Yesterday I had the privilege of supporting Marc for a change in a sporting event, "Swim for Life", which benefits the Puget Sound Blood Center. It is a swim across Lake Washington people form their own teams based on how fast their pace is. Given the inherent danger of swimming in the lake, which is fairly large, it is required that all teams had to have a kayaker alongside of them as they swam. This is where I came in. The way I saw it, my job was to:
We made arrangements with our friend, Mike, to carpool to the start in Medina, home of super-duper mega-mansions and the highest police-to-resident ratio ever recorded (ok, that was made up – kind of). When Marc and I woke up that morning at 5:30am, he noticed it was cloudy and windy. Great – now I may have to make a costume change as it could be cold being on the water, as opposed to being in the water in a wetsuit. As we were crossing the 520 bridge over Lake Washington, the 3 of us kind of let out a sigh when we saw some whitecaps bouncing on the water. We park and get to the beach, and then Marc and I find our boat, so we start the usual pre-race stuff (bathroom, waiver signing, etc.) and I see some of my fellow Coach Lesley chums racing in different waves.
But it is cold and windy on the beach. The air temperature may have been in the low 60s but it felt about 10 degrees cooler. The water looks very choppy. I was regretting not wearing one of my turtlenecks at that stage. I didn't panic, but I'll admit that I was nervous.
I knew this was important to Tricia in terms of her prep for Ironman in just over a week, and didn't want to let down her, Marc or Lauren. It was the first time I ever paid attention in the safety briefing of a race. Due to the awesome swimmers I had under my watch on "Team Surf & Turf" (READ: VERY FAST), we were in the first wave of teams to go out.
We were given the ok to start with others in the initial wave, and the 1st ½ mile didn't exactly reassure me. The kayakers and swimmers went off from a very small beach, so it was chaotic and there was a very strong current in addition to bouncing everywhere because of the chop from the whitecaps. I almost hit a couple of swimmers, but my "gang" was doing great and managed to create some separation plus they stayed together. I was trying to get out of the way of some folks so I got ahead of them (not good) but then we all eventually settled into a rhythm. In order to counteract the current, I had to revert back to my coxswain days so the boat didn't keep spinning around (just what I would have needed in a bouncy kayak). Leveraged some of the oar skills and just paddled along.
My swimmers looked great, although I think Lauren wanted to show off her youth by doing some "extra credit" swimming and taking a slightly longer route across the lake. J We were basically going with 2 other teams and the swimmers were all mixed in together. So the other 2 kayakers and I worked together just to ensure that everyone was ok, whether the swimmers were on our team or not. It was great. The choppiness didn't go away and I definitely felt like I was bouncing around quite a bit. I tried getting some pictures but they are either lopsided or a tad blurry. But overall, I was enjoying things once I got past that initial ½ mile. I wished it was sunnier because it is such a unique perspective to take in the very diverse landscape from the surface of Lake Washington.
I only met Lauren that morning (she is Tricia's niece) so I didn't have a benchmark on how she was doing, but based on what I observed of Marc, he looked like he was having fun chatting with the kayaker upfront from another team and other swimmers. Given the conditions, it is amazing how easy he made it all look although try getting him to admit that….. I train with Tricia on land a fair amount during her runs, and she looked like she was just cruising at a really easy and consistent pace. I am very excited for her in her upcoming Ironman, and am so proud of her efforts given some adversity she has had over the past 18 months.
The last ¼ mile pretty much just pushed us all in to Madison Park beach. Success! No injuries or kayak flipping in our group! Woo woo! The other 2 Coach Lesley teams did a great job, too. We later heard a decent amount of people had asked to be pulled out of the water, so we considered ourselves fortunate that nothing went wrong. It was really great to kayak next to Marc and provide support for a change, since he always does it for me in my running races. We were driving home and my arms/shoulders started to feel a tad sore, and I had a session planned at the range later on with another friend to work on my golf game. I guess Ibuprofen was my BFF yesterday.
Overall it was a great day in the midst of some very good days over the past 6 weeks. I got to support Marc and a good friend in an endeavor that was important to them, had a solid workout to test out an injury I am battling, and was able to see Marisa to catch up on a variety of topics (we'll leave the state of how I am hitting my long irons out of this and stick with the positive – like some of the advice she was giving me on a specific topic). Much to be thankful for.
Until next time and I have some overdue entries, so stay tuned.
Oh and more pics here.
- Ensure my swimmers, Marc, Tricia (who has been mentioned in a number of my running entries on this blog) and Lauren, were not in distress as they swam.
- Not hit any swimmers in the head with the paddle or my kayak, for that matter.
- Not inadvertently flip the kayak, which would have meant all of our gear would have been in the water in protective bags – and oh yeah, I would have been in the water, too.
We made arrangements with our friend, Mike, to carpool to the start in Medina, home of super-duper mega-mansions and the highest police-to-resident ratio ever recorded (ok, that was made up – kind of). When Marc and I woke up that morning at 5:30am, he noticed it was cloudy and windy. Great – now I may have to make a costume change as it could be cold being on the water, as opposed to being in the water in a wetsuit. As we were crossing the 520 bridge over Lake Washington, the 3 of us kind of let out a sigh when we saw some whitecaps bouncing on the water. We park and get to the beach, and then Marc and I find our boat, so we start the usual pre-race stuff (bathroom, waiver signing, etc.) and I see some of my fellow Coach Lesley chums racing in different waves.
But it is cold and windy on the beach. The air temperature may have been in the low 60s but it felt about 10 degrees cooler. The water looks very choppy. I was regretting not wearing one of my turtlenecks at that stage. I didn't panic, but I'll admit that I was nervous.
I knew this was important to Tricia in terms of her prep for Ironman in just over a week, and didn't want to let down her, Marc or Lauren. It was the first time I ever paid attention in the safety briefing of a race. Due to the awesome swimmers I had under my watch on "Team Surf & Turf" (READ: VERY FAST), we were in the first wave of teams to go out.We were given the ok to start with others in the initial wave, and the 1st ½ mile didn't exactly reassure me. The kayakers and swimmers went off from a very small beach, so it was chaotic and there was a very strong current in addition to bouncing everywhere because of the chop from the whitecaps. I almost hit a couple of swimmers, but my "gang" was doing great and managed to create some separation plus they stayed together. I was trying to get out of the way of some folks so I got ahead of them (not good) but then we all eventually settled into a rhythm. In order to counteract the current, I had to revert back to my coxswain days so the boat didn't keep spinning around (just what I would have needed in a bouncy kayak). Leveraged some of the oar skills and just paddled along.
My swimmers looked great, although I think Lauren wanted to show off her youth by doing some "extra credit" swimming and taking a slightly longer route across the lake. J We were basically going with 2 other teams and the swimmers were all mixed in together. So the other 2 kayakers and I worked together just to ensure that everyone was ok, whether the swimmers were on our team or not. It was great. The choppiness didn't go away and I definitely felt like I was bouncing around quite a bit. I tried getting some pictures but they are either lopsided or a tad blurry. But overall, I was enjoying things once I got past that initial ½ mile. I wished it was sunnier because it is such a unique perspective to take in the very diverse landscape from the surface of Lake Washington.
I only met Lauren that morning (she is Tricia's niece) so I didn't have a benchmark on how she was doing, but based on what I observed of Marc, he looked like he was having fun chatting with the kayaker upfront from another team and other swimmers. Given the conditions, it is amazing how easy he made it all look although try getting him to admit that….. I train with Tricia on land a fair amount during her runs, and she looked like she was just cruising at a really easy and consistent pace. I am very excited for her in her upcoming Ironman, and am so proud of her efforts given some adversity she has had over the past 18 months.
The last ¼ mile pretty much just pushed us all in to Madison Park beach. Success! No injuries or kayak flipping in our group! Woo woo! The other 2 Coach Lesley teams did a great job, too. We later heard a decent amount of people had asked to be pulled out of the water, so we considered ourselves fortunate that nothing went wrong. It was really great to kayak next to Marc and provide support for a change, since he always does it for me in my running races. We were driving home and my arms/shoulders started to feel a tad sore, and I had a session planned at the range later on with another friend to work on my golf game. I guess Ibuprofen was my BFF yesterday.
Overall it was a great day in the midst of some very good days over the past 6 weeks. I got to support Marc and a good friend in an endeavor that was important to them, had a solid workout to test out an injury I am battling, and was able to see Marisa to catch up on a variety of topics (we'll leave the state of how I am hitting my long irons out of this and stick with the positive – like some of the advice she was giving me on a specific topic). Much to be thankful for.
Until next time and I have some overdue entries, so stay tuned.
Oh and more pics here.