a little shock each time I hit one. And, for the first time I felt the affects of the altitude (Tahoe is around 6,000 feet). But, I finally got into a rhythm. At about the 20 minute mark, I was ready to be done! I took a breath and looked at my teammates sitting on the boat, kicking back, and I was filled with envy. At around the 25 minute mark, my stroke started to slip, hands were getting tired and I felt like my usual long strokes were becoming short and choppy. As I touched the foot of our next swimmer, Rodrigo, I felt relieved and ecstatic to be finished!

Back on the boat and beer in hand, I watched and cheered on the rest of the way under sunshine and 80 degree weather. We were solidly in 7th place. Somehow, even with our top swimmers getting back in the water for their 15-minute swims, we could not gain on any of the boats in front of us, but held off a couple of boats just behind.

Tyler jumped in for the last leg, turned the buoy, and ran up to the shore. Our time was around 3 hours, 41 minutes.

Later, we found out that the 1st place team got disqualified for having their lead guy swim for too long on his second swim! So we moved up to 6th place!!

Thanks and congrats to my teammates: Ben, Kosuke, Tyler, Erin, and Rodrigo/Dylan!

Definitely a fun time and a good race. Sunday I was a bit sore from the race and vowed to get to the mountains a little earlier next time to adjust to the altitude.

I’m ready to take a couple of days off and get back in the swim of things mid-week this week. I think my next race will be the La Jolla Rough Water Swim in September (1 mile!). I look forward to getting into better shape over the next couple of months.