Jeff Spencer, came up with the idea to swim a 40 mile relay from the southern edge of our local lake to the dam at the northern edge of the lake. The event was called The Long Dam Swim and all of the participants got to leave with the moniker of Dam Idiot!
I was assigned mile 38 in the relay. The event kicked off Friday evening at 5:30 PM and finished around 2:30 PM on Saturday. Around 62 swimmers participated which meant most of the miles were covered by a group of 2-4 swimmers. The swimmers were protected by a flotilla of kayaks, jet skis, and ski boats. This event was a logistical challenge with swimmers being given pick up locations and times for various boat ramps along the 40 mile route. My pick up spot was just across from the dam where we finished up the swim.
Our group was picked up by a boat and we met up with the rest of the flotilla and then got under way. Mile 37 was covered by two of my friends Carie and Kyla. Mile 38 was myself, AJ, and Jason who was challenged to participate in the event by a friend. It was Jason's first open water swim ever and he did great. Our mile was fairly easy except we had some confusion on where we were finishing up so we all ended up doing more zig zagging than we would have liked. We ended up doing around 1.2 miles which was great for me. The water was clean and cool and there wasn't a lot of wake.
The final group headed out to swim across the dam headway and we all drove across the dam to the park site where our post swim party was going to be. A couple of us went ahead and swam out to meet the final swimmers and enjoy more of the relaxing lake water. The post race party was a nice potluck with hot dogs and snacks under a pavilion. Below are some pics from the event that other participants shared on Facebook.
Glad the lake swimming is over for the year for me! :-)
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