One CRAZY Day - The Bay Challenge!

It started off as a running joke.... "you sign us up, and I will show up!" The 10km Bay Challenge ocean swim from West Vancouver to Kits Beach was coming up soon - and Steph signed us up!

The Bay Challenge was one of the craziest swims I have ever done - and throughout all my years of swimming, I have done a LOT of crazy swims. First of all - the swim has rules

• The swim can be done either solo or as a relay
• Relay teams can have as many people as you want
• Each swimmer or team must provide their own support boat, as the swim crosses the shipping channel (think big giant freighters!)
• The time limit is 4 hours!

My teammate and co-conspirator Steph planned an awesome day. We rented a 17 foot speed boat to get us "safely" across the Bay and we rounded up the best support crew ever - Meyrick and Nick! We plotted out our course, filled the boat with lots of homemade goodies to keep our support crew happy and decided to swim in 20 min intervals.

TEAM Awesome - at the pre-race meeting

I started the swim off and tried to stay as close to the front as I could. During the first 20 mins, I had to go around the first BIG freighter and fight through some pretty big waves. After about 30min, the waves settled down and we got going into a pretty good rhythm, each taking 20 min turns. That was... until the tide changed! Before this point, we were average about 1:30/100m thanks to Meyrick's trusty GPS, but after we got caught in the current, we slowed up quite a bit. We battled on and finished the swim together in 3hours and 5min - placing 3rd and finishing behind two relays that each had 4-5 swimmers.

Me at the halfway mark - with the Lion's Gate Bridge in the background


Steph swimming by one of the big freighters in the Bay

Now.... if you thought our swim was tough... read on!

My crazy but wonderful husband caught wind of our Bay Challenge plans and didn't want to be left out. A week out from the race, I got a text message at work from Mark that says "I hope you don't mind, but I registered for the Bay Challenge too - solo!"

My first reaction was - is this some sort of joke?!?!? Mark doesn't exactly come from a swimming background (cycling is his expertise). Sure, he swims masters swim workouts with me a couple of times a week, but nothing more than about 4000m. However, he was gonna give the 10km ocean swim a go!

Mark on the way to the start line!

First Mark recruited a great support team of Captain Lauren and support crew Adam. They decked out Lauren's 12 foot Red Aluminum boat and were ready to go!

As I was swimming along, I tried to keep track of Mark. Luckily Adam sent me text messages from time to time so that I knew Mark was well on his way to make the crossing.

Mark swimming by one of the freighters along the way!

After Steph and I finished, Meyrick and I headed back across the Bay to return our rental boat and stopped to see Mark along the way. Not only was he getting close to the finish line, but he looked great. Mark stopped briefly to say hi but was quick to start back swimming. I was soooo impressed!

Meyrick and I cheering on Mark

Unfortunately I didn't get to see Mark finish(as we were paying for the rental boat by the hour), but he finished in fine form after 4 hour and 45min! I am so incredibly proud of him!

And our day didn't stop there - after a quick little snooze, we made our way out to White Rock to watch the Tour de White Rock Crit to cheer on all our friends.... what a weekend!