As I write this, I’m still recovering from swimming across the Hudson River.
I had done this event in 2023 – a 2.2-mile swim “as the crow flies” (but the crow doesn’t swim… a notoriously smart bird). To start on the Nyack side, 98 of us piled into buses in Sleepy Hollow to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge.
We waded into the water after 8:30 a.m. (which we later learned was poor timing because it coincided with the tide coming in, from the NYC mouth of the river towards the north…). The water is lovely and comfortable, and I’m feeling strong but surprised that it takes a while to get to the first of 8 buoys, because I was not yet aware of that tidal current. All of us are dragging safety buoys, and most of them are orange, so it’s hard to see the second marker that’s also orange and the sun is in my eyes. I can’t seem to keep up and don’t want to follow the crowd anyway, because they don’t seem to be aiming for the buoys.
The journey to Buoy #3 is REALLY taking a while (I later learn it took me over 20 minutes to do some of the 500-yard intervals, but I’m ignoring my watch while swimming, patient and persistent), and when I get to the buoy I have to make a huge effort to get around it and not get snarled in the line, and I don’t think my Garmin has yet to vibrate and register the second 500 yards! I can’t even see the next buoy with all the glare, and a kayaker is in my sight line and I curse and he asks me if I’m okay, and I’m fine, I’m NOT going to rest on the end of a kayak, but I can’t rest at all, the current will drag me off course if I don’t try to keep moving. I never make it all the way south to the 4th or 5th buoy — or even see the 6th or 7th!
The kayakers are great but giving conflicting advice, which is assuring until I realize no one knows where to direct me with this current. One of them says to shoot for shore (I see a long rectangular building that’s reflecting the sun) and another says to swim towards the tower span of the bridge, and a third says to not bother making the buoy because the current is pushing me north (“No shit!” I say and we both laugh.)
The bridge doesn’t seem to be getting any closer, and I ask yet another kayaker whether I’m the last person, and he says no (and there’s no use in looking back for anyone else, I dare not stop), and then the leg cramps start creeping in. At my practice sessions this year, sometimes when I decided to “go fast”, my feet or calves or thighs cramped up so much that I had to jump out and can hardly walk the next day. But now, each time the tension start to creep in, I make myself slow down, relax, just keep swimming, just float, a couple of breast stroke kicks, and the cramps dissipate. And by the end of the swim, I’ve counted eight close encounters with leg cramps (the way I’ve counted runners I pass on a race), and I am NOT resting on a kayak, nor pausing to get a gel out of my safety buoy, that’s a surefire way of losing to the cramps, even though it’s probably been more than the 1:15 hours that my initial nutrition covers.
And suddenly a Zodiac rubber boat pulls up — it’s the marine unit from my town’s volunteer fire department — and they say I have to get in the boat, an unscheduled barge is nearby and that thing is coming close! And I think that I blew it, that I WAS the last swimmer, but they pick up 5 other swimmers and bring us around 250 yards closer to shore and away from the channel, and zoom back out to pick up more swimmers.(Later, the captain tells Alan Golds, that the current was very, very serious.)
And it turns out we’ve been swimming for 2:09 hours already! I eat my gel and jump in, get back into the rhythm and swim the final 100 yards into the finish line, grateful to be DONE.
Turns out that almost EVERYONE had been swept very far north, spread out across the river, and the rescue boats and jet skis had to drag dozens of them south and close enough to finish the course. Once they were swept north, they had to swim directly into the tidal current, while I was attempting to swim into it at a a 90-degree angle…. Ultimately I swam in almost a straight line — and arrived in in 2:16 (a 3:25 min/mile pace – literally twice my normal pace). And biggest surprise: 35/98 OA (and 16 of those did not finish).
Bottom line: I did it, and I beat down the cramps, even though it was a slog. Some very strong, experienced swimmers reported it was the hardest open water event they had done. Everything hurts, nothing is injured. And now I feel like I won the struggle against getting discouraged.
I also swam to raise money for Feed Westchester. The support from some VERY generous friends and family is deeply appreciated (especially from Aunt Betsy in memory of uncle Jim Sampliner, an impressive athlete all his life, whose yartzheit happened to fall in the prior week.) It’s not too late to donate: https://www.thelighthouseswim.org/Race/Donate/NY/SleepyHollow/TheLighthouseSwimsleepyhollow. Thank you!
