ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Colorado 2025 race report
Matt and I had been wanting to take Ada to Colorado, and so were planning a tentative Fall Road Trip to Colorado. And then they announced Swimrun Colorado! It was meant to be! And then we got a second, very young puppy. Hooboy. But we decided the new kid, Grace, would be old enough/potty-trained enough by early October that we could still pull it off.
Spoiler: We mostly did!
My ride-or-die partner/fellow Adorkable, Trista, has been working all the OTILLO USA races, so she couldn't race with me. And Anna needed a break from longer races after Rockman. So I was planning to just do Colorado solo. I haven't really felt strong and capable in swimming or running for.. honestly, a few years now. And so I didn't want to reach out to someone and have our new partnership be me constantly apologizing for how slow I was and how crappy I felt.
Then Emily put it out in the universe that she wanted to race Colorado, but she has been having health problems. Regular Emily is in a different running league from regular Amy, much less struggling Amy. But maybe health problems Emily would be an okay match? Anyway, I reached out and said if she was willing to just go out there and have fun, and not care that I'm so much slower, that I was going to be there and would love to partner with her. And she agreed. I'm not sure she really understood what she was agreeing to, but she assured me that anything was fine. Neither of us had any idea how the elevation would impact us.
In addition to slow running, I was also bringing 3 days of road trip malaise with me to our new partnership. I swam in the morning the day we left Austin, knowing I wouldn't swim again until the Envol clinic on Saturday, and I did an easy 3 mile run in Trinidad, CO on Friday before we hit the road for our last push to Fort Collins, where our airbnb, and the race, were. Otherwise I just sat in a car for most of three days.
At the Envol clinic, Emily and I finally got a chance to practice swimming and transitions together, and that went well. We got her tether set to the right length, we did some swim entrances and exits, I struggled to breathe during our easy run warmup, it was all fine.
Everything would be fine. Probably.
I actually slept the night before the race, which has become vanishingly rare for me, and was a welcome change. We packed up the car and the dogs and hit the road around 6:30am, aiming to get to the start by 7am, the time Emily had suggested we meet up. Our airbnb was minutes from Horsetooth Reservoir, but we were on the SOUTHWEST end, and the start/finish line was at the NORTHWEST end, and the road to get to the start/finish was on the EAST side of the reservoir, so.. not a tough drive, but funny how long it took given how close we were as the crow flies.
The drive was beautiful, with the sun coming up and the fog low in the valleys.
We got there around 6:45am, and weren't sure what to do. I hadn't yet heard from Emily, and we weren't sure whether there was any shelter at the actual race start, so we considered just waiting for a while in the car, where it was warm. But friends were milling about in the parking lot, and dogs were antsy, so we got out and decided to go check out the start area.
On our way, I got a text from Emily saying her ETA was now 7:30am, but that it was just from misunderstanding how far the start area was from where we'd done the clinic the day before, nothing was actually going wrong. I love that she knew to throw in that reassurance.
We walked the dogs around and let people love on them for a bit, then saw some portapotties with a line, and decided that wouldn't be a bad idea. We sought out bathrooms a little further away with less line, and I stripped down for that, and met with sufficient success that I felt like I'd be okay for the duration of the race. Always a nice feeling on race morning.
Then we moseyed on down to the start area, not a care in the world, just socializing. And there was Emily! Who ran up to me and said she didn't have the tether. Okay, okay, that's how this day is gonna be! No worries, though, I had my new fancy ARK backpack in the car that had all my spare "just in case I, or someone else, need it" gear, and Matt VERY GENEROUSLY agreed to run back to the car and grab it and bring it back. Could we race without a tether? 100%. But it seriously complicates the swims, and if we could avoid it, we were going to. And we could!
Okay, so now it's getting close to the race start. People are gathered at the start. I'm trying to stay as close to where Matt left me as I could, so that he could find me when he returned. Also since he was prioritizing speed, I had taken possession of the dogs. Two chaotic giant puppies, one of whom had some fear issues with strangers, especially large groups of strangers.
Lars made some announcements, including walking back a course change that they had made, which was good to know for the future. And then he said that in order to activate everyone's timing chips, we all needed to walk down the sidewalk and across the timing mat. I had (generously) volunteered to wear the timing chip, because I'm used to being the one wearing the timing chip, but that meant walking two chaotic puppies in a tight group of neoprene-clad strangers, and also leaving the place where Matt had left me. Emily had wandered away for a bit to finish getting ready, but fortunately she appeared just then and grabbed the timing chip off my ankle and went to walk our team across the timing mat. Whew!
Matt made it back as people gathered up to start, and I tore into the bag and found my mesh bag of 'assorted misc small' gear. And, of course, my tiny purple tether wasn't in there. I wasn't sure where it was (turns out, back pocket of the wetsuit I wore at the clinic the day before!), but I didn't have time to try to sort it out, and fortunately I have an Orca belt/tether set I bought years ago that I loan out to folks in need, and somehow has lost one belt at this point. But I still have the (super thick, super long) tether, and today it was going to race with us! It was clearly too long, and I was just sort of resigned to either knotting it a random amount to shorten it, or just dealing with how long it was, but Emily said "Let's lay down and measure it!" So in this crowd of athletes antsy to start their race, we just flopped down on our bellies and Emily shortened our tether to accommodate that distance.
With the bag and the dogs handed back to Matt (who absolutely saved the day), we finally got on our feet, facing the right direction, and I hustled to get all my gear properly situated. Swimcap on my head, goggles on my forehead, paddles on my hands, Garmin set to swimrun mode and ready to go.
And then it was go time!
Okay! First run! A little less than a mile. Easy trail. Beautiful, cool morning. And pretty immediately we were off the back of the pack. I'm glad Emily didn't have to wait at all to realize how slow I ran compared to her/everyone else in the race.
This is a theme in the race, and I'll try not to dwell on it too much here, though I probably will. I apologized to Emily a lot. It's one thing to agree that you don't care about pace and we're just out to have fun. But I'm a much slower runner than Emily on any day, and I am even slower when starting a run/race with no warmup, and I'm terrible at elevation. It's hard to run someone else's pace, and we agreed beforehand that she should probably never be leading any runs, because whatever she thought 'slow' was, I was slower than that.
Okay. That out of the way, this first run was a struggle. I was trying to chat, but I'd tell a story, and I'd get 3 words out, pause to breathe, 3 more words, breathe, etc. It wasn't pretty, and I was concerned that it was going to be a REALLY LONG DAY if that's how I felt all day. Crossed my fingers that my body would chill out a bit with the elevation as the day went on.
But we made it through that first run, and down to our first swim!
Before the Saturday clinic, Emily and I weren't really sure how our open water swim speeds compared. During the clinic, we discovered that we're pretty much exactly the same speed. Which is good and bad. It's good because we could switch off every swim, and someone was always resting in the back. It's bad because when you're drafting off someone the same speed as you, it's hard to stay behind them. You feel like "I could be swimming faster if I was in front!" But then you're both thinking that when you're in back, because you're the same speed. So you just accept that it's going to feel awkward, and you embrace the recovery and the weird stroke you have to adopt to not be hitting your partner's feet every single stroke.
We decided I'd lead the first swim, and this was pretty new territory for me. When Trista and I partner, she leads all swims. If it's awkward to swim behind someone the same speed as you, it's pretty untenable to swim behind someone who is significantly slower than you, unless there's fatigue or injury or some other extenuating circumstance. So Trista always leads our swims. Last year I partnered at Austin with Kristi who was a Lady Longhorn swimmer at UT. She clearly led all the swims. At Rockman, the first three swims Anna and I swam side by side, because that's just how it worked out. But then I led the fjord swim, which was a doozy, and gave me enough confidence to go into this race and feel like I could lead half the swims. Fortunately.
A note about the swim entrances, swim exits, and transitions. The entrances and exits were all super easy beach areas. Maybe a little muddy at some places, but otherwise a complete non-issue. Run in, run out. We practiced our transitions at the clinic, and we did fine at the race. We were always efficient in the actual things we did, but then often some little thing would go wrong, like the tether would get in a weird position or I'd have to re-tie my shoe (Sarah K, I tried your shoe tying technique, and I think I did it wrong, because I had to retie my shoe by swim 2; I think I need another lesson) or someone would have to pee and couldn't do it while swimming (this someone is not me, I'm a pro circuit pee-while-swimmer). So our transitions were very mid. We weren't hanging out on the shore faffing about, but we weren't Beek and Marcus.
And now a note about the swims! Like Austin and Mackinac, all the swims were along a shoreline, and like Austin, all cove to cove. Unlike Austin, I felt like many of the swims were quite wiggly. Austin is straight out of a cove, curve, straight in. These coves often had a few twists and turns to get into or out of them, and it was kinda fun, and sometimes a little confusing. My theory was "keep swimming and hopefully eventually it will be obvious what to do," and mostly that was true.
For this first swim, we were swimming straight into the sunrise, which was blinding, but fine. I stayed very left to avoid the back of the fray, because we were better swimmers than I was a runner, so we'd often pass teams/individuals on the swims who had just/would soon pass us on the runs. As we exited the cove, I moved over to the shore and hugged the shore all the way back in. Emily was tapping my feet, which reassured me she was still back there, the water felt good, I did a decent job of sighting and getting us to the swim exit, and most excitingly, I could breathe just fine. Matt and I once did a pool swim at the swim center in Leadville, which is at 10k feet, and I felt like I was going to die after 25 yards. I felt fine here. I was just swimming along, super chill, maybe a little concerned about how my shoulders were already feeling a bit fatigued (Austin and its open water are hot, and I never get to actually train in my wetsuit, so races are always a harsh reminder of how constricting even the butteriest wetsuits are), but happy that obviously my body had quickly adapted to the elevation, and everything would be great for the rest of the race.
And then we got out of the water and started to run, and immediately I realized that this was not true for the runs. Runs still felt terrible. But hey, at least my body felt amazing for the swims.
What followed, and was the first 'half' of the race, was a series of surprisingly long swims separated by inadequately long runs. Which honestly sounds kind of amazing, since my swimming is better than my running, but it meant that we spent a long time in the water, and then had very little time to warm back up on the run before we were back in the water for another long time. I don't really get cold, but even I was chilled after a run of less than a mile, and then Emily leading another long, cold swim.
We got out of that swim, and poor Emily, who DOES get cold, was struggling to warm up. The beginning of the next run, which was almost 2 miles, was largely uphill, and Emily clearly wanted to run faster to get warmer. And I was still massively struggling with my breathing and my heart rate. I was trying my damnedest to keep moving as fast as I could so she could get some body heat, but finally I said "I have to walk" and backed off a bit. I told her we should untether and she could run up the hill and back down to stay warm, but she said she'd be okay.
Just after that, we went through a crossroads, and got to see Lars and Sarah. Sarah yelled, "Are you guys staying warm?" and we both simultaneously yelled back, "NO!" Made us laugh.
We did eventually warm up a bit in that run, which was good, because the next swim was the longest of the race. In the every-other-swimness of it all, it was my turn. Just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, swim-wise, most races have maybe one or two 1k swims sprinkled in among some 200, 300, 500 yard swims. The swims in this race so far (according to my Garmin) were 900 yards, 1300 yards, and now 2200 yards. 2200 yards is a long swim in the middle of a race, y'all. But we waded in confidently!
And honestly, it was fine. We wiggled our way out of the cove, and then it was just a really long, long, straight swim along the shore. When I'd looked at the course map with Matt, I thought I remembered that there was some swim where we had to swim around an outcropping, and I got it in my head that maybe the outcropping out ahead of us was that one, but then that didn't make any sense, because there was nothing marking that, and really no way TO mark that. The thing that made this course doable was that it was all cove to cove, not cove to "some random place further down the way". If they wanted us to do something weird, they'd have to mark it somehow, with buoys or boats or both.
As we got near the opening of the next cove, we passed a solo swimmer, and I said, "I assume we just.. go in the cove?" and he said he supposed so, and so we curved to do so.
And I will keep this next part as brief as I can, but right then a men's team came up on our right side. They were passing us, which meant they were clearly faster than us, and so I thought "Ooh, if I can, I'll hop on their feet and get a little free ride!" Except as I moved to do so, they kept swimming straight out instead of into the cove. Okay, well, I'm not going to follow them if they're going to add distance, so I kept turning and went into the cove.
4 more times, I was swimming along minding my own business, and they cut directly in front of us, or pushed us off course by veering directly into us. It was MADDENING. I just kept yelling in my head, "We are basically the only two teams in this giant reservoir, and I can't get away from you!"
I'm not claiming that I am a perfect swimmer, as far as sighting and directions go, but I'm like 99% sure I was NOT the problem here. Especially since at one point, when we FINALLY saw the exit flag up on the shore, I was heading straight for the flag, bearing left, and they came from the left and swam directly in front of us, veering right. Toward.. nothing. I sat up and yelled "What the fuck?!" and the guy who was drafting sat up and looked a little apologetic and yelled at his partner and told him to turn, he was headed the wrong way. Lead guy said "Well, if you know where we're going, you can lead!" And then lead guy continued to lead, and they continued to zig and zag all over the place, but I took that opportunity to aggressively head the right direction and get away from them.
Random side note: After that, as we neared the shore, I smelled cigarette smoke. I thought that was weird, but maybe someone was fishing in the cove and smoking, and that's what I smelled. Don't love the smell of cigarette smoke while I'm fighting for breath swimming or running, but they were probably not affiliated with the race, so didn't consider that we might be impacted by it.
But no, then I looked up and the safety kayaker we were swimming by was smoking.
Okay.
Anyway, I have feelings about that, but now we were done with this swim, which felt like it took forever, and DID, it was a 53 minute swim in the middle of a swimrun!, and we were back out on land. Even though that men's team passed us decisively as we got to the cove, we ended up exiting at the exact same time, which tells you something. I may have mentioned in passing to them as we waded out that I had considered murdering them. I'm not sure how they felt about that, though I did say it in a very good-natured way!
Whew. Longest swim done, new PR for longest swim led. I was quietly but ridiculously proud.
Roughly a mile run to the marina, and our first pass through the marina aid station. Which is where Matt and the puppies were stationed! It was so nice to get to see them, and get completely mauled by the dogs, who have zero chill in general, but were all wound up and so excited see me/anyone else, probably. As we ran out of the aid station, Matt yelled, "See you in 3 miles!" which evidently surprised Emily, because she hadn't caught the announcement that morning about the course re-change at the marina.
Originally we were going to swim through the marina over to the other side, then run back around the southern tip of the reservoir and back through that aid station. Then the course was changed to shorten that swim and just go down a bit, get out on the same side, and cut off the southern tip. And then it was changed BACK. Emily had written all the distances on her paddles, but those distances were for the modified course, not the modified-modified course.
This was a confusing swim to figure out where to go, but fortunately it was full of friendly safety boats who told us exactly where to go. We waded into the water, and it felt WARM. That was weird. I guess maybe because it was so protected, and full of boats (the parked kind, mostly, fortunately). We consulted a safety kayaker, and she said to swim past the floating dock, and hook a right, and the next boat would tell us where to go. We started swimming, Emily leading this time, and I immediately realized the tether was hooked under my buoy, and it wasn't the kind of thing that I could just fake/tolerate for the next however-long-this-swim-was (it looked pretty innocuous on paper, but even this swim was 1100 yards!). So I hammered my paddle on the bottom of Emily's shoe, which we hadn't discussed as being the way I'd let her know if I needed to chat with her, but she figured out immediately. I untangled, she said she had no idea where she was going, I said "Just go that way and hopefully we'll figure it out", and so we did.
After the floating dock, we turned right, and there was another safety kayaker, ready to guide us where we needed to be next. She was wearing the brightest hat I've ever seen, and I told her we needed those hats at all swim exits, because she was 1000x more visible than the exit flags.
Emily later told me I was a very friendly, chatty swimmer, and she was very no-nonsense, all-business. Trista and I have a rich history of always thanking the safety boaters and maybe chatting and asking how they're doing, what plans they have for the day, etc.
We had one little hitch near the end of that swim where Emily sat fully up suddenly, and it turned out her right neoprene arm sleeve had worked its way down to her wrist. She pulled that back up, and we finished out the swim.
This was the beginning of the Long Mountain Run, but I hadn't really thought about it as such when planning. I had been focused on "when we hit that aid station again, I need to fill up all my fluids and get ready for a long run", and so I considered THAT the beginning of the long run, but there was no swim between this and that, so this was officially the beginning of our 8.9 mile run-which-contained-a-mountain.
We started down the trail, winding around that southern point, and as we came up a hill, we saw a permanent bathroom structure. Emily immediately said, "I'm going to hit that bathroom." She hadn't mentioned that there was a bathroom need, so I'm not sure how long she was hoping to find a place to stop, but if you're going to have to stop and poop, a permanent bathroom structure is a great thing to find! As we ran up, I suggested she start figuring out what she needed to undo, that she could do on the run. I forget every time that I need to take off my race belt before I can take down my wetsuit, and was trying to pass on my hard-earned poop wisdom.
As we ran up, she handed me her paddles, and then dashed through the door. I'd like to blame our slow finishing time on Emily's bathroom stop, because honestly I couldn't have told you whether it was 1 minute or 10 minutes, but now looking at my Garmin, it looks like we were stopped for about 7 minutes. That wasn't what made our slow finish time, for sure.
While she was in there, I took the opportunity to empty the trash from my various pockets, a thing I never manage to do mid-race, and drink some water, and explain in great detail what swimrun was to the two cyclists who were resting and recovering outside the bathroom. I'm not sure I sold them on it, but they did ask a lot of good questions, so maybe we'll see them someday.
When Emily came out, I helped her suit back up. And even though she's way faster than me, I was able to impart A Knowledge to her! She didn't realize she should put her sleeves on, THEN her wetsuit, and the wetsuit would hold the sleeves in place. Which is why her sleeve had ooched down during the last swim, and why she had taken her sleeves off to go to the bathroom. Learning Moment!
We got her all suited back up and carried on our way, with her confirming that she had been Successful. Yay!
It felt like we should very quickly find Matt and the aid station again, but it felt like forever before we did. When we did, I carried out my mountain plan. I filled up my big soft flask, which I had partly filled with water before the race and drank very little of so far. And then I rooted out the smaller soft flask I'd stored empty in my suit that morning, and filled it up with electrolyte drink. There were no aid stations on the mountain, for the rest of this 8 mile mountain run, so my goal was to carry enough fluids to get me through, and finish all that off by the next aid station.
Spoiler: Didn't do great on that front, but didn't do terribly. Didn't make me any slower than my legs+elevation made me, at least!
I gave my husband and dogs another chaotic hug, and then we were off to run up and down Horsetooth Mountain!
I had warned Emily I was probably going to have to walk a lot of the way up, and I did, but honestly I did better than I figured I would. At this point, I was acclimated enough that I could produce full sentences, and we spent the next 2.5 hours (well, 2.5 hours for the total 8.9 miles of that run; THAT is what I meant by slow, Emily) just chatting and having a nice time.
Emily and I have been friends for a few years, but aside from one late-night porch chat at our airbnb at Lake James, we've never really gotten to know each other all that well. And now we have! Thanks, swimrun!
The way up was mostly switchbacks and runnable trail, and the views as we went up were amazing, and once we were at the top, the views were incredible. The day had warmed up as promised, but neither of us ever cabbed down. I took off my swimcap and goggles and stowed my paddles for the first time during this run, but Emily kept it all on, and was comfortable. The day was cloudless and clear, and the view of Horsetooth Reservoir was just laid out blue and stunning below us. We'd gawk every time we turned a corner and saw it again.
And I made her tell me her life story, which was my plan all along. If she's going to be so much faster than me and be working so much less to go my pace, I'm going to make her do all the talking so I can just struggle and breathe!
I led this whole way, because she would have immediately easy-paced her way out of sight from me, and I had a lovely time, and I believe that she did, as well. It wasn't technical, but my legs just felt dead, thank you, elevation, and so I did what they let me do. Which was slow, but also neither of us ever fell, though I think we both had one toe-catch-pitch-forward.
Eventually we realized we were at the top and started making our way back down. Eventually we hit the water for another swim, though honestly I have no memory of that swim. I think maybe Emily led, with the theory that I would lead the next, longer swim. Though this swim was 900 yards, which you think I'd have SOME memory of.
When we came out of that swim, we thought we had a short run, another swim, and then another mountain. But when we hit another aid station, and she said "Up another mountain you go!" and we said, "Wait, no other swim before our next mountain?" and she confirmed our next mountain was just around the corner. Okay! That was nice to hear! We thought we had a lot more race in front of us than we did!
Shout out to Lonnie the volunteer, who I awkwardly called beautiful twice that weekend, but who took it as an appreciated compliment and said more people should say those things out loud instead of keeping it inside. Agreed.
This run was ~4.5 miles, with a mountain climb in the middle. Shorter mountain, but less switchbacks, so maybe more aggressive climbing. Also more technical. But we gutted it out and kept chatting. As we finally reached the top and started back down, we could see the start area, and Emily looked at her watch and confirmed we were definitely not going to make the time cut-off. The original time cut-off was 6 hours. Then they extended it to 7 hours. And we were at like 6:20 or something, and still up on a mountain, and still had a swim (sorta two swims) and a couple short runs to go AFTER we managed to make it down this mountain. But it wasn't like they were going to pull us off the course at the top of a mountain, so we kept running.
When we got down, we crossed a road which was obviously VERY close to the finish line, which we could hear, but we were headed for our last swim. I figured if they were going to pull us off the course, it was going to be here, when we were so close to the road. But nobody intercepted us, so Emily said she was going to take a gel before this last swim, and I agreed I should, as well. We were digging in pockets and eating, and then there was a guy in an OTILLO shirt on a bike on the trail up ahead of us. There was tall grass and it was hard to see the trail, so I yelled, "That way?" and he made a confirming gesture and pointed back behind him to go that way. So we kept running toward him, and he said, "Wait, are you still racing?" I said, "Well, we want to be!" and he said, "Oh, then go back, you missed the turn!"
It was just a short bend of the trail away, but we'd missed an arrow as we grabbed our gels. Unfortunately this started taking us AWAY from the finish line, which is always sad. This part was weird, because it was the only part of the course which was pretty notably different, running through Amy-high grass and mud down to the water. Also it was starting to get dark, because the rain that they'd threatened might move in later in the day was moving in.
But we just had one swim and one run left!
Well, sort of. They had turned the last swim into a swim-run-swim, running across a little spit of land rather than going all the way out around the outcropping, because the water was so low.
Since I was leading this last swim, I waded into the water, consulting our waiting personal boat guide about where we were to go, and whether there was a flag. He said don't worry about it, he'd stay with us. Which is great, but also I'd like to know where I'm aiming for? But we put out heads down to finish out this race.
It was both nice and unnerving to have a personal boat escort. I've had Matt and my sister as escorts for me while swimming before, but on a kayak and a SUP, respectively. Which have no motors. It was a little scary having a motored boat right beside me. I'm sure he was very careful, but what if I didn't sight well and swam into the motor? I'm capable of such insanity, especially late in a race! But it was fine. I tend to have my eyes open while facing down into the water, and close my eyes when I breathe, which is awkward when you have an escort, so I made sure I glanced at him every time I breathed to the left, and he would nudge the boat close if I needed to go closer to the shore, and a few times would motion with his hands (which were helpfully wearing super hi-vis gloves) if I needed to move closer to the boat. I was watching the shore for flags, but it turns out the spit of land was into a little cove, so once we turned, I saw a kayak up on the shore, asked if I was aiming for that, he confirmed, and then he sped away and we swam up to the volunteer on the shore.
Who was loudly playing Break My Stride, one of my favorite pump-up songs, and so I sang along loudly and embarrassingly.
We made it across the little spit of land, expecting to find our boat guy on the other side, but as we went back down to the water, he was nowhere to be seen, and there was a bigger boat quite a ways out on the water. We hadn't discussed who was leading the second half of the swim, and I was fine with doing it, but Emily moved the tether around to the leader position, and my shoulders were juuust fine with not leading anymore swims, and we tentatively waded into the water, not sure where were going.
Just then, the boat in the distance turned on its lights, which we interpreted as "Swim to me!", and so we did.
As we got closer to the boat, we asked them if there was a flag at the exit, and once again they said, "Just hug the shore, we'll stay with you!" Give us a goal to aim for!
It was getting darker, and we were tired, but we were finishing out strong. Emily looked up on the shore and saw a flag, and swam until her hands hit the ground. I followed her out, and as we climbed onto the shore, the boat behind us said, "Are you okay?" We said "We're great! Thank you so much!", expecting to part ways with our friendly safety boat. One said, "Are you done? We can give you a courtesy ride to the end of this swim!" And the other one said, "I think they want to finish." And we were SO CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING. And then we were like, "Oh, is this NOT the swim exit?!" And it wasn't. It wasn't even a flag. It was a tree that didn't even look particularly like a flag. And I started laughing hysterically. We were fine. I mean, we were tired, but I'm just slow, so we were behind everyone else. We didn't want to DNF. We especially didn't want to DNF with like 10 more minutes of racing between us and the finish line! This is the kind of shitshowery I expect from my swimruns!
We waded back into the water and started swimming again, and I could barely swim I was laughing so hard. Courtesy ride! Oh, man.
It turns out this last swim ALSO turned into a cove, and there was a flag in the cove, and it was very obvious it was the exit flag, and not a tree. And there were two volunteers on the shore to welcome us.
Except it wasn't two volunteers, it was two angels! Sarah and Viv were cheering theirs faces off for us as we waded out of our final swim, and the safety boat, which had stayed safely back at the cove entrance, gave us a little victory honk, and we came out to do our final quarter mile run to the finish line!
Sarah (who had volunteered all day) and Viv (who had done the race with her dad and finished like 3 hours ago) started running with Emily up the hill away from the water. And it wasn't a LARGE hill, but I was like "Whoa, whoa, ladies, slow your roll here, I'm walkin'."
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So we walked and chatted until it leveled out, at which point we could see the finish line around the corner, and hear the Voice of Swimrun, Mark Finanger, talking us in over the PA. I heard him say he could see us, and we seemed to be moving well, so hopefully we weren't injured or anything. I'M JUST SLOW, PEOPLE. WE'RE FINE, AND HAVING A LOVELY TIME!
We ran the last bit, across the finish line, and celebrated with a warm finish line hug. We did it!
I mean, we were 55 minutes over the time cut-off, at 7:55, but I'm super appreciative that they let us finish, and that they kept the finish line up and open for us. They absolutely didn't have to do that, and it meant the world.
All told my Garmin says we swam 7700 yards and ran 18.8 miles, 3600 feet of total ascent. That's a lot, especially at elevation. We were also 5th female team, but.. there were only 5 female teams. And only 24 teams total who did the World Series distance. It was an intimidating race, especially for a completely unknown first year race. I'm super proud of us.
We took a few pictures, but immediately everyone went to work, with some people working to get Emily warm (the Cook of Swimrun, Lois Finanger, got broth for both of us, and they threw some DryRobes on us, both of which were so appreciated, especially by the very cold Emily), and most people working to break down the finish line and start loading things up.
As we did our last run, it started sprinkling, and right after we finished, it started trying to rain in earnest. We couldn't have planned our finish any closer to the actual arrival of the rain.
So no finish line hang for us. I really, really appreciated everyone who stayed to cheer us in, even though we were so much later than everyone else. Phil and Sarah were still there to give us our medals, Ashley and Kerstin stayed to give us hugs and congratulations, and of course all the volunteers and staff who stuck it out and made us feel loved. I was sad I barely got to see Trista all weekend, but happy I got to give her a hug at the finish line.
As I said in my Instagram post for that day: Everyone loves a rags to riches story. Lesser known is the "podium to DFL" story. Two weeks earlier at Swimrun Cape Cod, Emily was at the top of the mixed podium. And now, even though she was capable of finishing hours earlier, she stuck with me the whole day, never complaining, always being happy and encouraging, and was the very last finisher, not making the official cut-off. I hope it was a nice introduction to the other end of the pack, and I hope she never has to see it again. I threw a lot of 'are you mad at me?' memes at her, especially during the long mountain run, and she assured me she never was. She's an amazing partner and an amazing human, and I'm so glad to have spent almost 8 hours getting to know her better and getting closer to her as a swimrun partner and a forreal friend.
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