Swimrun Lake James 2023
Our FOURTH time racing Swimrun Lake James. That's crazy. It's almost like we've been doing this sport for a while!
We've been doing some serious training for Rockman, hoping this will be the year it finally happens for us. That training is pretty much nonstop hills and stairs and squats, so it was refreshing to get a little break from the hills at Lake James. (Some people disagreed that it wasn't hilly, but it's all relative, man. It WAS hilly, just not "4k feet of elevation" hilly.)
And it was a warm year! We've now had two cold, two warm, and I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I prefer the cold years. We did a little naked (not literally, you're welcome) swim at the shakeout on Friday, and it was very comfortable without a wetsuit, mid to high 60s. Perfect for my ARK Utö suit, which is good, because that's the only suit I brought. There's less last-minute waffling when you commit before you even get on the plane. Trista went with her Ornö X, which means we wore the exact same suits we did last year. (You're welcome, future Amy, coming back to find out what suits we wore in 2023.)
On race morning, I woke up just before my 5am alarm, stuff already laid out the night before, ready to eat, suit up, hit the bathroom a few times, and then be ready for our 6:15am planned departure for the race.
I walked into the kitchen to cook up some pb&j, and there was a flash of light and a rumble of thunder.
Oh. Evidently that chance of storms was going to be an actual thing.
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For the next hour, we sat around and watched and listened to the storm from the big windows in our kitchen. We weren't sure what it meant for the race, but the race wasn't supposed to start until 7:30, and the cell didn't look too wide, so we kept getting ready, crossing our fingers. A message from the RDs said to assume we were starting on time, so at 6am, so frantically finished up the prep we'd mostly been ignoring, and got out the door just after 6:15.
Okay, I COULD skip this story. But obviously I'm not going to. We had 11 people in our house. We had 4.5 bathrooms. Shortly before we left for the race, the water in our house stopped working. Which meant the toilets in our house stopped flushing. Fortunately I think most people had already made it through one round of bathroomtime. But.. it wasn't a great situation. Would not recommend. (EDITED TO ADD: Trista demands that I change that to SHITuation.)
By the time we got to the race site, it was still raining, but no more lightning or thunder. It was looking promising. A follow-up note from the RD said the race was on, pushed back half an hour to 8am.
Fortunately that gave us plenty of time to do all the important things like take pictures.
Dance.
Hit the portapotty 8 times.
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And then after dicking around for way too long, we realized it was basically time for the race to start, and we weren't ready at all. Oops. Plus we wanted to hit the portapotty one last time. Inhaled a gel, stuffed things frantically in pockets, closed up the car, ran toward the portapotty, ran back to get Trista's buoy, back to the portapotty again.
We finally made our way to the start line, where I realized in my haste I had completely neglected to put any lube on my neck, under the collar of my wetsuit. I tried to find some other part of my body that I could steal some from, then failing that, tried to find someone willing to let me rub my neck against THEIR random lubed body part, but in the end I finally just had to cross my fingers and hope for the best.
We gathered up. We meowed the National Anthem. And then we were off!
The first run at Lake James is ~1 mile, and I usually feel terrible. I could actually generalize that a bit and say "I usually feel terrible during the first run of any swimrun". We don't warm up before the race. I generally feel like a shambling zombie for the first 20-30 minutes of ANY run. And combine that with pre-race nerves, excited people starting too fast, and Trista being less shambly than me at the beginning, I usually spend the first run just trying to stay upright and cling to the back of Trista and telling myself that I love this sport, and I'll remember that once we've begun the first swim.
But this run was actually.. just fine. Weird.
I'm not sure if we were running slower than normal or if I'm just in amazingly spectacular shape this year compared to every other race in every other year (unlikely), but I felt very little stress, didn't feel like my heart rate was super high, didn't feel like I was going to trip constantly. We just cruised along, very near the back, with the Kalamanders behind us, a string of teams in front of us setting the pace, and we chatted and enjoyed ourselves. I would like this to happen every race, please.
I was pleased when I saw the road ahead of us, because crossing that leads down to the first swim. And then immediately also horrified, because somehow, 1782 swimruns into our swimrun career (roughly) I STILL haven't managed to have my shit together for the first transition to swim. This happens EVERY TIME. I see the water and think "Oh no, I forgot to make sure I put my tether and my buoy on in the right order!" I didn't. My instinctive order is invariably wrong. Every time.
Right. So. All we have to do is cross the road, run down a steep dirt path, hook a left, and jump into the water for the first swim. In that time, I had to get my paddles out of my carabiner and onto my hands, unhook my tether, pop my buoy off my back, rehook tether correctly, and put on goggles. No problem.
Except I couldn't get my paddles off unhooked from the carabiner.
If you're thinking "This sounds REALLY FAMILIAR, didn't that happen to you in Austin last year?", ... that's weird, because why would you remember that? That's really specific. But you'd be right! Exactly what happened to me at Austin last year. Which could have been solved by swapping my carabiner out for a bigger one, which I absolutely already own, OR by starting the paddle extraction process 5 minutes earlier at the very least.
But I didn't. I should do that before Casco. I can't wait to write about how I didn't, in my Casco race report. See you there!
Meanwhile we've crossed the road and are about to descend the hill. The hill is runnable, but there's often some congestion there, and we end up walking because the people in front of us are walking. This was very much to my advantage, since I was still working with my paddles and tether, and I told Trista if people walked down the hill, just to embrace that, because I needed some time. She again had no idea the drama that was going on behind her. I hide my drama well, mostly. (Mostly.)
I'm proud to say that by the time we got to the water, I had ALL my shit together (as together as all my shit ever is), and we were able to bushwhack around the other teams, hop into the water, and immediately start swimming. No notes this time! No "start swimming, until Trista realized her suit wasn't zipped" or "until our goggles fogged up" or anything.
Actually, spoiler, I'd say overall this is maybe the best transitions we've ever had in a race. Some is experience, some is luck, some is motivation; but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Swimming! First swim! Traditionally the coldest swim at Lake James, but it just really wasn't cold this year. Plus we were too busy to notice anyway, as Trista zoomed us through the obstacle course of people who had been just ahead of us on the run. Zooooooom. Except Fischbach and partner who pulled up on our right side and tried to pincer maneuver me. (FISCHBAAAACH!)
Otherwise an uneventful swim, at least back where I was. I'm obediently trying to stare straight down at the tether and trust and not sight, so ANYTHING could have been happening up with Trista and I'd never know. I assume she'd have told me after, though.
Okay! One run and one swim done! The race has truly begun, the cobwebs have been shaken off, now we are on TOP of matters!
As we ran through Amy's Folly for the first (of three total) times (no falling!), Kalamazoo 3 ran by us. This is not their team name, but evidently Kalamazoo is the new hot bed for swimrun, because there were THREE swimrun teams from Kalamazoo at Lake James! Our beloved Kalamanders, the shy and retiring Water Buffalos, and then .. Kevin and Audrey, whose team name I didn't actually remember, so they just became Kalamazoo 3. Sorry, guys. Kinda catchy, though, yeah? Maybe consider renaming for the next race.
Kalamazoo 3 left us in their dust, and then proceeded to keep running straight when the trail cuts off sharply to the right for swim 2. This happened last year, too, and again because we are nice people, we yelled at them to come back and turn. I believe it was a mixed team last year, as well. Would we be so nice if it were a women's team? Let's assume yes, okay? You have no proof otherwise.
As we waded into the water for swim 2, Trista said she saw Kim on the other shore, so we had to look like we had our shit together. Got it. Check. No problem. My shit is always together. I'm frankly a little offended you might be implying otherwise.
Look, I don't even remember what was happening here. I remember telling Trista several runs in that all my swims had been a bit fraught so far, but it was fine, and maybe she'd read about it in the race report. But honestly now I don't even remember. Clearly issues were happening, though, but again, I internalized all my drama and Trista was unaware. Perfect.
Sidebar here: We decided not to write the distances on our paddles. The first few years, we wrote the distances down for every race. We debated whether to do it for World Champs, because that's a LOT to fit on a paddle, and ultimately I decided it would help me to know, so I did.
And we haven't done it since then. Not for NC, not for Austin, and not for Lake James. NC we've done enough times to know the basic structure, and it's mathematically pleasing, so easy for me to roughly remember. Austin basically just has a series of 3 mile runs and 1k swims, so no real need to write it down. Lake James is pretty complicated, with 13 swims and 14 runs, and I definitely have not memorized the legs/distances, but honestly I just couldn't be arsed to write it all down. And I was happy with that decision.
Which means when we did another run and another swim, came out, and Trista started stripping down, I was SHOCKED to find that we were starting the long run! The long run always felt like it was further into the race somehow, and I was excited that we were already there!
We found Kim lying on the ground, because photographers are weird, and tried to look cute as we ran by.
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Okay! Time to settle in to this long run, which people say is 7 miles, which feels like 15, but which we've established is historically just over 8. That's a really long run in the middle of a swimrun, but perfect for the Kalamanders and the MonkeySeas, who are doing World Champs this year. This is also where we expected to see the Kalamanders again, since Ben told us his goal was to pass us on the long run. I'd say you're not supposed to reveal your crafty plan, but they're faster runners than us, and we were mostly just excited we'd get to say hi as they went by!
After we pass our Kim and Matt cheer squad, we start to get comfortable. We untether, and I stash the tether into some nebulous crevice in my wetsuit. I take off my goggles and hook them and my paddles to my carabiner. I take off my swimcap and shove it into a Kangaroo top pocket, warning Trista it will likely be unfindable later, as is typically my MO. So she can start strategizing who she will hit up to find me a new one. As is her MO. We're cruising along at Forever Sustainable Adorkaspeed (aka not fast but very steady).
And so we ran 8 uneventful miles and came up to the next swim.
JUST! KIDDING! The opposite of that happened!
A team comes up behind us to pass us (a common refrain on the long run), and we scooch over to make sure they have room, as they say "Hey, did anyone lose a paddle?"
I thought, "Oh, man, that would really suck. Thankfully I have both of my OH MY GOD I ONLY HAVE ONE PADDLE." I'll take "Absolutely Terrible Feelings" for 500, Alex.
I barely hesitated, brain working overtime in panic mode. We were only about half a mile into this run, so it couldn't be TOO far back. We still had a lot of race left. A lot of the remaining race was swimming. I am not the stronger swimmer on our team. I needed that paddle. Decision made.
I turned around and started running back up the trail. Fortunately we had already untethered, or Trista would have been in for a surprise. I don't even think I said anything. I figured she'd figure it out pretty quick, my plan. I just wanted to get back and find the paddle as quickly as possible, so I could try to minimize the damage my idiocy caused.
I was running at an effort, and a pace, that we never, ever run during swimruns, other than those couple times we've pushed ourselves in the last run up to the finish line. I felt like I had that panicked look in my eyes that spooked horses have. My biggest follow-up fear was that it had fallen into the leaf litter on the side of the trail, and I would run by in such a panic, I wouldn't even see it, and I'd end up back at the water not having found it.
So as I ran the wrong way, into a stream of teams running the RIGHT way (fortunately this is the widest trail in the whole race), I'd say to every person, "Paddle? Did you see a paddle? PADDLE?!" And they all said "Further back." One person said "About a third of a mile." I don't remember how far I'd gone at that point, and I didn't know how far that was. I just kept running. Paddle?! Paddle?! Everyone looked very sorry for me. I felt like such an idiot.
Finally, finally, I said, "Paddle?!" and someone handed me my paddle. The great debate if you come across gear on the trail: Do you pick it up and hope that you find its owner, or do you leave it so that if the owner knows where they dropped it, they can find it again, and not risk the two of you not hooking up to exchange? Fortunately I was reunited with my paddle, and I was SO thankful. Honestly I have no memory of who gave it to me, and I hoped I thanked them effusively. I also have no memory of the people I passed going upstream who kept me going and offered me condolences. So many thanks to all of you, sorry for the crazy-horse look.
I turned back around and started back the right way, still running as fast as I could. I say it was fast, but my Garmin didn't record pace for this run for some reason, so let's just say it was a sub-5 minute mile pace and leave it at that. Frankly, you can't prove otherwise.
I had not a single time during this episode thought, "I wonder what Trista's doing!" I hoped she'd just stay where I had turned around, since there was no need for both of us to come back. She could have been right behind me the whole time and I wouldn't have known. Instead it was somewhere in between, and I found her again quickly, with triumphant paddle and many apologies for my idiocy. I tried to keep pushing the pace to make up for lost time, but she wisely said yeah, hey, maybe let's walk for a bit to get your heart rate back down? So we did that, and then settled back into our standard pace.
I am the worst partner, and my partner is the best partner.
Fortunately the rest of the long run WAS blissfully relatively uneventful. The Kalamanders caught up to us, as promised, YOU'RE WELCOME FOR MAKING THAT INEVITABILITY EVEN EASIER FOR YOU. They tried to slow down to our pace and stay with us, but we insisted they keep going and run their own pace, even though we really enjoyed the brief time we got to run together, and so they jagged off into the distance.
The forest was beautiful. Except the parts that were recently on fire (controlled burn), and those smelled and tasted like we were running through a bbq pit. Trista cabbed down. The trail was very muddy, and there were big sections where you had to be careful not to slide and hyperextend a hammy. We practiced running up. We practiced running down. We had many deep and insightful conversations. (But seriously, why is 'motherfucker' a relatively common part of our vernacular that is really largely devoid of meaning aside from being a generalized swear, whereas 'fatherfucker' instantly causes one to recoil in horror? Mysterious.) We tried really hard to go the wrong way at the aid station, as we do every year (many thanks to Christine and to Liza's Mom for keeping us on course, and for volunteering). We bushwhacked, which was bushwhackier than last year, but I also felt like there were significantly fewer overunders than in years past. We reassembled all our stuff and cabbed Trista back up too early, because my distance for this section was off, due to my brief jaunt in the wrong direction, but better too early than to still be cabbed down with cap off when you get down to the water. It was overall a very good long run that somehow didn't feel as interminably long this year, maybe because I was just so happy to have two paddles.
Overall, doing the math afterward, based on what we could scrape from Garmin, Paddlegate only added about a quarter of a mile total, maybe 3 minutes, to that run. How's THAT for a high degree of drama, and words, for a relatively low impact event? Still, do not recommend.
But then it was time for swim 5, one of the long ones! And despite being almost entirely alone for most of the long run, and feeling like we were the last ones out there, .. we ended up passing some people on the swim! We were not the last ones out there! It's just not uncommon to feel that way in a race that long that gets so spread out.
Passing people on the swim lit a fire under Trista, and for the rest of the race, she was pushing a little harder on every swim. I was having to work to stay on her feet, which is always fun, but also exhausting.
But two of the teams we passed were female teams. Female teams we liked! Friends! But we felt some latent sense of competitiveness rear its head, because we didn't know if the three of us were fighting for 1st place (though that was unlikely), 3rd place, or 6th place. We didn't want to regret not having tried.
So we swam hard. And we transitioned really smoothly and efficiently. Turns out being properly motivated really helps your transition times! And.. we ran standard Trista and Amy speed. Turns out we mostly only turn it on for the run when we the finishline is actually in eyeshot. We save it all up for that big moment. So we plodded on, happy to leap frog with the Kalamanders, the MonkeySeas, with Kate and Mary, and some various other teams.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the transitions. They're always a high point at Lake James. Climbing on roots. Pulling yourself up ropes. Lots of opportunity to use that upper body strength you wish you'd spent more time developing. But it was even MORE fun this year, because of the torrential rain that morning. And by "fun", I mostly mean "extremely muddy". It's always helpful to have your partner or another friendly team give you a hand up or a couple hands on your butt, but this year there were places that were pretty non-optional. I think if I'd been doing it solo, I might still be out there, sliding back down steep muddy embankments. Kudos to the solo people. Hopefully some stranger grabbed their butt for them when needed.
And then that one steep slide down into the water, which is always deadly and ends in a hidden underwater crevasse, but this year also featured a variety pack of stabby roots and branches, guaranteed to maim you no matter what strategy you attempted! Good stuff. (Some people might read this and think "Nothing about that sounds appealing." Some people will read this and think it sounds amazing. Those people are our people.)
As we came down to the one of the last swims, we found our favorite volunteer, Meredith! She told us based on her calculations, we were still on track to meet our only real nebulous goal (other than finishing and not getting injured): finishing faster than last year. We've gone faster every year, and we know that's not sustainable (unless they start shortening the course every year!), but we've been doing some pretty intense training, and we were pretty curious to see what that meant for our finish time. But we still had a chunk of the race left, and anything can happen, especially in a sport as silly as swimrun, so we continued on!
Just a few more short swims and runs, and then we saw the boat dock ahead! Last swim! And our own cheering squad across the water, as Matt yelled for us and Kim took pictures. It was such a fun way to end the race.
Except, as I'll bemoan every year, that is no longer the end of the race. We still have that laaaaaaast looooong ruuun.
Kate and Mary came out of the water just ahead of us, and were clearly both faster runners than us, and also much more motivated to push on the run. Maybe with a couple more swims we could have gotten far enough ahead of them to retain a lead through the end, but we started the last run with them in sight, slowly moving out of our sight, and we just didn't have it in us to try to stay with them when they'd been passing us so decisively every time they passed us on a run.
So we settled into that last interminable run with a goal of not fucking everything up right at the end. It was very wet, very muddy, very slick, and we have a lot of fun things left this year, so we took it easy, we stayed safe, and we enjoyed these last moments on the trail. These last moments that never, ever, ever seemed to end. It didn't help that I had gotten it in my head that this run was just under 2 miles, but turns out! It's 2.5 miles. So that half mile seemed really unnecessary and neverending.
But we complained our way through it and finally turned the corner to see the finish line! Trista had been keeping an eye on the time as we got close, and it became clear we were definitely going to beat last year's time, probably by several minutes. Success!
Lake James 2018: 5:11:05
Lake James 2021: 5:04:39
Lake James 2022: 4:56:59
Lake James 2023: 4:53:12
We had accumulated a decent backlog of "finish line moves to try out when we're together again", and we actually remembered to try them the day before. And some of those were AMBITIOUS, and some of them were ABJECT FAILURES, but super fun to attempt. We finally decided we needed a little help from our friends, so we picked a group activity and asked the Team Envol Spam Fika boys to come help us. Of course, we realized during that last run that they were going to have been done for hours, and would be clean and dry, and we were going to have to put our gross, wet, muddy shoes on their clean selves. I was hoping that they had realized that, too, and come up with some sort of contingency plan, but they hadn't, so Trista and I just slipped off our shoes (just kidding, you can't slip off the Terrexes, those suckers are TIGHT) and we did our newest finish line move!
And then we did it again with SIX of us, for maximal ridiculousness!
What an amazing day. So glad we got to race, after a morning of storms, and so glad we got to see so many friends and make so many new ones! This community is the best, and I'm so happy to be a part of it.
Next up: Swimrun Casco Bay! Hope to see you there!
(Final note: No chafing on my neck from my wetsuit, despite putting no lube there. Meanwhile the Boston Wetsox looked like they'd made out with a jellyfish. And lost. I'd sacrifice all my neckskin if it meant I could go as fast as them. What devil wants to take this deal?)
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