“Swim the Suck”… again!!!

Here’s a great race report from a LOST Traveller!  Atta keep the season alive, Gary!  Sounds like a great race… mabye we’ll join you next year!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Rob,

 While rivers and lakes have cooled off  back here in Ontario, down in Tennessee they’re still outdoors swimming and swimming the Suck near Chattanooga in particular. After enjoying a swim vacation, my latest excuse to travel down there, I was back in southeast Tennessee last weekend to participate in the 2^nd Annual Swim the Suck. (See this year’s video produced and set to set to music by Ben Friberg at www.swimthesuck10mile.com ). The event was again organized by someone you’re familiar with Rob, Karah Nazor Friberg, the first Tennessean to swim the English Channel back in 2008.

Saturday was sunny and the water was a comfortable in the low seventies but the current was much slower than we experienced last year. The Tennessee River is dammed from head to toe with controlled flow and on this day the upstream Chickamauga damn (almost as much fun to pronounce as Chattanooga) was kicking out 12000-18000/cubic feet per second (cfs) of water compared to last year’s more helpful flow of nearly 35000/cfs. This contributed some difference in my time 3:58 compared to last year’s 3:09.  The winning time of 3:35 by Victoria Rian of Indianapolis compared to last year’s winning time of 3:04.  On this day my conditioning was off a bit, I sensed some cramping and stomach stuff, the water was a bit wavy yadda yadda.  Still I was relieved to be reassigned a very good local pilot and kayaker Carl Sheffield who safely and smartly navigated me downstream and tended to my 3 feedings (Gatorade, gels & water).

 This year’s event started a couple miles further downstream than previous so the entire length was within the Tennessee River Gorge, a narrow, gorgeous (& surprisingly clean) stretch of water steeply sloped with trees just starting to change colour and rock walls climbing steeply to peaks up to 1700 ft. above us.  My new aid this year, prescription goggles allowed me to enjoy the scenery in more detail as we swam along.

In case you’re wondering about the Suck in the name Swim the Suck, it refers to a tributary along the route, Suck Creek which in the days before they damned he Tennessee River would sometimes erupt into rapids and whirlpools at the point the two rivers met and suck in passing river traffic.  While I avoided this fate I also couldn’t answer the challenge when a couple swimmers passed me in the last mile, usually the stronger part of my long swims. Nonetheless I still scored some beautiful hand crafted Appalachian pottery for my efforts, 9th overall ( a field of 40 started), 3rd place amongst men. It was the women who rocked the Tennessee River on Saturday though claiming the top 3 finishes plus 6 of the top 10 finishes.

Afterwards, though thankfully prior to the post-swim keg party, I managed to orally exhaust the liquid contents of my stomach.  Oddly enough when I got back in the water again Monday and Tuesday this week, I felt recovered even ready to race a better 10 miles after having learned a few things a couple days earlier. Go figure eh. After participating in 7 open water swim events over the past 6 months -including the fast growing LOST Race – I’m ready to transition to more wintery stuff like skiing.  Still part of me already misses the weekly LOST swim in Oakville and the coffee at Second Cup that followed. See ya’ll in the big lake next year.

 -Gary