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END-WET 2016
Leonard_Jansen
Charter Member
The website says that END-WET will be on 18 June 2016 and that registration will be open shortly.
Fun, fun, fun!
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
Comments
What's the time limit for this sort of event?
They are rather generous. Some people took like 13 hrs??
I think I saw on the info for last year's swim that you have to finish before Dan Projansky (sp?) - he's the guy that does butterfly for the whole thing. I checked the 2015 results and he finished in over 15 hours. Don't know how he can do butterfly for that long! I can barely make it 50m!
When I swam it last in 2014, they started Dan 2 hours before everyone else. I think I caught him like 22 miles into my swim. I don't know if they did anything similar this year. I am not sure if Dan was out of the water last or not, given his headstart.
I agree with Susie, though, they are pretty generous. I think that they want everyone out of the water before dark, and they have moved the start time around based on the amount of daylight and the strength of the current in the river. Both years I swam it, the river was pretty fast. 2014, we swam in flood conditions.
I've started training for it 3 weeks ago. I think I can, I think I can....
Interesting. Maybe something to add to my list once I finish with the time/training suck that is grad school.
From their website: END-WET registration for 2016 opens on 1 December for all categories.
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
Hi folks, race director here. We need to have everyone out of the water before dark according to our agreement with the local emergency response teams. That being said, the race is on pretty much the longest day of the year. @timsroot is correct about starting Dan a little early depending on the flow. Please let me know if you have any questions. It's looking like a great group of solos this year, but we'd like to see more teams.
END-WET is coming up this weekend! Any Forum members swimming?
If anyone is using a SPOT, I'll offer a free TRACK.RS page (first-come, first-served).
Or if you're recording a track through other means, please consider submitting to the Track Database.
I know @pattydh is swimming it again.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I'm swimming! Quite a few of us are, actually. Here's the list:
Larry Long, Jr- Kansas
Anne McLindon- Maryland
John Batchelder- Colorado
Chris Greene- Georgia
Kent Nicholas- Arizona
Landon Ascheman- Minnesota
Patty Hermann- Texas
Melodee Nugent- Wisconsin
Mo Siegel- NY
William Murtha- North Dakota
Greg O'Connor- Massachusetts
Bill Little- North Carolina
Camille Merwin- California
Mark Morash- Kansas
Don Henderson- North Dakota
Valerie Teany- Georgia
Emily Evans- Arizona
Dan Projansky- Illinois
Sandra Bergquist- Minnesota
Peter Hayden- California
Tanya MacLean- California
Juff Utsch- Arizona
Luther Davis- Florida
Mark Ahonen- Indiana
Tara Manzella- NY
Tom Erickson- North Dakota
Scott Jensen- North Dakota
Dan Jacobson- Minnesota
Derek Dutton- Oklahoma
Evmo- I'd use Spot but haven't had the chance to look into it and figure out how to use it.
In pool competition the longest official race is the 1500M/1650Y. Most serious competitive swimmers who do that race might actually warm-up with double that distance if not more. Good Iron distance triathletes probably won't do the entire course before there race but will try to check out the race course before the event. But then there are some ultra distance marathon swimmers with a completely different kind of pre-race strategy. That is to swim the entire course, all 36 miles the day before. Yep, too big containers of Carbo-Pro later. Any guesses on who that might be? In addition to that, rumor has it, two of this years swimmers may go the distance butterfly, one of them might even place in top five going all fly.
I know who is doubling down, but I don't want to be accused of insider trading
@gregoc will be on http://track.rs/2 starting around 0700 Central Time (noon GMT) Saturday.
Race report- END WET 36 miles in the Red River 6/18/16 - DNF at mile 15 - just under 6 hrs
First of all, I have to say that I had the most enjoyable experience I've ever had at a race. Simply being in the company of so many outstanding endurance athletes was very fulfilling. Most of which had accomplished this swim in the past and many of which have completed several of the world's great ocean swims. Listening to their stories and absorbing their unassuming, gentle, strong, confidence was worth the trip in and of itself.
Despite Mike Fecik's efforts, my training level was about 50% of what I had wanted it to be - due to several setbacks both mental and physical. However, I was psychologically ready for the swim and looking forward to it. I wore Lava pants which helped immensely with my poor form and reduced the chill. My pilot, Ivan Pancic was outstanding and kept me in what little current their was and guided me around snags and obstacles. He fed me every 30 minutes. I found it interesting that the first few feeds seemed to be forever apart but the last few hours the time between was a blur. My nutrition was spot on. Liquid was malto, whey, gatoraid, and caffeine. Solid was a date and a bit of crunchy granola bar each feed. Never had GI issues and felt like the engine was well stoked the whole time. At the start I settled in to a position about 5th from the end and kept it without difficulty for the duration. A couple of hours in, my Rt biceps tendon began to complain a bit. At about the 4 hr mark, my shoulder strength began to fade. By the last hour, the only real drive I was getting was from hip drive, the arms were just going through the motions. I equated this to a walk if I was running an ultra. There was an easy pullout access point at mile 15 and no other exit until the finish (one can stop after mile 15 but you have to bushwhack to the highway to get out.) I felt that I had a couple more hours in me but wouldn't be able to make the 8-10 more hrs I needed to finish so I decided that I would have to pull at 15. When I got there, the volunteers were encouraging swimmers to stop r/t the high likelyhood of darkness falling before finishing. I got out with 3 others (all of which had finished this race before and were much more accomplished swimmers than myself) which helped dampen the blow to my pride. The river was far lower than it'd ever been for this race and they had far more DNFs than ever before - which also helped assuage my shame.
At the awards meeting, the speaker, a swim coach for the Navy SEALs, talked about the importance of doing hard things, of setting goals beyond your limits. Not only for oneself, but to set an example for others. I am fascinated with seeing how far I can take myself both mentally and physically and I think this is one reason why I love endurance sport. As important, I love the energy and camaraderie of the endurance community. I thank you, marathon swimmers, for being a part of that community for me.
I learned a lot about my swimming and myself. I will return to this event and I will succeed.
Here are some pictures by Wes Peck:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/endracing/sets/72157669991173565/
OMG.. about 3 photos in, I see this arm and I think.." Mo was there?" It's either really sad or really good when you can identify a person merely by looking at ONE arm out of the water..
I am going to go with "really good". I have no idea what Mo looks like in street clothes but I can identify him from ONE arm.
Anyone know where we can find results!?
"Lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought be down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead..."
Painful, but satisfying swim for my 5th Marathon swim, and 50% longer in duration from my previous longest swim. Finished in about 12:20? Haven't seen the results yet (Spaceman, they will at some point be posted on their website ) Had an ominous start. Supposed to get 30 minute feeds and at the start I kept thinking "boy if this is a half hour, then this is going to be a really long day" I kept waiting for the first feed and finally looked at my watch and saw it had been an hour and a half since the start. (It didn't help that i forgot to eat something before the swim) I said to my kayaker " hey I'm supposed to get feeds every half hour " he said "I've been calling your name" OK, my fault, rookie kayaker, so I said "waive your arms I'll see you" From there on feeds went like clockwork.
Water was slower and warmer than I had expected. Mentally challenging, at some point I thought that the faster I swim the sooner I finish. It was so twisty you couldn't see more than 100 yards ahead at most times. I was very surprised to pass 9 swimmers past the 15 mile mark which helped me mentally beyond measure.
All in all it was a fun swim, got to see old friends and meet knew ones. Now it's off to Tahoe in about 2 weeks!
I'm inconsistently attentive when it comes to feeds. What I have found works for me is to attach my feeds to the kayak somehow (I have a rope/caribeaner/pull buoy system I've jury rigged that can clip to my water bottles), and have the kayaker throw the feed out in front of me, so that I'd have to swim over the rope. That way, even if I don't notice them getting my bottle ready, it's really hard to miss the feed.
@timsroot: That works well in most situations (I do something similar). However, the Red River is so murky, Chris could have hit the bottle and just figured it was a stick or log or dead fish and kept on swimming. :-) My mom crews for me from time to time- she gets great pleasure in actually aiming for my head. Maybe Chris should try that tactic next time?
PS: the results are up, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get them into here.
Results
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/77667438/ENDWET%20Results%202016.pdf
See, I can't get that link to work on my computer, @gregoc! I'm just technologically inept. :-)
Maybe I noticed them getting the bottles ready, but in the two times I've swam END-WET, I never had an issue.
Slightly tangential, the second time I swam it, my wife paddled for me, 2 months pregnant. With the floods that year, though, she didn't have to do much actual paddling, just talking me out of a dark spot and steering me around as much debris as she could.
Tim, what Sara said and unfortunately my kyaker was seldom close enough to me to throw a bottle in front of me; )
Chris,
I noticed when we were near each other that you kayaker was not really guiding you, but paddling ahead and not always straight. It didn't seem to affect your speed though. Good swim.
RD writes that next year they'll have more than one manned point along the river so that those of us in the slow lane might have more of a sporting chance. Thanks Allison.
Thanks Greg, he did not guide me at all, but he had never done this before, I was just glad he got the feeds down after the first hour and a half. In retrospect, I should've counseled him on what he needed to do, I learn something from each swim.