Swimrun NC 2025 race report

End of an era. 

While Swimrun Lake James 2018 was our first swimrun race, seeing photos from Swimrun NC was what made us fall in love with the concept of swimrun in the first place. When we finally did the race in 2019, we had an amazing time, and it fully had our hearts. It was a must-do every year (even choosing it over the much-more-convenient-for-me Swimrun Austin the year they were both held the same weekend). 

The pandemic ate the race in 2020, but we were back for 2021 and 2022. 2023 they took a break to reassess, ready to come back strong for 2024. Except then Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina, and the race was postponed from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025. And announced to be the final running of Swimrun NC. Devastating.

My training in Fall 2024 was going well. I joined the Envol Startline Ready group for Rockman Swimrun, which started in November. That felt egregiously early for a race in early July, but now I'm SO glad I did, because after some solid training through November, December, January, my training came to a screeching halt in February. First I got the flu after Envol Austin camp in February, which took me down completely for 2 weeks. I got over it just in time to be okay to travel and swim at Lake Memphremagog Winter Swimming Festival (which was great, except also a weekend where I swam like 425 yards, and ran not a single mile, not ideal Rockman training for anything but aggressive cold water acclimation). We got home and I got one weekend of solid training in with a 2 hour hilly run, and then Matt traveled for work, bringing back another flu/covid illness, which my body eagerly latched onto as well. Another 2 weeks of basically zero swimming or running. SO frustrating, especially with a big race looming on the horizon.

Fortunately Trista is always on board for going whatever slow pace I'm capable of going, and just spending a day powerhiking and chatting in nature! (That sounds so positive, with that exclamation point, but I haaate not being able to keep up and having someone slow down for me. Haaaaaate.)

And so we headed to Hanging Rock State Park, for a weekend of fun friendventures and waterfalls!

We have a tradition with this race that the day before, we run to what we dubbed Sexy Rock for a little pre-race shakeout, and we take a 'sexy' picture with the rock. This year our shake-out did not go to Sexy Rock, so I found a particularly sexy rock in the parking lot, and it represented the actual Sexy Rock in our photo. (It's in my right hand, pretty much impossible to see. But sexy. Trust.)

Obligatory wetsuit dithering: It was supposed to be a warm day (60s-70s, sunny), but the water temp was in the upper 50s or low 60s. Hard to dress for! I brought my ARK Vigg (not Air) and my ARK Uto (also not Air), and figured I'd wear the Vigg for the clinic the day before, Uto for the race. Except the Vigg felt really good during the clinic, the water was less cold than advertised (probably still low 60s, definitely not high 50s), and I did not want to be warm while running. So since it's so thin and minimal, I set the Vigg out to dry overnight, and wore it again the next day for the race! Turned out to be the perfect choice.

Shakeout suits! Also race suits. Except for Anna, who discovered sadly that her Korp is falling apart, so she borrowed my Uto the next day, since I wasn't going to wear it.

Also since it's now always a question, I brought a right shoe and a left shoe of the same pair of trail shoes (old-style Terrex). This wouldn't have been a fun race to do in road shoes, so solid decision on my part not to fuck up my shoe-packing again.

Race morning was completely stress-free (#nostress), and we just hung out and chatted for an hour between portapotty visits. So many Envol teammates, so many swimrun friends, so many new friends.

Adore these Envol ladies so much.

Photo by Brian Fancher

We lined up at the back of the start chute, having abandoned our plan to go out with the front runners for the first 10 steps just to confuse them. I was pretty sure I couldn't hang even for those 10 steps.

Trista, Fatima, Amy, Anna, and our new friend Kirsten!

Photo by Brian Fancher

And then we were off! The first bit on the road always feels like death to me, even though we weren't going out aggressively. I've come to discover that at my advanced age, it takes me like 3 miles to warm up so running doesn't feel impossible. And then I go directly into feeling tired because I've run 3 miles. Fairly sure I went straight from like 45 years old to 70 somehow. Do not like.

Once we hit the trail, where things usually immediately move to walking because of congestion.. we just kept running. No real congestion, no walking. Rude. I was promised walking. I guess maybe we were further back than normal, and the congestion was ahead of us. 

Struck an obligatory pose on actual Sexy Rock, even though there were no cameras or witnesses.

And then we just settled in for the first very long, mostly uphill run. Anna and Fatima were just in front of us, Nate and Jenn just behind us, and beautiful nature all around us.

Actually, I have to say, I really missed the Fall foliage we normally have for this race. Not only were there not yellow leaves on the trees and the ground, there was barely ANY foliage. The trees/forest took a beating from Helene, and a previous fire, and while it was obviously still beautiful out there, it was also a bit.. sparse. Which was sad.

We had crossed our fingers that maybe Trista and me, and Anna and Fatima might all end up being around the same pace, and stick together for some/all of the race. Except not only did we not tell Fatima this plan, we also let her be up at the front, and within a few miles Fatima and Anna slowly pulled away from us until we couldn't see them anymore. FINE. Go be fast. Hrmph.

To help make up for that, though, suddenly Kristen and her partner Lindsey pulled up behind us! Kristen is the one who coached us for our first NC (in anticipation of our first Rockman), and is a regular on both the NC course and the NC podium. She had been joking that maybe she would hang back with us today, and we absolutely took that as a joke, so we were shocked to see them back here with us, but also delighted! (Fourth wall breaking: Trista said, when Kristen showed up, "Hey, Amy, for the race report, Kristen showed up 2.5 miles into the race." Thanks, partner!)

Look! It's Kristen! (Ignore my face.)

Photo by Schreiner Trail Photography

Eventually the sparsely-foliaged tall trees turned to jungly wet trees, and we went through my absolute favorite part of the course: the waterfalls. The only thing better than experiencing the waterfalls is being around people who are experiencing them for the first time, especially ones who came from triathlon. "This is not triathlon," we say as we splash through the water and climb over a huge fallen tree trunk. (Or under, if you're me. Over-under is our favorite game!)

Under the big splashy waterfall, and then turn to go up, oh, what's that? Hello, Anna and Fatima, and another team! Welcome back! You went the wrong way! This is at least the second time we've seen teams go the wrong way at this junction. The course is all wet rock faces and trees right here, hard to mark, and easy to just keep going straight, when the course takes a sharp turn back on itself. Last time it got us ahead of the Tinglers when they went the wrong way, this time we saw Anna and Fatima coming toward us, went the correct way, and were briefly back ahead of them! We're not above taking advantage of someone else's error! 

Big splashy waterfall! "What should we do?" We did the same thing we always do.

Photo by Brian Fancher

We navigated the last bit of this section completely alone, which is a first for us. Usually this section where you climb straight up the wet rock using ropes is a big bottleneck, but again, I guess we were far enough back that everyone had already gone through! We didn't have to wait at all, just climbed right on up.

As Trista climbed up in front, she said, "Look at this curly guy!" I looked up and at the top of the cliff, looking down on us, was a cute young couple, offering us encouraging words. I said, "Did you just call that guy up there a curly guy?" He said, "Well, my hair is curly!" Turns out she was talking about a really neat curled up fern guy at the top of the climb. (It was super cute.)

Oh, the riveting stories you get to read about in these race reports. We like to ask Marcus if these are the conversations the front-runners are having, several hours ahead of us. Probably not.

By the time we got to the parking lot up top, Fatima and Anna caught back up to us, and we all spent the jag across the parking lot cabbing up (the tops of our wetsuits were down around our waists, so we had to pull them up and put our arms in and zip them (hopefully) before we could do our first swim!) and trying to remember how swimming worked.

That first run is 4.64 miles, so you forget that eventually you're going to have to swim!

This swimrun is weird, very run-heavy, so let's just quickly review what we'll call "a loop" here for this section.

There's an aid station, then a short run to a 25 yard swim. Then a short run to a 500ish yard swim. Then a short run back to the aid station. That's one loop. We do that loop twice the first time through, after the waterfalls.

The first time was mostly uneventful. Just got a feel for the water. Verified I could still swim. We didn't tether for the first supershort swim, and when I got out the tether from my Kangaroo top pocket for the second longer swim, it was a little tangled. No, wait, a lot tangled. No, wait, a massive Gordian knot that I was completely incapable of untangling. Trista laughed at my frustration, which earned her the dubious honor of having the tether thrown at her with a," OK FINE YOU DO IT!" Which she did eventually do, but man, I'm not sure what exactly goes on in my Kangaroo top pockets, but it must be a damn PARTY.

I was able to stay on Trista's feet for the longer swim. Got to see what absolute madness the famous safety volunteer was wearing this year. Got to note that there were a lot more swim buoys marking the longer swim than there had been in the past, then noted with horror that they had CLOWN FACES on them. WTF. Do not like.

Honestly not sure which of the 4 times we exited this lake this was. Let's just put it here. You can't see the clown faces from here.

Photo by Brian Fancher

Finished up that loop and went out for our second loop. Uneventful. Until the longer swim. 

For that second longer swim, I was right on Trista's feet. I feel like I'm a really polite drafter, because I never hit Trista's feet. That isn't due to any skill on my part, it's just that she is faster enough than me that I sit fairly far back in her draft. Enough to fully get the benefit, but comfortably far back that I don't have to try very hard not to constantly hit her shoes with my paddles. It works out well for everyone.

But I was constantly hitting her shoes for this loop. If it had been the first loop where this happened, maybe I would have been like "Dang, my swimming is AMAZING!" (demonstrably untrue based on the training I hadn't done), or "Oh, maybe Trista HASN'T been training swimming much" (doesn't matter, her swimming is always good even if she takes a year fully off). But we'd JUST done this swim, and things were normal. Trista was normal Trista pace, I was normal Amy pace, I was not hitting her shoes. But I couldn't NOT hit them now. I had to really dial back my stroke, and I made sure I didn't sight much, because I didn't want her to think that I was hitting her feet to get her attention (normally reserved for "hey, there's a fish or other exciting nature that we must discuss immediately!"). I was just really confused and figured I'd ask her at the end of the swim what the hecks was going on.

Except near the end of that swim, she finally came up and said, "Is there a problem?" (That's not what she said, she'll correct me, it wasn't that accusatory, but it's how I remember it in my replay!) And I, feeling very accused, said, "I DON'T KNOW, IS THERE?!" I said I felt like she was going so much slower than she had the last swim, and I didn't want to hit her feet, but I was having trouble not doing so, and I wasn't sure if there was some reason she was swimming so much slower. 

The safety boat guy was right there when we were having this conversation, and he said something like "Very encouraging" in a really muffled voice because he was wearing a creepy mask.

This guy is just absolutely amazing. Every year.

Photo by Brian Fancher

Anyway, it turns out there was no reason other than she just sorta zoned out and settled into a chill swim speed, and we finished our swim with no further discussion!

Okay, done with that section of the race for the moment, time to do some stairs!

You'll be happy to know that even though this run section is fairly long, it was fairly uneventful! (Though even in uneventful section, there's always curly guys and clown buoys that obviously need to be fully analyzed.)

We took off goggles and swimcaps, untethered, stowed gear, and settled back into an easy run/powerhike to get up to the top of Moore's Wall.

The stairs were tough, just like they always are. They're pretty tall steps, so hard for little nubby-legged Amys, but there are some sections where you can go around them on the sides, and we tried to hit most of those.

We also used this whole run section to have deep philosophical discussions about (redacted), as well as plan out our general team future. Which.. guys, we didn't really come up with anything. It's a strange time in the world of Team Adorkable. I'm trying to get Trista to admit she's breaking up with me, but she insists that she's not, so I think we're good, we just have no races planned at all. We'll figure it out! Unless she's breaking up with me. She'll have to admit it eventually, just so I'll stop pestering her.

That got us up to the top to get our amazing view and photo, plus some greatly-appreciated water.

You have to earn that view, but it's so worth it.

Photo by Richard Hill

Then zooooom back down. Except y'all, I'm 50 now, and I wasn't really zooming on technical downhills in the first place, and now I'm old and undertrained, and definitely suffer from an overabundance of caution. Sorry, Trista. This is probably why she's breaking up with me. But we got through the descent with no turned ankles or falls, which I consider a success!

I'll note again that this whole section had a little bit of generalized sadness, because the trees were so sparse, barely any Spring growth, some with no growth at all so far, and many trees fully down.

During the part that I always declare my least favorite, back down on the flats again, with the roots and boardwalks and stuff, we got to pet a cute dog (always notable in the report), and then we hooked up again with Kristen and Lindsey coming back up to the lake! As we passed by a little spring, we got to see a snake in the water. Kristen said it was a turtle. We decided Kristen was unclear on exactly what a turtle was.

As we skirted the lake heading back to The Loop, Kristen and Lindsey were cabbing back up, preparing to swim. We hadn't cabbed down, but I feel like.. we did something. But honestly I couldn't tell you what prep we did, because somehow we ended up at the swim entrance for the first short swim on the loop, and we were UTTERLY unprepared. Like literally standing at the water's edge not wearing a swimcap or goggles, my paddles and goggles still carabinered to my race belt, just like we'd never done a damn swimrun before. How did we get there without having done ANY prep?!

I was trying to fish my swimcap out of my Kangaroo top to get ready to do this swim, and Trista was like, "Fuck it, I'm just going." She jumped in the water without cap or goggles or buoy or paddles and just Tarzaned her way across. I had a swimcap in one hand, ready to put it on my head, but then I panicked, and I don't know, thought maybe Trista would just leave me behind? So instead of continuing to get ready to swim, I jumped in behind her, did put my buoy between my legs, goggles and paddles still on my belt, swimcap clutched in one hand, and did the most awkward 25 yard swim of my life.

Evidently Trista expected to get out of the swim and see me still on the shore getting my shit together, and was shocked to find me right behind her, disheveled, with a swimcap completely full of water in my hand.

This is why we are Team Shitshow.

Anyway, we used the next short run to ACTUALLY prepare to swim like adults, and the first long swim was fine. Trista was back to Trista-pace, very little shoe-tapping happened.

Since this was another set of two loops, we went by the aid station. RD Jan was at this aid station every time we went through, and one of the times he casually mentioned that Marcus had fallen. We asked if he was okay, and he said, "Yeah, he probably broke some ribs." Cool. Okay. We'll be thinking about THAT for the rest of the race! But we figured if it was bad, he would have told us, so we headed out for our second loop. Also blissfully uneventful. Until.

As we finished up our last longer swim of the last loop, I glanced up to see how close we were to the shore. We still had a bit to go. There was notably a buoy between us and the shore. Not strange.

Looked up again a minute later, closer to shore, much closer to the buoy. Trista never swims directly at a buoy. (Trista never has a second cup of coffee at home.) I began to suspect.

We continued swimming, and sure enough, TRISTA WAS SWIMMING ME DIRECTLY INTO A STUPID AND TERRIFYING CLOWN BUOY. 

As she cut around at the last second, she flipped over to enjoy watching me run into it, but my head was already out of the water, and I immediately yelled, "I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING, TRISTA, YOU ARE TERRIBLE." I think Trista almost drowned because she was laughing SO HARD. The kind of laughter she normally just reserves for when someone she's running with has fallen on the ground, but more dangerous when you're swimming. She was SO pleased with herself.

This is why she will never break up with me. Nobody else will tolerate, and appreciate, her shenanigans like I do.

Okay, done with that loop for good, time to do the little lollipop loop before heading back home!

The lollipop loop is fun because it's one last wacky waterfall adventure, and a chance to see the folks just ahead of you on the rare out and back. And we got to see Anna and Fatima! So good to know they were still out there, safe and having fun and kicking ass.

This section always freaks me out a bit, because it's SUCH a steep downhill, and it's all very slidey and treacherous. I thank every tree that I cling desperately to as I slide my way down. There was a team right in front of us for this part, and I dutifully followed them exactly, waiting my turn as they climbed up a rock in a really scary, dangerous way. Meanwhile Trista actually looked around, saw that there was a MUCH better line, and zipped up the rock beside us, getting up way before us. And she asks why I don't ever want to lead. I can't be trusted!

Just so extra. Also have I mentioned we're wearing our Ada socks?

Photo by Volunteer Kevin

We splashed through the last waterfall, climbed up the terrible wooden staircase, got to hug the MarathoninMommas who we hadn't seen since last year's Lake James, and then got to see Nate and Jenn as they started the lollipop!

It feels like you're almost done at this point, but somehow this last run section (technically next-to-last, but the lastlast run section is up some stairs and across the finish line) is like 28 miles. I can't explain it.

Highlights of this last run: The tiniest, greenest little adorable snake that ever was, slithering across the trail. A pretty purple flower that we kinda wanted to pick and then take back to the snake, because they would have looked stunning together. Us yelling, "Nein! Nein!" repeatedly for reasons that ARE explainable, but are so not worth explaining. Hysterical to us, though.

Also during this run, I decided I should give myself grace. I was slow all day. Trista did a great job of making sure she didn't get super far ahead of me. Her natural easy pace was still faster than my Actually Trying pace, but she didn't keep running ahead and having to slow down. She kept an eye behind her to make sure she stayed with me. She's an amazing friend and partner.

The Best. ♥

Photo by Schreiner Trail Photography

I'm not going to go all self-flagellation here, even though I did briefly and then deleted it. It's okay if I'm getting slower. It happens. I do this for fun. But even after all that, I WAS sick for basically a full month of the 3 months we've had this year. I missed a lot of training. It makes sense I'm slow and sluggish right now. And that's okay. And I told myself all of that at the very end of the race. My brain forgave my body and apologized to it.

And that got us to the last swim entrance! Usually it feels like we run up-river forever before getting there, but this time it felt pretty short. So short I wasn't fully cabbed up when we arrived, and had to cram it on real quick. Fortunately I was under no time pressure, because we entered the water at the same time as another mixed team, and Trista spent a good 2 minutes helping the guy fix his bib, which was hopelessly tangled on his body. "Do you mean for your bib to be like.. that?" (He did not.)

Forreal, though, WHAT is going on with his bib?!

Photo by Schreiner Trail Photography

The last swim, the river swim, is always an absurdly fun experience. It's so shallow you have to work hard not to get beached repeatedly, and it's rarely deep enough to actually do any sort of stroke, so you mostly just bodysurf your way down, the current dragging you with it, and hope for the best.

Partway down, we heard yelling from the shore, and Trista yelled out asking who it was. And it was Marcus and Matthieu! I said it seemed very promising if Marcus was able to be there on shore, yelling, and not, say, in a hospital, and Trista agreed. Then we kept on floating.

Floatin'.

Photo by Schreiner Trail Photography

Marcus also yelled that after this particularly shallow part, we should make our way back to the middle, so we started working our way back over, and then we could see the exit! It's always exciting to swim for the exit, as the river tries to drag you down, presumably to carry you until it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. I haven't looked at a map to verify that, but living in Texas, everything pretty much dumps into the Gulf of Mexico, so I assume this does too. Don't factcheck me, please.

We made it over to the exit, managed to find our feet and climb out without falling or injury, and climbed the stairs!

Done! Basically!

Photo by Brian Fancher

We usually get near the finish line and realize we forgot to figure out our finish line plan, but THIS time, we had PREPARED. We spent a bit of day the day before going through the little place that Instagram saves the reels we sent to each other for inspiration, and tried more of them than was smart or healthy. We had a lot of spotters, and a lot of fails, and a lot of bruises. But we finally landed on a promising group activity, and as we headed to the finish line, our cohorts gathered up with us, and we had our final finish line antics for Swimrun NC!

Our friends are such good sports. We didn't even have to twist their arms to get them to agree to join us in this nonsense.

I'd say that we won, but I'm not entirely sure that my foot that had the timing chip actually made it across the finish line with the rest of us when Trista cramped up and collapsed. It's fine.

By far a personal worst for Swimrun NC finish time, but such a fun day, and SUCH a fun weekend. We're all so sad this race is going away, and I think we all hope that maybe it will get picked up again in some capacity. At the very least, I hope to go visit again someday and play in the waterfalls.

With the best RD in the biz, Herbert.

Not sure what race is next for the actual Team Adorkable team, but our whole gang will be meeting up in Norway with Trista and Marcus as RDs and Amy and Anna trying out their first swimrun as a team of two! And what a race to choose as our first! Now I just have to stay healthy and catch up on training for the next 3 months.

Photo by Brian Fancher