Swimrun Austin 2023 race report

The race formerly known as Ödyssey Swimrun Austin is now becoming ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Austin, and this was the first race in the new partnership formed between Ödyssey and ÖTILLÖ! Super excited for this development and what it means for the future of swimrun, especially here in the US. Extra super excited to potentially have three new US swimruns on the future docket, and very impatient to find out where they might be.

This was our last swimrun of the 2023 swimrun season, and we had a great group of friends and Envol teammates descend upon Pace Bend Park to do the race.

But first.. I guess I would be remiss if I didn't address the Swimrun Orcas Island issue. 

Trista and I were registered for Orcas Island. We flew to Seattle. We flew from Seattle to Orcas Island in a cute little island hopper. We did the Envol clinic the day before the race.

Why no race report, then, you ask?

After the clinic, Matt hopped on the bike he'd rented for the weekend, which he would use to follow us around on the course and cheer, just like he did in 2021. And shortly thereafter, he got run off the road on a curvy downhill, straight into a ditch. Very fortunately, another racer found him immediately after it happened, and they were a doctor. A few seconds later, a car full of our teammates came upon the scene, and were able to call and let us know that he was "okay", about a minute before we came up on him ourselves.

He was alive, conscious, knew what date it was better than any of us when asked, but not in great shape. (The bike was okay. IYKYK.)

He needed a hospital, but alas they do not have one on Orcas Island, so he was taken by ambulance to the start line of the race, where a helicopter came to pick him up. The helicopter could not also carry me, so after a lot of scrambling, an emergency water taxi was summoned to collect me and take me to the the mainland, Bellingham, WA, where I got a ride share to the hospital. After walking in a complete zombie daze through someone's hotel wedding. Sorry, folks, and congratulations.

The helicopter, from the ambulance.

He spent half a day in the ICU, and late late late that night was finally moved into a private room. Total damage: 6 broken ribs, broken clavicle, broken scapula, broken elbow, punctured lung, lacerated kidney and liver. Helmet squashed, head perfectly fine. Hear that, kids? 

Multiple times in the ICU, incredibly fucked up on Ketamine, Matt told me I should go do the race. 

Needless to say, I did not do the race. As I was leaving my amazing friends on Orcas who did so much to help me through a seriously terrible day, I told Trista there was zero chance of me making it back for the race, and I insisted she either find another team to latch onto, or just do the race solo. I would be fine, she shouldn't waste the chance to go play in nature on Orcas Island. And I told other people to make sure she did it. And she did. She ended up doing it solo. The longest and hardest race in the US, and she did the whole thing herself. If nothing else, she finally got a chance to see if solo swimrun was for her, and she assured me it was absolutely not. Super glad she didn't let something so outside her control unravel her plans, though I know it must have been a tough decision, and super proud of her for getting through such a tough day, physically and emotionally, and crossing that finish line.

For the sake of completeness, I'll sum up by saying that Matt was in the hospital for a few days, and healed well. But because of his lung puncture, he couldn't fly for at least 2 weeks. So the morning after he finally got out of the hospital, I rented a car, and drove a very medicated, mostly sleeping Matt from Bellingham, WA to Austin, TX. Four days of misery on both our parts. But we made it.

And he's doing great. Finally had surgery to fix his clavicle, got a plate and 11 screws, starting PT now, future looks bright. Huge thank you to EVERYONE who helped out, especially on the day when it was all going down and was terrifying, but also helping me get my stuff back, when I left it on the island, getting food for me, helping me figure out where to stay so I could walk to the hospital, checking in regularly, and thanks to everyone who has helped us since we've been home, either with well wishes or with meals and kind gifts and care. 

Post-surgery, with a plate, 11 screws, and a very appropriate t-shirt he was gifted.

I came out of this feeling proud of myself for being such a goddamn adult, even though I didn't WANT to be an adult, and hated every second of feeling so isolated and alone, even with so much support.

And then my parents fell apart. This is a brand new and ongoing saga, but my sister and I have basically become caretakers for our parents, who are both suffering from physical, neurological, or in some cases both, problems, and you can bet your ASS neither of us are adulty enough to be doing any of this. And there are not enough resources out there to guide children through this. Caretakers out there, I see you. And I'm sorry.

WHICH BRINGS US TO THIS RACE. Sorry it took so long to get here. I promise, I could have been much less brief. You're welcome.

With all of this, I was NOT in a good headspace going into this race. We didn't call it a race. We agreed that it was just a day to have fun frolicking in nature.

To add to our fun, Anna agreed to come do another threesome with us. Ben couldn't make Austin happen, so Anna signed up solo, and we agreed to all just pal around all day together. No racing. No expectations. Just fun. 

Geared up for threesome fun, with adorable Pride socks courtesy of Anna, and points series winner bibs from 2022 that we finally all got to wear.

And since I put all those words into the pre-report, I'm going to spare you a detailed race report. Because.. it wasn't a race.

Trista's not-a-race face. It's also her race-face, though. It's just her face.

All race photos are from here.

We set a personal worst for finish time at Swimrun Austin and a personal best for amount of unnecessary walking. Going up Mt Constitution at Orcas or.. pretty much any single part of Rockman had a lot of NECESSARY, non-optional walking. Flat, non-technical trails in Austin might have contained some walking. No regrets.

Tethers x 2.

Spending almost 5 hours catching up with some of my best friends in the world while climbing up rocky cliffs and traipsing through the woods and swimming in a cute little line is exactly what I needed to give me some respite, so I could then wade back into the harsh real world after.

I guess threesome swimlines are rare enough that the photographer grabbed a photo! Love it.

And I will say, it was really just our runs where we fucked around. Our swims were super solid, even though Trista is still nursing a broken wing and hadn't swum with paddles since Orcas, and hadn't swum at ALL for a couple weeks. She still made Anna and I work to stay on her feet. And our transitions were pretty solid, especially for a threesome with two tethers.

So little water meant so much extra rock climbing. "This is supposed to be a swim."

But then we also periodically full stopped on the trail to tell a dramatic story, or full stopped at the former cliff jump to stare down below at the rocks that had replaced the former deep water, because the lake is SO low now.

Serious athletes trying to win the race.

The safety kayaker down below was like "DO NOT JUMP FROM THERE!" We know, dude. Sorry to freak you out for a second.

This was NOT that cliff jump, this is the much smaller rock hop we got to enjoy!

Four more random notes:

- When we met Anna a couple years ago, she and Ben would do a 5 hour swimrun together, and split one gel between them for the entire race. They trained for and raced World Champs this year, and she did just as much nutrition training as she did swimming and running. And during Austin, every aid station offered a box of gels, and I think she grabbed and ate a gel at every aid station. We never even paid attention to our normal nutrition schedule, because she was taking them MORE often than that. I was so proud of how far she's come. She would likely demand I include the fact she took one MORE gel than I did, and it is true.

- Because Trista will want to reference it in the future, the air temp was a shockingly cool mid 50s, overcast all day, water temps were maybe upper 60s?, and Trista and I both wore the ARK Vigg, which seemed very appropriate and we had no regrets. Anna, who runs colder and also doesn't own a Vigg, borrowed Trista's Utö, and seemed very happy with that decision. Other than two tethers, no other new or weird gear was utilized.

- During the next to last run, as we were casually strolling along the road, walking for no reason, talking about poop, suddenly someone JUMPED OUT FROM BEHIND A TREE AND SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF TRISTA. It was Marcus. Trista sounded like she was being murdered. It was amazing. The only negative is that Marcus didn't think to take video as he did this. Epic jump scare. I hope her whoop reflects a huge HR spike right then.

- As we got to the last swim, we started to go out onto the floating boat dock to jump off, as we normally would. Then we noticed some flags on the shoreline, seeming to indicate that we were supposed to go in from the shore instead of the dock. As we briefly dithered over which to do, a disembodied voice rang out, "You can do either!" And there, floating in the water, randomly, by herself, was Kate. Nobody else around. Just Kate, there to answer our question. Thanks, Kate! We didn't learn until later that evidently she was there because she somehow (I never heard the story) broke her buoy in half on this swim, finished the race with half a buoy, and had come back to collect the other half after she crossed the finish line. 

Found half of Kate's buoy sitting on a table after the race. Impressive!

Speaking of finish lines.. normally Trista and I practice our finish line moves the day before the race. But due to kid obligations, Trista didn't actually make it to Austin, to our airbnb, until around 10pm Saturday night. So we had no chance to pick a thing and practice it. Plus it needed to be a threesome-compatible thing. We entertained the idea of doing the same one we'd done for Casco. It had had a lower spectator turnout, so we could probably get away with it.

But then in the last few miles, Trista suggested we might try leapfrog again. Another one we had done in the past, at Swimrun NC last year, but again with a low spectator count, because we'd depended on Marcus to drum up participants for us, and instead he and Beek participated in LakeGate, which we will never forget or forgive. (Kidding! But we will talk about it always.)

So after Marcus was done causing Trista to wet herself (it's fine, she was in a wetsuit), we asked him to hit the finish line and let people know to be ready to join our leapfrog.

And he did an amazing job this time.

We figured at the very least, we'd have a leapfrog line of 3 (us), but so many people joined in! I kept peering behind me to see if that was it, and there kept being more people! Even Dominik from ÖTILLÖ and Fanny from Sweden joined in! 

Nailed it, Marcus, as cat-herder and videographer.

It was a joyous end to a joyous day that I desperately needed, and such a great way to end a mostly-amazing swimrun season. 

This year has been a mixed bag. Some really high highs combined with.. well, undoubtedly the hardest year I've ever had, and it's not over yet.

So now we plan for 2024, and hope to maximize the highs and minimize the lows. Thank you to everyone who made this swimrun season so amazing, and helped me through the impossible parts. ILYSM.