Two Late-summer events attracted TWIM’s Open Water Enthusiasts to come out and get wet! The first of these was the 6th Annual Aly Fell Open Water Swim, held on Saturday, August 24. The second was the popular 2019 Last Gasp of Summer Open Water Swim, held on Saturday, September 14.
Aly Fell 2019
The Aly Fell event is a memorial swim, which was established in honor of a Bellingham Bay Swim Team member who died in a car accident. The event motto is “Swim Felly Fierce”. The annual swim is held at Lake Padden, up near Bellingham. TWIM members Jim Mange and Dan Underbrink showed up to swim, while Brad Jones was there in the critical role of safety kayak support for the event – thank you, Brad.
The Aly Fell features four distance choices, 10K, 5K, 2.5K, and 800 meters, and competitors may race in either a wetsuit or a non-wetsuit division. The course is a rectangular, 1.25K layout. The 2.5K swimmers go twice around, 5K swimmers do four laps, and 10K swimmers take a heroic eight circuits of the course. The 800 meter swimmers do and out-and-back from the start, diagonally across the course to the second turn buoy, and then back to the start.
Jim Mange captured top age group honors in the 10K non-wetsuit division, with an elapsed swim time of 3:24:25.2. Dan Underbrink also captured top age group honors, in the 5K wetsuit division, with a time of 1:43:36.6. For several laps of both races there was a brisk breeze, creating a bit of a headwind while swimmers tackled the leg of the course which ran along the far shore of the lake. There’s nothing quite like swimming straight into 12-18 inch waves to add a little bit of extra fun to the party!
Last Gasp of Summer 2019
Three weeks later, six TWIM athletes assembled for the Last Gasp of Summer Open Water Swim. The event is held each year at Angle Lake, near the SeaTac Airport. The course is a long, skinny rectangle; one mile in length. The events are one- and two-mile races, with a wetsuit and a non-wetsuit division for each distance.
Tammy and Jason Koppelberger and Valerie Thompson all swam in the one -mile wetsuit division, while Dan Underbrink and Karin Williams tackled the two-mile wetsuit race, and Jenny Ferries went for the two-mile non-wetsuit event. Tammy, Jason, and Valerie all took age group honors in their one-mile event, with Tammy also taking the overall prize as the fastest female one-mile swimmer on the lake! Tammy set a course record in the 45-49 Female 1 Mile Wetsuit division with a time of 24:58.0. Way to go, Tammy, and way to go milers! Jenny took top age group honors in her non-wetsuit two-mile race, while Dan and Karin both had great swims in the wetsuit two-mile event. Kudos to the two-milers!
Some years, the Last Gasp of Summer can be more like the first gasp of winter, but this year, the weather held off and the morning breeze died down just prior to race time. After the race there was food, swim awards, and prize drawings. We got just a few drops of rain on the drive homeward. All in all, it was another great day in the lake!
