Looks like we’ll have to call it a season!!!

As much as I would have loved to stretch the season out a couple of weeks longs… looks like this is it!  It’s just too cold… 46F as of this morning!  Quite odd really, because you can often swim until late September or even early October, but the reminants of Hurricane Earl was enough to roll Lake O over and it doesn’t look like there is enough warm air to heat it back up again.

Well at least it was a great season… our LOST membership grew incredibly… and the LOST Race grew from 8 swimmers 2 years ago, to 64 swimmers this year!  We also had a big increase in the total number of swimmers that came out for the Saturday morning LOST Swims… a total of 291 swimmers including the LOST Race!  In fact, we became so big that we decided it was necessary to become an official Masters Swim Ontario swim team… and got the LOST Race sanctioned as an official MSO race.  No matter how you cut it, I’d call it a successful season!  On top of which, I’d have to say it was a lot of fun.

I personally had a great swimming summer, which started off by swimming the 46 km Manhattan Island Marathon Swim on June 12 and have to thank Coach Dave of BMSC and all my swim mates from the club too.  Also a special thanks to my son Dylan who crewed for me for my practice swims in Lake O, Alex and Peter who crewed for me in Lake O and in the Big Apple and Darren Osborne who braved the early season cold-water swims at Gulliver’s Lake with me… even if he was the neoprene kid!

Here is a recap of a very fun season in stats and pics that I hope you’ll find interesting:

1. first swim: May 29  (June 21… last year)
2. last swim: Sep 4 (Sep 6… last year)
3. total Saturday LOST Swims:  15 (12 last year)
4. LOST Race: 64 swimmers, 16 naked, 48 wetsuit (39 last year)
5. LOST members that have signed up to recieve email: 152 (up from 83 last year)
6. Special guests: Miguel Vadillo (swam Lake O this summer), Colleen Shields (swam Lake O twice!), Marilyn Kozekwa (swam Lake O twice!), Lisa Neidrauer, (swam the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim), Ted Gregory (from Pennsylvannia, training to attempt to be oldest person to swim the English Channel… but never got the chance as the weather in Dover never let up!).
7. Average attendance: 19.7 (8.3 last year)
8. Largest attendance for a LOST Swim: 23 swimmers, Aug 7
9. Average water temp: 62F/17C,  (67F/19C  last year)
10. Hi/Lo water temp:   71F/22C on Aug 14… 49F/9C on July 3
11. Other Open Water Races: Manhattan Island Marathon Swim 46k, Ontario Open Water Championships 5K, Welland Canal 5K

    

A few closing notes… keep up the good work swimming… join a Masters team (see previous blog on Winter Swimming with BMSC or Oakville Masters)… I’ll put up the occassional note or swim story or pictures over the winter, so check back to the site once in a while… but this will likely be it for a while.

And finally, count on doing the Polar Bear Dip on Jan 1, 2011!!! That will count as our first LOST Swim as 2011!!!  (see the Winter Swimming blog entry for that one as well)… I’ll send out an email before that one too!

So keep spreading the word about LOST Swimming and plan on coming out next year too… pass along the website and forward me any email addresses of people who want to be added to the list. 

And in case it wasn’t obvious, I really enjoy swimming… and really enjoy swimming in Lake O… but I really enjoy swimming in Lake O with lots of new and old friends the most!!!

See you in the New Year!

Cheers,

Rob