Wolf, wolf, wolf…

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… okay, I got an email on Friday from Kim Lumsden, of Lake Ontario fame… as in, she is one of only 44 people in the world who have swum Lake O… and one of only 6 people who have swum it more than once, in 1976 & 2006!… (as is evidenced under our new “Lake O Crossings” tab above!)… and this email arrived shortly after my email that said the lake was going to be in the high 60’s… (she’s on the list too… so hopefully she’ll be out one of these days to swim with us… but she coaches Etobicoke Masters on Saturday mornings)… and she said, I wouldn’t be too sure about that temperature, you know how fickle Lake O can be… but I assured her that I had 3 websites and one said 73, another 68 and a third that said it was 53… guess which one was the most accurate?… well let’s just say it wasn’t the first two.  But I’m not too big of a man to admit I was wrong… Kim was right… and I was… ummm… optimistic!  Let’s just say I may have cried “wolf” again.  It was  about 58 where we got in and 61 when we turned around… we’ll call it 60F.

John, Ronald, Carl, Rob, Jason, Wesley, Maisey, Joanne, Mike, Alex, Bill, Alexis, Colleen, Darren, Anna Marie, Jeremy, Lynne, Karyn, Christina, Claudia (late: Alexei, Melanie) (click to enlarge)

Despite the less than balmy water temp (the air temp was 35C with the humidity!) we had another great turn out and a great swim, and most went for about 50 minutes!  We also set a new LOST World Record… 22 swimmers!  Beating last week’s turn out by 1!  So if you weren’t sure if you were going to come out, we’re glad you did… and if you weren’t sure if you were going to come… and you didn’t… well you should have… we missed you!  😉

We’ve come a long way from the days when careless carpenter could have counted all the swimmers on one hand!  A special nod to our 3 newbies, Colleen, who is a great swimmer (not that great at pacing for 1500’s, but we’ll get her to work on that… oh… oops… that’s me, not her… whatever)… and Karyn, who made the trip all the way down from Acton… apparently “it was worth the drive from Acton!”… and Anna Marie, who along with Colleen, Maisey, Alex and myself all went naked!  Very impressive, especially for the two newbies in less than tropical water!  Good work everyone! 

Don’t forget the LOST Race on August 14! 

(and I’ll give you all the details as soon as I know what they are, but everyone will have to register before the race with our new Registrar, Melanie Price, as it will be an official MSO (Masters Swimming Ontario) sanctioned race and we will be an officially sanction team!… as it gives us insurance!).

See you all next week! 

Cheers,

Rob

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I founded LOST Swimming because I like open water swimming and would like to see it grow and thrive in Lake Ontario. I started as a competitive swimmer as a kid and ended up getting as far as a silver medal at Nationals and going to the Olympic Trials in 1988. But I retired after that, I was sick of swimming. So I got into running marathons and have run over 35 to date, as well as a few ultra marathons, including the Marathon des Sables (7 day, ultra across the Sahara Desert). I also kind of fell into triathlons and have done a handful of Ironman tri's too. This gradually got me back in the water and in 2006 I took the plunge and attempted swimming the English Channel. I didn't quite make it across, but the circle was now complete and after 17 years I was a swimmer again! Although I still do plenty of pool swimming, I now much prefer open water swimming and like to say that open water swimming is to pool swimming, what trail running is to treadmill running! As a result I hope to encourage more people to join me for a dip in Lake Ontario as often as we can!