The next morning, I woke up at 5:30am. Not super well rested, but not exhausted. We planned to leave the AirBnB around 6:45am. Snarky Girl had brought her incredible coffee maker with her. Delicious espresso available at the push of a button! I had oatmeal with a banana and maple syrup. We expected the Casco Bay Swimrun would take us around 3 hours, maybe three and a half, but we weren’t planning to race it. We just wanted to finish – completing the swims would be enough of a triumph!
Swimrunners ready to go!
The regular ferry parking lot was full when we arrived but we found parking a block away. Swimrunners were walking quickly toward the ferry building. They took our drop bags right away so I put on the various lubricants, stuffed my stuff into a bag, and dropped it in the bin. I had a plastic bag for my paddles and other stuff but next time, I would just get a couple more carabiners and strap everything onto my belt, superhero style. We found seats on the ferry and off we went.
Now is the time to mention the fog. It was VERY foggy, total pea soup conditions. We were on the second ferry and shortly after launching, we could not see the first ferry, which couldn’t have been far in front of us. I got a little cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. We weren’t going to be able to see the islands we were swimming to. Not even close. Snarky Girl and I do not swim terribly straight even in perfect conditions. If we ended up swimming in circles, no one would be able to tell, not even us. Could we do this? Should we even try?
Luckily, the Coast Guard answered that question for us. Less than 10 minutes after we launched, one of the race directors got on the PA system. We were not sailing for Great Diamond Island, as planned. We were sailing directly to Peak’s Island, the last island on the course. The Coast Guard had pulled the plug on any open water swimming. The folks from Ödyssey Swimrun promised they were working on putting something together and they would let us know more when they figured out what it was.
My primary emotion at this news was relief. Thank God. Swimming in that fog would have been completely insane. I was so glad someone knew that. And now I wasn’t in charge of deciding anything. I relaxed and enjoyed the boat ride. We had some joking around. Eventually we got to Peak’s and walked over to the Lion’s Club. There was a lot of standing around. Every now and then a truck arrived with some gear and we all helped unload it. Every now and then the race directors gave us another announcement. They were fetching the folks off the long course and had to ferry them to Peak’s. They had half a course on Peak’s already marked. We would do a loop with two swims, no wait, one swim. The swim would be 1000 meters or maybe 500 meters. There would eventually be food and beer and they could at least offer a hot dog eating contest. We borrowed phones to text the husbands that they didn’t need to hurry. Eventually our families arrived and there was more hanging around. The race would start at 10am. No, 10:30. None of this bothered me at all. Everyone was in a good mood. As far as I could tell, all the racers were grateful to the race directors, who were clearly working hard to figure out “something.”
Happy to see our families! You should be able to see an island in the background of this photo. Note that you can’t even see all way to the edge of the field.
I was really hoping we could get in the water “a little bit” and that’s exactly what happened. Eventually they had a course together. The long course folks arrived and everyone started together. We had about a mile run, a short swim, and then a 3.5 mile or so run, for a total loop distance of 4.5 miles. Everyone could do the loop twice. We got good luck wishes from our families and walked to the start. We looked satisfyingly ridiculous. A big gang of swimrunners in different colored caps, some of us tethered together, running down the streets of Peak’s Island. Portions of the course were marked with swim caps, an ingenious idea.
Getting ready to swimrun at last!
The race directors had said to run to the beach and then run along the coast until we could see the yellow flags where we were supposed to exit the water. We had a pretty long beach run and then we spotted swimrunners heading into the ocean. And also getting out of the ocean. The weather app had said visibility was 50 feet. Now, the swim entrance and swim exit were (a little) more than 50 feet apart. But they were close enough together than many of us laughed out loud when we saw how short the swim was. I heard someone say “That’s barely worth getting wet for” and certainly that was an understandable sentiment. But still – we got to swim!
Swim portion circled in purple
Photo credit: Kent Mitchell. You can really see the fog here.
Despite having practiced transitioning from running to swimming many times, and in fact practicing it three times just the day before the race, I ran into the water and discovered that I had not engaged my pull buoy. Oops. We stopped and I got it properly settled between my legs. The first few strokes felt awkward and wrong. Something was up with my paddles. I called out to Snarky Girl to stop again. I looked the paddles but couldn’t figure out the problem so I showed them to Snarky Girl. I had them on backwards. Excellent! The shortest swim ever, but I still managed to fit in two serious goof-ups at the start!
The water was cold, really cold, and murky from all the swimrunners churning it up. It was such a ridiculously short swim that we could easily do it without getting our faces wet and I was pretty tempted to try. I got brave enough to put my face down for a few strokes and the swim was over. My watch says it lasted 3 minutes 38 seconds. Someone later said their watch measured 250 meters. I can believe that. We flopped ourselves out of the water, re-settled our gear, and started running again. We went up a fairly significant hill, wound around a neighborhood, then back down again.
After about a mile, we turned off the road and onto a single track trail. This was my favorite part of the race. For the first loop, we were completely packed in. You could only go as fast as the person in front of you. We were not itching to pass anyone and we didn’t. People were chatting and laughing. I could hear the Adorkables ahead of us and that was fun. I loved running on boards through tall grasses and along a path through a pine forest. We were all happy to be able to do *something*. At some point someone in the front of the line went the wrong way and a lot of people followed. The folks ahead of us noticed the mistake so then we were near the front of a smaller group. Eventually we came off the trail and back onto the road.
We were not pushing it. It’s HARD to run in a wetsuit, even a swimrun wetsuit! Plus our shoes were soaked and heavy. But mostly we just weren’t in any kind of hurry. Snarky Girl made some remarks about how one loop would be enough, etc etc, and I wondered if I could find the Adorkables and run with them if she decided to quit. But then the turn back to the finish was not really marked so we ran right by it and we were on the second loop before we even knew it. Snarky Girl sighed – she surely knew two loops was going to be her fate all along. We ran through town again and along the beach again but by now the crowds had thinned out dramatically.
The second swim went much better. Snarky Girl led and I was able to put my face in the water. She steered us further away from shore just to extend the swim a bit. Then – a real triumph – I figured out how to pee in the water! I hope the Adorkables are not mad that I peed in their suit. I think this is just part of the sport! We ran back up the big hill and down the other side. This time we were almost alone on the trail so it was a totally different feel. We popped back out onto the road, ready to pick our favorite beachside mansions where we imagined staying for next year’s race. Both of us picked up the pace a bit in the last mile and we passed a couple of teams, but that was really not the point at this event. Now the turn into the finishing area was marked and we ran across the grass and under the arch. Yay! We got some great pictures. It was a super fun day, though very different from expected.
We got some beer and some burgers. We got showered off a bit. We said hi to the other women from Miller’s Pond. Time to pack it up – the Wiliarty clan stopped in one more time at Standard Baking Co for some Fika for the road.
Post-race burgers – Yum!
It was definitely odd to have such a different race experience than expected. If the race had gone off as planned, the swimming would have been a major challenge for us. I like to think we could have finished. I give us maybe 75/25 odds in our favor. We would have been REALLY tired. Instead, we felt pretty good. We had a long slow run through a beautiful place and it was certainly an adventure. And, Team Mermatron snagged the last spot for Swimrun Cape Cod on Sept 16th. So, we’re giving it another go.
