Swimrun Austin 2022 race report.

Our last swimrun of the 2022 swimrun season! This was both sad and happy in equal parts. It's been a long season. We're tired. We need some downtime. But we also love swimrun so much, we're going to miss it during the off season.

This is the 3rd year Odyssey has held Swimrun Austin, but only the second year we've been able to do it. Last year we had already paid for  Swimrun NC 2020, and that race was deferred to 2021 on the same date as Swimrun Austin. Fortunately this year NC was moved back to its earlier date, and so we were able to do both!

I loved having the opportunity to show off some of the fun locations and foods that Austin has to offer, though it's a lot of pressure when it's your hometown, so you find yourself in charge of a lot more things!

There were enough people in town Friday morning that we had a pre-shakeout shakeout swim+run at Barton Springs!

Even though the startline is only an hour drive from my house, we decided to rent an airbnb that was only 11 minutes away from the race site, so we could have a lot less travel, and get a group to all stay together. The airbnb was AMAZING, right on the lake, had everything we needed, and could not have been any more convenient. Definitely going to remember that for next year(s).

I now realize this is the ONLY picture we got with all the swimrunners in our airbnb (from the lakeside dock of our airbnb), and we didn't get a single picture that also included our 3 fabulous sherpas/photographers.

The combination of very close airbnb proximity, and not really taking our training and racing all that seriously since ÖTILLÖ World Champs, found us leaving our airbnb right at 6:30am to drive to the start line. When the race started at 7am. It's fine. It WAS fine! We had plenty of time. No stress.

All the stuff one needs to do a swimrun. (Full disclosure, my ARK sports bra is not in here, but it did make it onto my body for the race, fortunately.)

We got fully suited and lubed up, absolutely did not do any sort of warm-up (nothing new on race day!), took a billion photos, and then wandered over to the start chute after all the announcements and anthems were done. 

British invasion! So much fun having Alex and Mr and Mrs B come to Austin for this race!

We walked up to the back of the crowd, where we rightfully belong, and then the crowd continued to stream in, and suddenly we were in the MIDDLE of the crowd, where we definitely don't belong. But we decided to just go with it, because we were too lazy to fight the downstream crowds to find a more appropriate place.

With some random Böyz we met.

In all versions of this picture, Chipper is making some version of that face, and I love it.

This and all other Odyssey-watermarked photos are courtesy of Digital Knight Productions

And then we were off! To do something! After filling my entire right paddle with all the swims and runs from OTILLO WC, I've found I can't be arsed to actually care about writing them on my paddles for these last two swimruns of the season. (Sorry, did I mention we hung out with 3 Brits all weekend?) We looked at the legs on the webpage and determined it was basically a couple 2 mile runs, then threeish 3 mile runs, mostly separated by ~1000 yard swims, with maybe one shorter swim at some point. And lots of rocky exits. And Lars mentioned something something about mud at some point, during the pre-race announcements. Cool. Got it. We'll just follow the pink flags.

Aaron about to be crushed by a sea of swimrunners so he can get the shot.

Photo by Matt.

The first run is ~2 miles (garmin says it was 1.79 miles), and mostly gravel/dirt road with some actual road road thrown in. We trotted off in the middle of the crowd, presumably getting passed constantly, but just enjoying ourselves. I felt like we got a bit caught up in the energy of the crowds, especially being a little further up and trying to hang with Ben and Anna, and I felt like I was working pretty hard. I embraced it for a while, chatting with people and hamming it up for pictures and videos, then when things spread out a little bit, I said, "Uhhh, is it okay if we maybe slow it down a skosh?" I was somehow a combination of slightly chilled from the humid morning, and also massively overheating from running through a humid morning in a wetsuit.

Terrible photo of me, also the only race photo we got with Ben and Anna, and you can't even see Anna!

For the record, we were definitely wearing the ARK VIGG wetsuit. The most minimal, because it was 60 degrees and 1000% humidity. Yaaaay, Texas "Fall".

Trista was fine with slowing it down a notch, though again looking at the garmin, we were still running faster than we typically ever go in a swimrun. First-run energy!

Eventually we made it down toward the water, and we started getting ourselves and our gear prepared for the first swim of the day!

Before we swim, though, I have some gear notes. I was trying out several new things for this race! (Everything New on Race Day (ENoRD)). I had planned to mention them throughout the race report as they became relevant, but as it turns out.. they're really all relevant here in the wake of the first swim!

First we have a new tether. I didn't realize we needed a new tether, but Trista was intrigued by the tiny, thin tether that Team Envol Spam Fika was using, and wanted to try something like that out. And this thing is DEFINITELY tiny and thin. Even if it was terrible in every other way, which was as yet untested, it clearly rolled up into a tiny little wad that I could easily stuff into a pocket or into my wetsuit when it wasn't needed, which is a VAST improvement over the old, bulky tether. We started the race tethered, and I didn't really have any opinions on it either way during the first run, which meant at the very least, it wasn't terrible for any reason I'd yet discovered.

I was going to take a picture of it next to our OLD tether, but I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. (Did I lose our old tether? Absolutely not. Probably. Is this a repeated theme? I SAID I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.)

Second I was using my ARK carbon fiber paddles for the first time in a race. I've owned them for quite a few months, and Trista and Marcus both used theirs for World Champs, but I was too paranoid that they might break on all those technical Swedish rocks, even though there was no real evidence that should be a concern. And since I wasn't going to use them, I didn't train with them. And I continued to not train with them. And I intended to do my longer race-week swim with them to try them out, but then forgot to pack them. So other than maybe 1 or 2 swims many, many  months ago, I tried them for the first time on Thursday for 1200 yards. Then 400 yards on Friday. And another 400 yards on Saturday. And .. well, it didn't really matter how that Saturday swim felt, because I hadn't bothered to actually pack any spare paddles, so I was committed to these! (Actually, I could have done the hour drive back home to grab my usual peace paddles, but I didn't.) Paddle observation from first run: they are very, very extra clacky when they are carabinered to my race belt.

And finally, third I had gotten new shoes. It turns out FOMO applies even to shoes, and all my cool friends (and teammate) have been using the Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra shoes. I finally gave in and bought a pair right before Swimrun NC, but when I tried them out, I didn't even get a full mile in before I had to stop because they just felt Weird and Wrong. I thought maybe they might be too small, because the jury was split on whether they were true to size or whether you should size up half a size. I had opted not to size up. So were they Weird and Wrong because they were too small? Or just bad for my feet? Or was 0.7 miles just not long enough to give them a fair shake? Well, I wasn't willing to test out that theory at NC, so I wore my reliable WC-proven Hoka Torrents for NC. But when I got back home, I bought another pair of Terrexes half a size larger. (They didn't have them at my local REI, so I was buying online, and trying on when they arrived. Non-ideal. Whatever.) And they felt.. normal. Normal enough that I took them out for a muddy 7 mile trail run the next day, basically guaranteeing that they were now mine, and non-returnably dirty. And I didn't notice them the entire run. Which is exactly what you want from a running shoe. And since Austin is relatively tame as far as courses go (mostly, usually), I figured this would be a great race to give them a try.

For Swimrun NC, Trista had the Terrex and I had my Torrents, and we didn't match, and it was terrible. FIXED for this race. Matchy again.

Okay! 3 new things! They will all get follow-up mentions shortly.

We had started the race wearing our swim cap and goggles, already tethered, so as we approached the water, all I had to do was get my paddles off my belt and onto my hands, put my goggles on my face, and get my buoy off my back. Easy. Except I couldn't manage to open the carabiner that my paddles were hooked to. Cool, it'll just take a few extra seconds, no problem. Except I still couldn't. The carabiner was kinda facing the wrong way, and I just couldn't get the paddle straps out. I'm struggling behind Trista, who has no idea, and who then says "There's the bike of the photographer that went by us earlier, so we have to look like we have our shit together when we get to the water." HA. HA HA. YES. SURE. I CAN DO THAT. THINGS ARE FINE BACK HERE BEHIND YOU. NO PROBLEM.

Narrator: There was indeed a problem.

Even so, we glided over these rocks and past a lot of these teams!

Finally we were RIGHT THERE at the water, and so I just unhooked the whole carabiner from my belt, got the paddles off, and shoved the carabiner down the front of my wetsuit, hoping it would remain in whatever pocket it hopefully ended up in, to be retrieved at a time when there were fewer imminent swims and imminent photographers.

Okay. Paddles finally achieved and on hands, goggles on face, just have to professionally wade into the water and pull the buoy around and start swimming. Picture perfect.

Aww, look how focused and ready Trista is, and how I'm only now managing to get my paddles onto my hands!

Remember how Lars mentioned something about mud in the pre-race speech? Oh. Here was the mud.

It was insane. We've experienced some mud in swimruns before, but this might have been the worst we've had. Immediately we sunk to our ankles, and any attempts to extract a foot just sunk the other leg down to the knee. And it was a very sucking mud. I looked at the woman to my right, saw her looking down, and also looked down to find a footless shoe firmly mired in the deep mud. Oh no.

But there wasn't much I could do to help, especially because I had to stay close to my partner, who was also trying to struggle through the knee-deep mud. While chasing after her, I got fully stuck. Both legs. Couldn't move. As I tried to pull just one out, Trista turned around and grabbed one of my hands and started pulling. And bless her very kind heart, Sarah was just ahead of us, and also turned around to grab my other hand. They were wrenching me out of the mud as I struggled to make any forward progress, and I'm sure Sarah's sister Kelly thought she was crazy, because we were clearly their competition, and she had no reason other than being an EXCEEDINGLY nice person to help unmire me.

In case you feel like I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, see that person in the background on the left? That is me, SUNK TO MY MY KNEES IN MUD.

Eventually they pulled me forward enough that I ended up on my stomach, and from that position I was able to wriggle my feet loose. I just stayed on my stomach at that point, even though the water was incredibly shallow, and Trista flopped down on her stomach, and we started moving forward on our bellies. As I crawled through the mud with my hands, my right paddle sunk in and came off my fingers, and I had a moment of panic. I hadn't even officially STARTED my first swimrun swim with my carbon paddles, and already they were going to sink into the mire, like Artax! ARRRTAAAAAXXXX! (too soon?) Fortunately the wrist strap was still on, so I just plunged my fingers down into the mud and found the outer edge and wrenched the paddle back up and on. 

27000 photos of other people later, you can still see us in the background, falling over and sinking in!

At that point we had wriggled our way on top of the mud deep enough to have some water we could start to swim in. Of course, neither of us had ever managed to get our buoy off our back and between our legs, so we had to do that in the midst of all this nonsense, but then FINALLY we could start the first swim!

Look professional for the photographer: 10/10. Nailed it.

So here's my first follow-up gear note. One thing that I didn't initially love about my new Terrex shoes was that the mouth of the shoe, where your foot goes in, is very, very narrow. Trista is the kind of person who never unties her shoes, just slips them off and back on, and she can't do that with these shoes. I have to untie them and then loosen the whole thing a bit to get my feet in, and even then it's a struggle. (Adidas, if you're reading this: AT LEAST ADD HEEL LOOPS TO HELP PULL THEM ON. Thanks in advance, since you're almost assuredly already a huge fan of Team Adorkable and their blog.)

But it turns out that if it's a struggle to get your foot INTO the shoe, it's also nearly impossible to get your foot OUT of the shoe, and YAAAY never even got close to losing a shoe in the mire during all of that. Not everyone was so lucky.

Whew. Okay. Swimming! I think we both spent the first couple minutes just trying to flail the mud off our entire bodies. And then avoiding the forest of sticks we were swimming through. And then avoiding the schools of people we were swimming through. Things were still pretty tightly packed together, and we had to do some weaving to make forward progress.

Good news. After all that detail leading up to the first swim, my brain retained very little of the remainder of the race! So we're going high level overview for the most part from here on out.

Trista and I got matching Ö tattoos after World Champs, and you can see it on her wrist in this photo, and I love it so much.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

As mentioned, most of the swims were ~1000 yards. I had forgotten that from last time, and it's pretty intense! We just happen to like swimming, so that's not a problem, but we do so many races that have little 50 yard swims and then 50 meter runs interspersed among longer things, but this race is almost all 2-3 mile runs and 1000 yard swims. You're pretty ready to do the next thing by the time you get near the end of the current thing. But the swims are also all fairly tame. One entry where you hop off a dock. Two entries down steep concrete boat docks. One entry down a hill of iffy, slidey shale. ONE ENTRY THROUGH A HELL PIT OF MUD THAT I MAY HAVE ALREADY MENTIONED.

Some people tried to climb this hill straight out of the water, but always follow the flags for the best path (pink flag up at the top of the picture, Adorkables running on the surface of the moon at the bottom).

Photo by Aaron Palaian

The swim exits are a little more exciting. That iffy shale hill later becomes a swim exit, and is one of 3 moderately to heavily challenging bouldering climbs, thanks to, and how have I not mentioned this until just now, the fact that there is NO WATER in Lake Travis right now. We've had no rain this summer at all (that's not hyperbolic, severe drought), and the lake is so incredibly low. So places we have swum in the past have become runs instead. Rocky, sketchy runs. Some of the most fun parts of the race!

A corgi following her gazelle up a sketchy swim exit. Trista got out of the water much cleaner than I did, clearly.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

Oh, and after the first swim, I went to fish out the carabiner I'd shoved into my wetsuit, and couldn't find it. I hadn't had time to target an actual pocket, so I wasn't sure if it was just loose in my wetsuit, buried in a pocket, or at the bottom of the lake. And while Trista prefers to keep her paddles on her hands even on longer runs, I really prefer to put mine on my belt for anything over a mile, and there were a lot of over-a-mile runs left, so I was sad. Fortunately since Trista DOESN'T stow hers, she was willing to give me her spare carabiner (aka sparabiner) so that I would be less whiny for the rest of the race. Trista would like me to add that the carabiner she loaned me was her FAVORITE carabiner. And that I didn't return it after the race. It may be that I have misplaced that one as well now, no matter how tremendously unlikely that seems. Please don't tell her. I hope she doesn't read down this far.

OH, HI, TRISTA, NOTHING.
Just wanted to include this amazing photo Aaron got of the best teamie.

Photo by Aaron Palaian

The runs in this race are very quintessential Texas trails, which means rocks, roots, cactus, and often not a lot of tree cover. Perfect for testing out my Terrexes, and again I never noticed them at all, which meant they were great. Well, other than having to retie each shoe once during the race. Lesson learned: double knotting insufficient, go for triple knotting next time.

We were right in the middle of an intense swimrun therapy session here. There's a series of 20 photos as we ran through, and we're making Terrible Serious Faces in all of them.

We had fun winding through the squiggly run and hopping over rocks and scrambling over roots and generally catching up on all the things that had happened in the.. uh.. 2ish weeks since we last saw each other. Which somehow always ends up being a lot!

The light. The angle. The composition. Just.. so great.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

It should be noted that we did not get lost this time! In fact, there were two times where we kept other teams from going off course, and I believe that that karmically balances the time in 2020 where we led several other teams off course with us. Oops.

We loved the out and back to the aid station, and got to see so many friends and cheer for everyone. As we ran out, we saw Sarah and Kelly running back in, which told us we had at least one female long course team ahead of us. The only thing that decisively told us was that we were not in 1st place (we had already very much assumed we weren't, but now we had proof). That could have meant we were in 2nd place, or it could have meant we were in 27th place. We had no idea how many female long course teams were out there, and we had no idea how many had started ahead of us, never to be seen again.

Absolutely 1st place in the Having Fun and Being Adorkable contest.

Photo by Matt

On the way back in from the out and back, we saw Ben and Anna coming out, not too far behind us! That began the same game of leapfrog that we played at Mackinac last year (our first swimrun date with Team Kalamander!), where they passed us on a run leg, then we passed them back on a swim leg. That was good news for Matt and Kim, who were both out taking video (Matt on his cellphone) and pictures (Kim on her professional photographer camera), because the closer together our teams were, the less they had to figure out logistics to try to be around for both of us. (I GUESS Kim's real commitment was to the team her wife was on, but we love that she takes photos of us when she sees us, too, because her pictures are so amazing. And since we were all staying in a house together this year, she probably felt some extra obligation to try to get a picture or two of us. Yesssssssss!)

Matt and Kim at a sketchy swim exit. I bought my sherpa socks to match our socks. 🥰

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

We continued to have a good time, but after a while the heat of the day, especially while wearing a wetsuit, especially once the sun was fully up and out, started to wear on us a bit. Those 3 mile runs just seemed to last forever. We wanted to swim again. Or better yet, be done. We were ready for the finish line, for a celebration with friends, for the end of the swimrun season, as sad as it would be. 

Always climbing out of the swims.

Photo by Aaron Palaian

We'd get to a hill, and Trista would walk, because hills are our excuse to walk. Then we'd get to the top and she'd maybe walk a little more. Then she'd say, "UGH, FINE" and start running. I said, "I didn't say anything!" and she replied, "The you inside my head was yelling at me."

The me inside Trista's head is a harsh mistress. I'm glad SOMEone is keeping our team on task.

"PICK IT UP, TRISTA," -- The me inside her head, probably.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

To continue my new-gear notes, the jury is still out on carbon paddles for me. They're so much stiffer than my beloved ARK peace paddles, which has its mechanical advantages, but also made my hands and arms super fatigued by the end. Or maybe that was just that I had barely trained in them. Or maybe that was just that I took a bunch of time off swimming after NC to heal a tattoo. Who knows! More science required in the off season. We'll see what 2023 holds for the world of Amy's Paddles.

In case you wanted to see the ARK carbon paddles, here is Max Andersson Trista on one of the most technical swim exit ascents, carbon paddles in mouth. #sopro #doasthewinnersdo

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

As we gutted out the last 3 miler, the next-to-last run, another female team passed us. We had about another mile to go for this run (we guessed, assuming it was 3 miles, which it probably wasn't, since we hadn't written down the distances), and we were back in the situation we've been in the last two times we did Swimrun NC. Given how decisively they passed us, and how late in the race they were passing us, we were probably faster swimmers than they were. So if we could keep them from gaining too much on us in this run, we could maybe pass them on the last 1000ish yard swim, and then we only had a shortish (half mile) run that we'd have to hold them off to the finish line. Were we going to be fighting it out for a meaningless 11th place finish? Probably. But it was OUR 11th place to defend!

And then ANOTHER female team passed us on the run. Okay, well, that's the whole female long course podium right there, ahead of us. Pressure removed! Or WAS it.

As we hit mile 3 of this run, Trista said, "I don't think we should burn any matches on this swim, but if we can pass those two teams, I think we should do it, and then see what happens in the last run." I said I was game. I even thought we could afford to burn some matches on the swim, since it was the last swim, and the last race of the season, but I'm always a little afraid that if I tell Trista to Go Fast on the swim, she'll swim at a pace I can't achieve, and I'll actually finally be dragged behind her legitimately. It hasn't happened yet, but I wasn't sure I was ready to sprint 1000 yards all out. So I just agreed with her plan.

Meanwhile we came up on the civilization that is just before the stairs down to the swim. We had taken off swimcap and goggles for this run, since it was so long, and it was time to gear back up. Except I couldn't find my swimcap. I had just shoved it into the frontside of my wetsuit, but it wasn't there. And it wasn't in the top pocket. Middle pocket. Tippytop pocket. It just wasn't. I told Trista I couldn't find my swimcap.

But right then, we came upon Lars, who was filming for IG Live with his phone. As we ran up, I said, "Lars! Where is my swim cap?!" And then he started chatting with us. Trista asked a question about how many female teams had come through, to try to assess whether seriously we were 4th or 56th, and he said he thought we were looking at a podium spot. We told him we weren't, we knew THAT much at least, since there were 3 ahead of us, and then we were past him.

And I still couldn't find my swimcap. I told Trista again, as we got even closer. I kept digging. I could NOT find it. I wasn't sure what to do. Trista was getting her gear ready. Finally I was like, "Seriously, for real, I can't find my swimcap, and I'm not sure what to do." At that point Trista finally kinda tuned in that I was getting panicky, and believed that I wasn't going to find it before the swim, so she looked around and shouted, "Does anyone have a swimcap?!" And some random guy just ahead of us, standing next to the trail, POSSIBLY a volunteer, but not demonstrably marked as one, said, "I do!", pulled a swimcap out of his pocket (red, even, for long course), and handed it to me.

This is incident #3 of me needing a new swimcap during a race and serendipitously finding one randomly. That is both a testament to my complete and repeated shitshowiness, and also to the goodness of the people who volunteer/spectate at swimruns.

I crammed the swimcap on my head just as we got to the top of the "dodgy" metal staircase, and as we started to descend, we could see both female teams on or at the bottom of the stairs. 

Okay. It's on.

I mean, it's not so On that we didn't pause to do a cute little jump off of the dock for Kim (treading water with a camera in a waterproof bag) and Clara (sitting behind us with the other camera), which is fortunate, because this is maybe one of my favorite swimrun pictures of us ever taken.

Perfection. Thank you, Clara!

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

But THEN we were in the water, and it was on.

One of the teams hadn't even entered the water when we did, and the other was maybe about halfway out of the cove when we started swimming.

Shortly after we exited the cove and turned right along the cliff, we pulled up beside them, then passed them. Trista swam out fairly wide of the cliff and the team, so they had no real chance to jump on our feet, and I didn't check to see if they even tried. We just powered through the water, burning no matches, but wasting no time either. 

This was the roughest swim of the day (the only rough swim, really), and the chop tossed us around a bit, and shoved me into Trista's feet a few times. I hoped that might help us, since we're decent at choppy water, and maybe they weren't. Again, didn't check.

Chasing Trista's feet. This picture isn't from this swim, but from one of the swims where Kim was IN THE WATER with us. We tried to look as not-shitshowy as possible when we were swimming by her. Trista did a better job than I did.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

The swim, roughly 1000 yards, seemed to take forever, but eventually we got to the exit flag. We knew the exit of this swim was the rocky, slidey shale hill that we'd had to descend treacherously to get into swim 2, and then at the top of the cliff, it was a dirt/gravel road that we'd done during the shakeout workout the day before. Hopefully we'd gapped them a bit and wouldn't have to worry overmuch about pace.

Trista climbed to her feet, and as I did the same behind her, she looked back up the way. I said, "Where are they?" and she replied, "RIGHT there." No gap. They were right behind us. Okay, that's how it's gonna be.

We started climbing up the hill, scrambling up the rocks quickly but cautiously, since this would be a super dumb time to get injured. We made good time up to the top of the cliff, and at the top we found Marcus! It's been a while since Marcus came back to play with us at the end of a race, so that was a fun surprise.

Trista started walking at the top of the cliff while we talked to Marcus, and admitted she didn't really care anymore about pushing this last run. But I decided I did, and I said, "No way, we're at least gonna give it what we've got." So we started running again.

And we pushed. Marcus ran behind us on the gravel road, and I couldn't tell whether I could hear him, or whether it was the other team right behind us. But I decided not to look, because if I assumed they were right behind us, it would keep motivating me. Plus it was rocky, and I didn't want to faceplant.

Ugh, making an effort is THE WORST.

Thanks for the video of the rare Adorkable moment without constant annoying chatter, Marcus!

I pushed ahead of Trista, but assumed she'd stick close to me, even though she had expressed again that she was just tired and wanted to be done and didn't care anymore about placement. I figured I cared enough for both of us, so hopefully she was just right behind me when I couldn't see her sometimes.

I felt really good. It felt good to push, in this last race of the season. Marcus pulled ahead of us, and I figured he was running ahead to the finish line so he could get video of our finishing move, and just zoned out and followed him. We came up on a group of people on the left who were all cheering loudly, and I thought it might be Sarah and her family, but I was focused looking ahead. It was really great how enthusiastically they were yelling for us, though. Very inspiring. Wait. That doesn't sound encouraging, that sounds like they're legitimately yelling at me. And so is Trista. And WHERE is Trista?! Oh, Marcus was going around the back way to the finish line, and I was blindly following him the wrong way. Oops. And everyone had been yelling at me that I was going the wrong way. I backtracked a bit and hooked up with Trista again and we headed the right way down the finish chute path.

We knew we had to take our buoys off for the finish line move, but I didn't want to have that other team pass us right at the finish line, so finally I looked behind us. Not a soul behind us. No other teams to be seen. Yay! Maybe we didn't have to push QUITE as hard as we did? But whatever, we passed both those teams that had passed us, and could rightfully claim 107th place or whatever we were!

But first we walked a second so we could take off our buoys, and then did a little jog (jag) over the finish line!

No other idiots strip off their gear before crossing the finish line. Team Adorkable is special.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

And then we did our planned finish line shenanigan for this race, which was perhaps our most weird and artistic one yet, and I adore it, even if it's super weird.

Many thanks to Marcus for rushing ahead to get this video!

Puzzled? Yeah, we can't explain it either. 

The Russian judges gave it a 9.5.

And then we were done with the race and done with the 2022 swimrun season!

AND then we were told we were 2nd place female long course team! Turns out Sarah and Kelly, who we'd seen on the out and back, were the only women ahead of us after all. And if we had just let those other two teams go, we'd have ended up 4th, not on the podium! So I'm glad we had one of those rare moments of competitive spirit, and pushed at the end.

Thank you, ARK, for a fantastic 2022 season!

Photo by Matt

I mean, it turns out maybe we didn't need to push QUITE as hard as we did, since 3rd place ended up finishing 5 minutes after us, and 4th place finished almost 10 minutes after us. Not quite the photo finish I was fearing after all. But it felt good to feel like we really earned our 2nd place. 

4:16:49. 2/12 in women's long course teams, 13/41 overall.

They don't do an official podium anymore, so we gathered up 1st (KB & Bananas) and 3rd (Crabby Armadillos) for our own podium shot!

Thank you, Envol Swimrun for an amazing 2022 season! 2/3 of the podium was Envol.

Photo by Matt

To finish out my new gear review, I think I'm sold on our new tether. It had some weird things I had to get used to. It is so much lighter than the old tether that it doesn't actually sink much in the water. So instead of sinking down below my face while I swim, the extra comes back toward me, and ends up making it feel like the tether is much, much longer than our other tether. Even though we measured them against each other, and I know it's identical. It just sits in the water very differently. But I got used to that weirdness fairly quickly.

And just as it doesn't sink into the water as deep, it doesn't lay as heavily when running, either. That means it tries to get snagged on a lot more things, and is somewhat harder to wrangle. We got snagged on more rocky outcroppings and trees than we typically do, but that's probably just something I need to re-learn with this new tether.

On the plus side, this new tether is stretchy, unlike our old tether, which means on sketchy rock slides and cliff ascents, Trista can get further ahead of me without pulling me with her, so I have more options and don't have to stick as close. That was a very nice feeling on the technical terrain on this course.  And at the very end when we untethered for the finish line, I was able to spool the whole thing up into a tiny ball and shove it into my wetsuit easily. A big win.

Here's a good picture of it in action, as I try to wrangle it because we're trying to stand next to each other in case Kim wants to make photo magic of us. Why is my face so dirty? This wasn't a technical exit at all.

Photo by Kimberly Moss Photography

Speaking of shoving things into my wetsuit, as we were taking off all our gear, I took everything out of my pockets. Gel wrappers. Uneaten gels. Aforementioned tether wad. Soft flask. That was it. Except I could still feel something squishy in there. But I couldn't manage to FIND it. Not in bottom Kangaroo top pocket. Or middle. Or tippytop. And then finally I dug beneath all that into my ARK sports bra pocket.. and there it was! The missing swimcap. Ha. With me the whole time.

The missing carabiner remained undiscovered until I got ready to shower, and it was stuck to my stomach. Sexy, sexy sport, indeed.

So many thanks and so much love to Matt, Kim, and Clara for supporting us all weekend. 

Photo (and sherpaing) by Kimberly Moss Photography

The End.

Of the race.

Of the report.

Of the 2022 season.

(Löw Tide Buttz)