No buoys, or turns. You start at one end of the lake and you swim to the other end (you can see the whole swim in the attached pics.) It sure looks a lot longer from that viewpoint than it did when we were down on the shore. I wish I'd remembered to bring my camera to the swim start as I could have a few pics of the lake from there, maybe next year.

They had a kayack lead out with a dolphin balloon to follow, which was good for a while but as I am not a speedy swimmer it just kept receding in the distance until it finally disappeared. By that point though there were a few other kayacks that were out there to sight on, plus in the distance was the tiny, tiny, orange finish line. It was interesting not having any buoys and swimming by myself for the majority of the swim. Not a lot of swimmers do this one because of the length, so although the beginning was pretty crowded it became very UNcrowded fairly quickly. Every once in a while doing breaststroke I'd keep an eye out for the couple of swimmers way off to my right or my left (okay, I'm in the middle, that's good) or some swimmer pretty far out in front of me. At the beginning I was hyperventilating a bit, this is a mountain lake, and it's very close to 6,000 feet in altitude. I just had to slow down a bit and get into a rhythm and then I was fine. It was extremely cool for a while, just the feeling of swimming and watching the shore slide by. After a while though, I felt like I was on a swimming treadmill. I just kept swimming, swimming, swimming, but it seemed like the finish never got any closer. I did consider quitting, but I figured there was a 2:30 time limit and they'd pull me out if I was going too slow. I was pretty tired for the last part. I know I was quite a bit slower too, as I was alternating between breaststroke, free and backstroke regularly and my freestyle form was falling apart. Also, looking at the shore got depressing as I didn't seem to be moving. I knew I was getting close, so I was trying to go a bit faster, cause I didn't want to be DQ'ed because of time that close to the finish. Then, after what seemed like forever, there was the bottom, and after swimming in limbo where all you can see is the sun's rays in the water, watching the bottom move past was pretty cool. The lake is really clear, so you could see the bottom from quite a ways out. When I finally stood up to walk in, I was still in deeper than I thought I would be.

The lake was dead calm, the only bad thing was the police escort guy on a jetski. He'd do these big circles around the swimmers, I mean really far out there, but every time he'd do that, he'd create these swells. They weren't a problem for me until I'd been in there for quite a while, then they just seemed huge. So, I'd just do breaststroke through them, as that seemed a lot easier and even faster than trying to swim through them.

Get in some longer distances in the pool.

The very nice race volunteer got my number and my timing chip. She spoke in small simple words, as it was obvious I was pretty out of it. Met my sis who had my stuff (she finished in 1:36) and put on my sweatshirt. It was a very warm day, but I was really cold for a while afterwards. Changing into dry clothes helped that out a lot.

Ate some oranges and bagels. They had a BBQ for the participants, but we didn't stick around for that, we headed down the road to this little restaurant called Ikeda's and had a really good lunch of Chicken Pesto Sandwiches, which I swear, were the best food EVER!!

Then headed back to my sister's place, where I pretty much passed out for a couple of hours. She was doing all this stuff - and I was just zonked. Then got everything together and headed home.


I've only been back in the pool since mid-May - so time in the pool, plus I really need to go 3x a week to get better, and I've only been going 2x a week. It makes a difference.

I finished though - and I am so psyched about that. I actually was faster than I thought I would be.


This is a Master's event, so it's pretty basic in terms of what's available. Always good food, but don't expect an announcer, or an expo. Usually, you buy your own shirt as well. Low key, but very well organized. Plenty of kayackers, a Police boat, and police on jetskis to escort the swimmers.

Photo Comments: That's me in the pink, and my sis in the other photo. You can see the lake in the background.