Trans Tahoe Relay Recap!

What do you get when you combine six swimming friends, one boat, 60 degree water, and a giant lake? A crazy good time!

Erica, Dori, Shelly, Betty, Beth and I ready for the start!

My Trans Tahoe Relay team was the very appropriately named Dynamo Superstars. Dori, Shelly, Betty, Beth and I all live in Atlanta where we manage to swim a few laps in between long chats on the wall at Dynamo Masters swim workouts. These ladies are not only crazy fast swimmers, they’re also super smart, successful, and all-around awesome people. That’s quite the combo for a single pool lane!

Erica grew up swimming with Shelly and now calls Michigan home. I was a little skeptical about having someone new on our team, but a quick look at Erica’s website put me at ease. I figured anyone who’d swum across the Yangtze River and around Manhattan had to be cool – and she fit in even better than expected!

View from the boat - gorgeous sunrise as we waited for the start

The race started early Saturday morning at Sand Harbor Beach on the Northeast side of the lake. The plan was to have each of us swim one 30 minute leg, followed by a 15 minute leg, until we crossed the finish line 10 miles across the lake at Dollar Point. We quickly learned driving a rented boat in a straight line across a wide open lake is much harder than it looks! As is swimming across a lake with no buoys!

But with such gorgeous scenery, and the most perfect weather ever, a few detours weren’t necessarily a bad thing! Erica got us off to a great start and before long we had a big gap on most of the other boats. I appreciated the lead!

At first I was a bit turned around – I think I forgot how to sight – but I somehow managed to pull my act together and make some forward progress. I didn’t think the water was cold at all – it actually felt really refreshing! And it was so clear, the only things I saw were sunbeams diappearing into the depths.

Once my 30 minutes were up, Shelly took off, and by the time she handed off to Dori, there was no looking back!

The hand off! Shelly tagging Dori

Beth is actually six months pregnant, and don’t tell the race director, but I think having a seventh person on our team may have been a bit of an advantage! And I’ve never seen anyone’s arms move as fast as Betty’s did when she hit the 60 degree water.

Shelly & Dori cheering from the boat while Betty swims in the background!

Before we knew it, the finish line was in sight! Dori crossed the line for us, stopping the clock with a total time of 3 hours and 54 minutes. According to the official results, this landed us 12th overall and 2nd for all-womens’ teams. Not a bad day at the races!

Superstar boat captains Beth & Betty at the finish!

I had the BEST time racing across Lake Tahoe with these ladies. Racing in beautiful places with beautiful people sure makes me appreciate the multisport lifestyle. And I have a feeling we might be back – gunning for the win next time, of course!