Ocean Games 2017: Finding My Tribe

It's a weird thing to finally find my tribe at age 52. It's not even like I was looking for them. Maybe, in actuality, it was they who found me - it was never more apparent to me than at this year's Ocean Games in Ocean City, Maryland, this past weekend.

First I want to say that I've never been happier in a sport than I have been in open water swimming. I can tell because although I still get nervous, I no longer obsess over my times and my training and what place I finish. Yes, I am aware of those things, but that's not what keeps me up at night. Whether I win or lose or PR does not occupy my thoughts before a swim race. MAKING it to the finish line has become the bigger deal. Swimming fast is only important because it gets me to the finish more quickly. Praying for smooth seas, weak currents, and ideal water temperatures - and laughing about it when it doesn't happen - has become my new reality. Caring whether the swimmers I meet have a safe swim has also become my new reality. My experiences in 25 years of marathon running and Ironman triathlon-ing has barely prepared me for this new battle with the elements. Open water marathon swimming is governed by rough and always-changing water and weather conditions and the few who embrace it. I say "few" because these events are not populated by every other person you know. It's a very small group compared to the many hundreds - or thousands - toeing the line at a marathon or Ironman triathlon start.

The fact that anything can go wrong in open water was never more obvious to me than in last year's attempt at the Ocean Games Nine-mile Swim in Ocean City, Maryland. More than in any event of the past, I learned a great deal about myself as well as the power of the ocean and the weather (blog post from last year: "Playing Ocean Games, aka Finding Corey"). But the true silver lining of dropping out of last year's event with hypothermia was revealed to me this year.

It started Friday night at the pre-race meeting. Because I did this year's race as a fundraiser, I had the opportunity to get to know race director Corey Davis a little better before we arrived in Ocean City. At the pre-race meeting, he introduced me to the all the race organizers and officials and many of the swimmers who come back year after year to support him and the charity it supports, Swim Ocean City. I left Ocean City on Sunday with a whole new group of friends who seem to have an amazing capacity to challenge themselves and appreciate the people around them. No one cared how fast or slow I was, there was no sizing-up or gear-head talk. They just welcomed me into their "crazy family." I felt like I belonged in a way I've never experienced before even though I was kind of the oddball because I live almost 500 miles away.

I was also lucky to have my friend Doug serve as my kayak support. He lives much closer to Ocean City and he agreed to come back and try to get me to the finish this year. Just like me, he was also better-prepared than last year. He usually paddles with his daughter in the kayak, so this year he added a 50-lb sand bag as a ballast in the front of his boat to help with balance.

There was no better group of athletes I'd rather toe the line with. And that we did.

On race morning, the swim direction was declared: north to south, which was in the direction of the wind but against the current. Water temperature was 72 degrees F, and after last year, my fear of a sharp drop in temperature kept me from going without a wetsuit. 72 is too warm for a wetsuit, and I struggled to make the call, but my first and foremost goal this year was to finish this thing no matter what - and it was a long race. And anything could happen. I had to err on the side of caution.

Unfortunately, the morning would also see the return of Disaster Magnet, jinxing both Doug and me before the race even started. During my warmup, I tried to body surf a huge wave and got twisted and tossed onto my back and into the hard sand. When I finally got up, there was pain in my back ribs every time I took a deep breath, and my left side and shoulders were traumatized. Had I just compromised my race? We would soon find out.

Here's a photo taken by my husband Jim right before it happened:

I shook it off and tried to not let it bother me because we would soon have to deal with a more pressing issue. The morning shore-break made it incredibly difficult for kayakers to get on the water, and Doug's attempted launch became the the worst of all. He got hit by one wave and then a larger one. It flipped his kayak, dumping everything - including the sand bag which was forever lost at sea. Doug's legs got banged up pretty bad, and Jim told me he may not be able to start. I ran over to check on him.

Of course, right after Doug's mishap, they started dry-launching kayakers - which worked much better. And Doug ("I don't need my legs to kayak") refused to be deterred - he brushed the whole thing off, got right back in the boat, and got out there. In retrospect, it was a rather comical start to the day with all these race people and bystanders on the beach cheering each time a kayaker got past the immediate danger of the breaking waves.

Soon enough, it was 10 am and we swimmers were lined up on the beach ready to start. I got hugs and high-fives and a new nickname ("Cleveland") from my new friends, and in no time, our little team was off swimming and paddling, determined to finish despite our rather unfortunate start to the day.

Here are some photos and video Jim took at the start:

With Doug before the race.

With my new friends Jay and Bobby (in wetsuits)
who "said" they hadn't trained. They were the last two swimmers to enter the event
but had done it every year at the urging of race director, Corey Davis.

I don't want to bore you to death with a play-by-play of nine miles of swimming, so I will try to relate the major moments of the swim with the thoughts that occurred to me while we were out there. My readers can be assured this event wasn't nearly as smooth-going as my swim in Key West. (You can see from the video that the conditions were far from "flat water.")

The first two to three miles were significant in that all I did was worry about the soreness and fatigue already plaguing my left side. I worried I wouldn't reach the halfway point. I worried I might have broken a rib. I worried a broken rib might puncture a lung. Seriously. I was a mess. A disaster. I was fighting myself every stroke because I remembered last year, when I was tough enough to swim through all of mile 4 while hypothermia was setting in BEFORE I dropped out. Saturday, I was two miles into this thing, and I couldn't even get a grip on my own mind.

Then, somewhere around three miles, I had to make an extended stop to adjust my goggles strap because I was getting a headache. Why was it too tight? Because, I'm an idiot. In a truly unthinking maneuver, I tightened the strap after the goggles were ripped off my head in the earlier wave incident - after it had been PERFECTLY adjusted for twelve miles in Key West.

So.. yeah, I was having issues. And Doug was having his own issues. He had to work extra hard to control his no-longer-ballasted kayak in a stiff northwest wind that wanted to blow us out to sea. At one point, I stopped swimming to look around and found that we were way out to sea and WAY off course - that is, if the location of all the other swimmers was an indication of being "on course." This manifested in us covering a much-longer distance than planned - we hit the mile markers with increasing distances.

The wetsuit turned out to be a bad decision. I did it because I had reservations about acclimating with only cold showers and in the warming waters of Lake Erie. But I really I should have trusted my instincts better. Open water swimming is still very new to me, and conditions change so quickly in Ocean City (as we found out last year). But during the race, the only way I could cool off was to dive down a few feet underwater every ten minutes or so to get cold water into the suit.

The pain and fatigue from my pre-race folly started to fade before mile 4, and I was finally able to stop worrying about that. But I was frustrated with my very slow pace, constantly struggling against the current, and always fighting swells. Doug kept me on schedule for feeding every 20 minutes. But it seemed like every time we stopped, the kayak would start to drift and smack me in the head while he was getting me a bottle. When we reached mile 7, it was the first time all day I felt confident we would finish. Then, I accidentally swam right into the back of Doug's kayak, and I snapped. I stopped caring and just burst out laughing. All of a sudden, everything was hilarious. The surf. The wind. The wetsuit. I felt like I was on a treadmill and going nowhere for almost four hours. My only reaction at this point was to crack up and mentally check out.

I started singing Jimmy Buffett songs in my head.

Here are some photos Jim took of us out there on the water. He was with Doug's wife, Kaz, and their daughter, Kat, and they were able to leap-frog down the beach to see us four times during the event.

Things seemed to ease up in that last two miles. The current wasn't as strong and I almost felt like I could get a push once in a while between waves. And Doug finally pointed out the orange finish buoy. He had seen it last year although I had not. By the time we reached it, we had traveled almost ten miles according to my Garmin. I didn't care, I was so done. And thus, I will let the finish video speak for itself because humor is the best medicine. I still laugh while watching it. At least I got accolades for "best finish."

At the finish (yippee!), my Garmin GPS watch had a total distance of 17,295 yards (9.83 miles) in 5:14. My total "moving time" was 4:55. I was never so glad to be done with a race, and I was never so ready to celebrate. I felt bad for those who were pulled out for not meeting cut-off times (45 min/mile), but they were all troopers on a very rough day. One woman had to pull out with seasickness. It was mind-boggling to me that she got sick about 20 minutes into the race but managed to make it three miles before calling it a day. Swimmers are tough.

I was very honored to win the "top fundraiser award" for raising the most money for Swim Ocean City. This trophy meant a great deal to me because I had promised Corey - who'd been so generous in 2016 - that I'd be back in 2017 to finish AND do it as a fundraiser. Mission accomplished, and a heartfelt thank-you to all who donated. I can't say enough about the organization of this race and how well they look after people on the course. It's a very small event - 17 swimmers started (hopefully that will change) - but they really made me feel like family, and I understand why so many of them come back year after year.

Next year? NO WETSUIT.

Some photos Jim took at the finish line:

These two - Jay and Bobby - were so inspiring. They were the last two
finishers, but they're the best! They gave me a new nickname: "Cleveland"
(it's better than "Disaster Magnet") and promised to train for next year.

This is Dave - he did the Swim Around Key West with me three weeks ago.
He's also a veteran of the race having done it every year since the beginning.
I look forward to learning a LOT about swimming from him.
(I beat him in KW, he beat me in OC. GAME ON!)

And this is me with Corey Davis, the race director.
He's an inspiration to everyone who knows him.