Okay, it was still a bit cool… but not bad. 58F/14C, chilly but not “stupid cold”. And the proof is in the pudding… we had 42 LOSTies out and we all went for a nice swim, probably a half hour or so.
I had to laugh because a bunch of people got there and saw that the water was as flat as a millpond and said “wow, it’s perfect, not a ripple!” Which it was, of course… but Lake O doesn’t hand out free passes easily. So unlike a few swims at the beginning of the summer where we had some pretty raucous waves, that wasn’t the issue today. It was that the Lake was still pretty cool.
However, in my typical manner of avoidance I just said it’s “a bit chilly”. Which, most LOSTies know how to interpret(!). Several said “How cold?!!”… and when I said 58F, they all went “Phew!… at least it’s not in the 40’s like a few weeks ago!”. Yup, it’s all about managing expectations.
The good news is that the Lake will likely stay this temp or warm up as we are apparently in for some hot weather. Now that it has rolled over several times this summer it has warmed up through and through and I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually got warmer. (But with the way this Lake has been behaving the past 2 summers… well, I wouldn’t bet the house on it getting warmer either!).
Truth is, you can blame the water temp on Ross, Christine and Paul. I actually kept the water at this temp just for them… they are off to Sweden to do the world famous swim-run race “O Till O”!!! And this is the perfect training temp for them.
O Till O is kind of the grand-daddy of the newest racing craze, swim-run races. This race is 75 km long… 65k running and 10k swimming… over an archipelago of small to tiny islands in Sweden!!! In fact, there are 35 times when you have to get in and out of the water! The terrain is quite rocky and looks a lot like Muskoka.
This is the toughest swim-run race in the world and one of the toughest endurances races in the world too!… and very hard to get in to. You either get in by lottery or “merit based” (which means you have an athletic resume that shows you are capable of that much
swimming and running!). Ross won the LOST Race last year and Christine is almost as fast, they both swam for my old buddy Andrew Cole at McMaster and happen to be good runners as well. So they got in on merit. Paul “Turbo” Trebilcock found another way to get in… have them produce a TV show about all the extreme races you do around the world… and they’ll let you in too! (although with all the amazing races he’s done, he’d get in on merit too!). Yes, he’s now in his third season of “Boundless“ on the Esquire channel. Very cool show.
Paul, Christine and Ross will actually be the 4th, 5th and 6th LOSTies to do O Till O… and it looks like there will be a few more going over for next year too! Dave and Al, quite coincidentally, were swimming in their running shoes this morning too (you do that in the race!) as they started training for next year! Nick and Art Chasovskykh also did the race a couple of summers ago… but the real trailblazer was the diminutive Lisa Neidrauer (& John Humenic)! (In case, you were wondering where she is this summer, don’t worry, she’s hasn’t given up adventures… she had a baby!… which should tide her over for a while!).
Anyway, last week we got to wish Steve Faulkner good luck on his third attempt at the English Channel… this week we got to send off Ross, Christine and Paul to O Till O… never a dull moment for LOSTies! Just the way I like it!
Good luck to Steve, Ross, Christine and Paul! See you all for a swim, coffee and stories when you get back!
Cheers,
Rob