2005 Trans Tahoe Relay

Shrink to fit.

First off, many thanks to Dan & Diann for once again hosting the swimmers, family, and friends this weekend for the Trans Tahoe Relay swim. Thanks to Pat for all his energy and resources to provide us with a great boat and being a fantastic Team Captain. He exceeded all of our expectations especially considering he was running on minimal sleep from too many red-eye flights to Sydney. Thanks to Dave E., Clara, and Debbie for providing crucial mid-race kayak support. They paddled out from Tahoe City to meet the swimmers about half way across the lake. Thanks to Dan for his exceptional baby- sitting talents corralling Aiden, Caden, and Shannon while we swam. And finally, thanks to my team mates Janine, Diann, Ethan, Pat, and Clancy for another memorable Trans Tahoe.

Our weekend began on Friday afternoon with a fairly grueling drive up to Tahoe through 5.5 hours of traffic hell. Janine and I caravanned with Clancy and her son Caden up to the Boyle Bungalow. Pat and his lovely assistant Clara hauled the boat up about and hour earlier and provided us with road and traffic conditions via mobile phone. Dan, Diann, Aiden, and Shannon preceded Pat only by a bit, but had the house prepped and ready to accommodate the masses when we arrived. Ethan and Debbie, plus Dave E. drove up later in the evening but miraculously made better time than the early departees. We enjoyed a fabulous pasta dinner Friday night prepared by Clara, Pat, Janine, and Diann. We watched a little Le Tour, then crashed in preparation for a long cold swim in the morning.

Saturday morning came way to quick with alarms going off at 5AM. We were down to the boat and on the water by 6:15AM, a new record for our team. Normally, we are speeding across the lake to Sandy Harbor in a frantic effort to get our first swimmer to the start in time for the 7:30AM race start. This year, we could actually motor across the lake at a somewhat leisurely pace, do our bathroom stop, drop Ethan (our first swimmer) at the start, and motor out off-shore to wait for him to start. Now, if you have not done Trans Tahoe before, picture this. There are 150 teams of 6 people each, so there are 150 boats bobbing around about a quarter mile off-shore. 150 swimmers line up on shore, the gun goes off and they start to swim out towards all these boats. A mad scramble ensues to try to locate each team's swimmer. Some boats have balloons, flags, inflatable dolls, or other such devices for the swimmers to spot while some of the swimmers tie inflatable balloons or inflatable pool toys to their butts so their boats can spot them. We actually found Ethan fairly quickly despite his attempt at trying to fool us. We found a swimmer that sure looked like Ethan, but we then realized he had no goggles. We all thought Ethan would not swim without goggles, so we kept looking for him. It was only after Diann did her best Air Force yell to attract his attention that we realized goggle-less man was in fact Ethan.

Now we were off and running. We changed swimmers every 30 minutes, then every 15 minutes after the first rotation, then every 10 minutes. The water was fairly smooth until the end when it started to get choppy and we encountered many boat wakes. Clara, Dave E., and Debbie met us and provided great moral support mid way through the race. Everyone swam superbly despite the cold water (about 58-60 degrees this year). I was given the honor of taking the team to the finish line this year and my lovely wife Janine joined me for the last 300 yards. Our goal this year was to place in the top 100 teams and we did just that. We came in 100 out of 150 teams.

Next year, with a little better navigation and some more training, hey, we may crack the top 90!