The 12th Annual LOST Race!

Nothing is easy.  Certainly not swimming the 3.8 km LOST Race, or even racing the LOST Mile!  And apparently, neither is the technology.

I’ve been dreading writing this part of the post since the race ended yesterday, which is when we found out that the timing company, Splits Timing, that we hired to time the race for us… didn’t get the times.  Argh.

Apparently, because of the rain (?), some of the chips were being picked up by the timing mats, and most weren’t.  We are still trying to work with them to manually piece things together.  Fortunately we got the placings, as Bud and Andrey were collecting chips and manually writing the placings down, shortly after the start.  (if you have your approximate time, or any other correction, feel free to email it to the timing company, here).  Your points for the GSS are based on placings, not times, so we should still be able calculate all those based on the placings.

All I can say is that I totally and completely apologize for the timing debacle.  Here are the results… for now.

Well, that’s out of the way.  Now about the actual race.  It actually went pretty well!

We had our largest number of entrants ever… 192 total swimmers! (114 LOST Race, 78 LOST Mile), although we lost a few because of the rain delay, but still a great year!  It keeps growing… up from 8 swimmers, 12 years ago! haha.

We had a 1 hour rain delay, which was kinda funny.  I gave my pre-race announcement speech about 15 minutes before the race… when it wasn’t raining and it even looked like the weather was going to clear up.  However, we had been tracking the weather closely since the day before, and Dylan, Jackie and I had been monitoring the storm coming directly towards us.  It looked like it should last from about 8-9.

So I finished my speech at 8:00.  And at 8:01 the rain came and the first thunder roared!  Then at 9:00 the rain let up and we had everyone in the water for a 9:10 start.  We got the LOST Mile off shortly after that.

The rain had even flattened the water down and it was the warmest we’ve had it this summer!  From 65F/18C to 68F/20C along the course.  Perfect conditions.

We thought we had done a great job dodging mother nature and were being rewarded with great conditions!  Little did we know it was technology that would be our undoing.

LOST TowelAnd despite not being able to put up all the times, there were some fast swims!  Although the water was pretty flat, I think there was a slight current going against the LOST Race swimmers, and some of the LOST Mile swimmers noticed it was easier going out than coming back too.  The overall winner of the LOST Race was Mckenzie Holden with a time of 50 minutes!  The course record is about 44 minutes, which was done with a slight push, and with a slight headwind, that makes for a very fast time… and it is now the second time Mckenzie has won the LOST Race, so big Congrats!

You know when you are all concerned in a race about “I’m not exactly sure where I’m going”… and the response from your wise-ass friend is “don’t worry about it, I don’t think you’ll be leading anyway”!  Well sometimes it happens to the leaders.  David Spencer put up a smokin’ fast time for the LOST Mile!  12 minutes!  And even he realized that was too fast… and realized he missed a buoy!  So… just for fun… he swam it again!  And still put up an incredibly fast 18 minute LOST Mile swim!  He was DQ’d, but did put up a really fast second ‘exhibition’ swim.

Of note, we also had a couple of Olympians place in the top 3, Tera Van Beilen and Susy Escobar… well done, and thanks for coming out, inspiring everyone and keeping the spirit alive!  Oh, and a big congrats to the 2 women that beat them! haha (Kate Hulford and Bhillie Luciani). Also of note, Kate Hulford, who won her division, joined her dad (and my old buddy), Steve Hulford, who won his division too!  A trick that has only been done one other time… when my daughter, Maisey and I, did it too!  Congrats Kate and Steve!

Oh, and a special tip of the hat to the swimmers that came specifically for our race from: Annapolis, Maryland and Bondi Beach, Australia!  As well as the expat LOSTies we have from South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and probably a few others.  Truly a global community!

One last congrats goes out to LOSTie, Loren King… who swam the English Channel on Monday… and then got in 10 minutes after everyone started… and swam the LOST Race, just for fun!  Way to represent LOST, Loren!  We are all really proud of you and your incredible accomplishment!  And for those of you out there that have tried and failed at something big… this was Loren’s second attempt.  He tried last year and didn’t make it… and then put up a spectacular time of 12:02 this week!  Way to go Loren!!!

Thanks as well to Orange Theory fitness for the raffle prize, for MSC (Masters Swimming Canada), for the great awards for the top placing MSC swimmers too, and to Sports Oakville for the $1500 in grant money that we used for 3 of the kayaks used to keep everyone safe in the race!  And a HUGE thanks to John Stibrany and family who donated a $10 Tim Horton card for each volunteer, and even shuffled in a surprise $100 card in there!… as well as all the beautiful, blue LOST Towels!!!  Those were a big hit!

The great news was that our 58 volunteers on-land and on-water did an awesome job, including cameraman, John Johnston, who was on water and land! (more pics to follow).  A special shout out to our team captains who spent weeks organizing this whole event: Mauro Campanelli, Mark Bintley, Darren Osborne, Olga Bordatcheva and Joanne Kent.

Here are the top 3 placings for each group:

LOST Race

Male, Wetsuit

1. Mckenzie Holden (MSC too)
2. Dylan Kent
3. Matt Reid

Female, Wetsuit

1. Carli Cermak (MSC too)
2. Olga Bordatcheva
3. Maddie Murray

   

Male, Non-Wetsuit

1. Owen Beresh
2. Paul Mansell
3. Eugene Woo

Female, Non-Wetsuit

1. Kate Hulford
2. Susana Escobar
3. Emily Slaney

   

LOST Mile

Male, Wetsuit

1. Robert Lesser
2. Robert Landriault
3. Oscar Siwiec

Female, Wetsuit

1. Erika Friesen
2. Lorena Uzelac
3. Sasha Bejjany

   

Male, Non-Wetsuit

1. Steve Hulford
2. Filippo Porco
3. Michael Laing

Female, Non-Wetsuit

1. Bhillie Luciani
2. Tera Van Beilen
3. Caitlin McClellan

So when it was all said and done, even with the weather and technology playing a role, I hope everyone had a great time!  And on behalf of all the sponsors, volunteers, team captains, and myself… thanks for coming out and having fun splashing around in the Lake!  I hope you all had a great race, lots of fun… and we hope to see all of you next year too!

Cheers,

Rob