Last year Dean and I swam the Kelowna SATL together, it was fun and in the end Gwen was jealous and wanted to participate, so we discussed as a family and came up with a plan for this year's event.
Matt had paddled for Dean last year and wanted to swim the next time.
We decided that Matt, Dean and Gwen would swim and I would paddle and we would find a second paddler so that the kids would be covered.
Two weeks ago on Saturday, Matt came home from soccer limping, again. He tried to convince me it was minor and that he was fine, again. As the week progressed his ability to walk dissipated and after putting another punch in his hospital pass he came by my office with crutches and an aircast. Over the years he has come to understand that a face to face visual works best for me, and delivering the news that he hurt himself to me in a public place was clearly pre-meditated.
As the week hobbled along, so did Matt. It was not looking good, the swollen ankle, the limping, the pain. I knew he would push through but I wondered if I possessed the ability to talk him out of it. Luckily for us he woke up this morning with less pain, less swell and determined to swim with his girls.
Dean had been looking forward to this event for weeks. She loves open water swimming and although she hasn't been practicing distances, she has been hopping in the lake a fair bit.
Gwen was looking forward to the swim, but this week starting voicing concerns. We were out in the lake paddling beside the girls while they swam. Gwen stopped swimming and looked up at me and said " I just realized that I'm not going to win this race." "The Swim Across the Lake?" I asked " Yes" she said. "Yeah, well you're likely not going to even come in the top 100...you're 8!" I tried to reason with her and provide some sane level of expectations. " Well what am I even doing this for?" she asked. Sometimes I just laugh...mostly because I have no idea what to say to some of the questions, but also because I find the thought process and level of questioning hilarious. As this week progressed, Gwen started telling me how nervous she was and how she wanted to swim, but was getting more scared daily. We talked about it and I told her that for her this was just a fun event, not a race. This seemed to help.
Event Day:
The emails sent by ACTL said that the race would start at 8:30 am and that we should be at the beach by 6:00. As locals, the idea of being at the beach that early and waiting 2.5 hours for the race to start wasn't thrilling. Matt and Dean are both early birds, so as luck would have it, we were at the beach for about 6:45. We chatted with some of the other early birds and got our paddle boards set up and everyone checked in with the race packages.
Right away I ran into some of my former swimmers, some fellow masters swimmers and some friends of ours. I'm always happy to be reminded that we live in a close, small community. So many of the volunteers are people I'm always seeing volunteering, so many masters swimmers volunteering or swimming, and so many of my former swimmers still swimming, and its been well over a decade since I've coached. I love that my kids get to see such great examples. Examples of community, volunteering, friendship, athleticism. Seeing people of all shapes, sizes and levels of swim capabilities trying and encouraging each other through these events.
The kids were patient. They were happy to be near the water, and wanted so desperately to start swimming right away. They always trick me with their " we will only go knee deep mom"...then I turn around and they are doing handstands and swimming under water.
My dad surprised us by showing up at the lake. The girls were thrilled to see him and it reminded me of how he always showed up for all my events as a child, youth and even in University. It makes me so happy that he is there for them as much as he has been for me.
Shortly after we ran into some more fellow VKSC swimmers. Being in the same club allows for all the kids to have a large group of friends and teammates that have similar interest, that they can compete with and that will always help lookout for them. The club has always been near to my heart. I swam through my youth with VKSC, coached with them in later years and now my kids are loving swimming too.
Both girls requested that I paddle for them. With the discrepancies in their times, this wasn't possible. We had a friend that offered to paddle as well. He had paddled for me last year. He was a novice paddler last year and my 2.1 km swim turned into 2.5 when he thought that a 90 degree angle would be quicker to swim than a straight line.... I let Gwen choose her paddler as she is the youngest, has never swam it before and was terribly nervous. I paddled for her, our friend paddled for Dean and Matt swam solo. They each had swim buddies. Gwen graciously donated her pink (least favorite color) swim buddy to Matt so that I could purchase her a new green swim buddy...
This was the first year for the SATL event to happen at Kal Lake, so while it was well done and organized, there are a few kinks that will likely be worked out for next year. The paddlers were unsure of their launch zone until close to the start time. They do not have the option of a pancake breakfast to celebrate after and swimmers didn't realize that they were doing prizes through name draw and were leaving once their swim was finished.
Paddlers launched on the far side of the dock. I was nervous as I couldn't see Gwen, in the end her new green swim buddy was a blessing as it appeared to be the least popular color and she was easy to pull from the crowd once they neared us. The path was to leave the beach through the arches near Alexander's Beach Pub, to swim toward the Pumphouse beach, go around the large yellow buoy back around to the middle of the lake and then back toward the arches again.
Gwen was thrilled that the water was so clear and shallow enough that she could see different things on the bottom. As she veered to the right away from the group she told me the swim buddy was annoying, she took it off and started free diving. She pulled up clam shells, told me about different shipwrecks she saw down below, stood on rocks, swam to different little buoys to check them out. Everytime I encouraged her to swim a little faster or catch the next person, she ever so kindly reminded me that I told her this was a fun swim. By the time the last person passed us and we were officially in last place I resigned and opted to allow the fun swim to continue. I saw our friends and their kids and Dean all passing the last large buoy and head toward the arches while we still hadn't hit the 1st big one. The water was clear and warm, the sun was out, and I enjoyed watching our youngest take full advantage of her paid fun swim.
Dean finished her swim and our friend came back to paddle on the other side of Gwen. We tried to encourage her to swim and pass the swimmers ahead, she laughed and splashed us and kept doing her thing, granted she was swimming more now than she had in the 1st half of the race. Once we passed the last buoy Matt had finished his race and swam back out. This was the push Gwen needed, he told her "try and beat dad" and she went into full shark mode. She passed 5 more swimmers got out and ran across the finish line. I could hear Dean screaming her name and cheering her on. As she crossed the line, they announced her name and that she was the youngest swimmer in the race this year. She got her celebratory snacks and drinks and settled down on the beach.
We met up with our friends and listened to the stories of their races, the parts that were hard, that made them nervous and how glad they were to have swam. It was amazing to see how many people we knew swimming or volunteering. Our old Head Coach Marc was there watching some of his Kelowna swimmers participate, another great example for the girls to see. I had more of my former swimmers run up to tell me they had raced, it was so great for the girls to see that swimming isn't just something they do right now, its something you can really do for life.
Matt completed the race, he said that he swam with only one leg as he was too nervous to use the other and it was stiff and sore anyway. He made his goal of beating another friend that was racing, but Dean still beat him. I know he will try even harder for next year.
As we were standing there listening to our friends swim stories, they started announcing race winners. Right away they started with the 1.5 KM 10 and under category. Gwen was the only racer at 8 years old. She laughed and humbly went up to accept her medal
In the end we had an awesome time. I'm so grateful for the people that we have in our lives, for the small city we live in and for the people who sacrifice their days to volunteer and make these events possible.
