Memphremagog [A somewhat adequate Swimmer]

So where do I start on this, well I chose this as my longest swim to date at 25km versus Key West in 2016 at 20km.

This swim excited me, Vermont looked beautiful and I was lucky enough to meet Phil (Race director) at Swim the Suck in 2016.

Due to this excitement, my swim planning kicked off pretty well and stayed consistent with more than 50+ miles a month Jan to June. I felt pretty good going in to the event.

In bringing my yacker “James”, both my wife Erin and his wife Holly decided that Vermont looked pretty enough that they would like to join us on this trip. So the plan became a 6 day vacation and a 1000 mile drive from Chicago. The drive went well until James had a back spasm on the 2nd day and my wife had an allergic reaction to something when we arrived in Newport. On plus side this was a nice distraction from the swim (do not tell them I said so). Once we hit Vermont it was as beautiful as we had hoped though James got to see nothing as he was laying in the back of the car.

On arriving in Newport I dumped the passengers at the Air BnB and went straight to the lake to dip my feet and look North. It’s a very pretty lake surrounded by green luscious mountains/hills.

The following day I took my first actual swim and stretched out the arms with a couple of miles and also got James doped up on muscle relaxants from the local VA hospital.

We then took part in all the extracurricular that Phil organized with the Pizza boat party and the day before the race the course cruise and safety meeting and picking up my “No lanes, No lines, No limits” sweater.

Finally the day of the event. Up at 4.00am, check, double check, triple check we have everything. Dope up the kayaker again, arrive at the beach so that James can have first pick of Kayaks with one that hopefully will minimize his back pain. Slather on the sun screen, the zinc, the Vaseline. Place the Irish flag in my goggle strap so that James can find me. Wait for the fog to lift and its go time.

As usual, I hate the first 30 mins of any event, that is when I realize I am still much closer to the beginning, I have not found my rhythm etc. and have the most self-doubts, It does not seem to matter if I am swimming 3km or 25km, this is the struggle part for me. I Get through this to the first feed (one feed at a time), ask James how he is doing and then finally start to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery (during the feeds). Start to think about the fact I will be “soonish” crossing an international border while swimming for the first time and hoping ICE don’t come for me. Surprisingly take a look around at the other swimmers who weirdly enough have not spread out as much as I usually expect. Head back down and keep swimming.

This all went fine until somewhere between mile 4 and 5 as we approach/enter Canada, I have a weird moment, I was in a very Calm/Zen spot and admittedly kind of day dreaming when I suddenly jolt upright in the water, not sure if I 1) Nodded off briefly 2) passed out briefly or 3) just got really disorientated. To this day this is still up for debate. Anyway spoke to James asked him to watch me closely for the next few minutes and then continued on. We hit the turn point in Canada and started heading across the lake to the other side. This is the other section that I struggled on, I got confused with the map in my head and how long it seemed to be taking to get to the next buoy to go around the islands. It took me a while to clear my brain again and work out the math that we were still right on our expected schedule. So we continued. James struggled a little with some of the buoys around the islands but we figured keep heading south and we should be good was the motto.

We kept a look out for 6A buoy and to keep it to our right and the water grass field. We eventually came across the water grass and I resisted the urge to reach down and use it to propel myself forward. James I think at this point popped some more muscle relaxers.

We continued from here to aim at the gap between the 2 sides of the lake through the water grass fields. Based on the GPS we apparently kept a pretty straight line on this and eventually made it to the gap area. At this point some annoying chop started hitting from behind. It was nothing excessive, nothing like lake Michigan but was enough to be putting my stroke off.

With about a mile to go, I did make a poor decision. I decided I would drink the can of red bull that I had put in the kayak, this was a change to my Tailwind Nutrition that I had used for the rest of the swim and the Shotz. It was a bad idea, I immediately felt “bloatie”, I chose not to share this fact with anyone prior to now, as it was just a dumb decision by me. After about 10 mins, I had to stop again and ask for some plain old water. However that seemed to do the trick and I have learnt that Red Bull (it’s my coffee) is not a good idea after 14 miles of swimming.

Anyway by this point we can clearly see the beach and its gradually getting closer. We continue to make our way until we finally get to Prouty, I swim until I am in about a foot of water at which point I have no choice but to stand up, slowly. I pass through the gates at 8hrs 36 mins and then head back to help James with his getting out of the kayak. I remember at this point I have not removed my Irish flag from my goggle strap, it has survived there the entire swim. James is unsurprisingly a little stiff and a little doped up, so we get him on to the beach and start cleaning out the kayak while trying not to mix the now “pee water bottle” (not as easy as past events for James to pee from the kayak so he had to improvise). I thank James profusely, I had told him before the race that if he needed us to call it, then to go ahead and do so, a swim would not replace his long term back health and there were many events for us to do in the future. But he persevered and we have future events to identify and turn up to, as is regularly stated OW swimming is a team sport.

We then find some of our closer swim friends on the beach Tommy, Zach and then we also notice Swimstory Sam coming toward the finish. (Picture below is us 4 swimmers)

The better halves pick us up about 30 mins after we finish, we return to our accommodation, clean up and then come back down to the beach in the evening for the award ceremony and BBQ. At this point we can relax and hang out with the many swim friends we have made over the last 5 years.

I should add for any sightseers that while I swam and James kayaked, the better halves did do some local sights with a trip to Quebec to a yarn store where they got a discount for travelling from Chicago and for what their respective husbands were doing (it is the yarn addiction that balances out against my swim costs). A trip was also made to the Ben and Jerry’s factory and I continue to hear about the much greater choice of ice cream at the local factory.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable swim, a new bench mark for me, a pretty state and worth the trip in many ways.