A 62-year-old returning athlete from Washington State scorched the field Sunday morning to become the oldest entrant ever to outright win the storied 11.8-kilometer monster known as the Skaha Lake Ultra Swim.
But was that the biggest story coming from the day?
Hard to see how it couldn’t be. Maple Valley, Washington's Chris Hall, as energetic a sexagenarian as you'll ever see, smashed his way across the length of the lake, from Skaka Lake Beach in Penticton to Christie Beach in OK Falls, accentuating his performance with a flat-out sprint from the water to the finish line, to win by an impressive four and a half minutes.
Yet there was another story unfolding on the day that deserves equal attention.
You see, as Hall set records, longtime race director Shelie Best was overseeing her final Ultra Swim. And when the day was over, the volunteer organizational group Best leads had turned over the reins to another entity.
That entity is the "Across the Lake Swim Society," a group based in Kelowna that specializes in historic Okanagan Valley endurance swims.
Under the Across the Lake umbrella is the 2.1-kilometer Across the Lake Swim: Kelowna, the 1.5-kilometer and 4.5-kilometer Across the Lake Swim: Kalamalka Lake, the 3.1-kilometer and 7-kilometer Across the Lake Swim: Rattlesnake Island, and more.
And now the Skaha Lake Ultra Swim is under the same umbrella. Going forward, it'll be known as the "Across the Lake Swim: Skaha Lake."
There are other changes too, and a lot that'll stay the same. But more on that in a bit. First, a little more on the 2023 winner, a guy who’s no stranger to top-five performances at Skaha Lake.
In 2018, Hall finished fifth. In 2019, he shaved ten whole minutes from his 2018 time, finishing third overall and first in the men's 50-59 age group at 2:47:34. And this time, on a windy, wavy Sunday, he won it all.
And that fact is not lost on the cheerful 62-year-old.
"Yep, this is my third time," he said afterward. "I first did it in 2018 and missed my age group record by 14 seconds. Then next year I trained harder and wanted that record cuz because cuz it was held by a friend of mine, Scott Lautman (from Burien, Washington), and then I beat his record by nine and a half minutes.
"So I was, like 'Yes!, Scott, you're out of the record book.'"
COVID derailed the event for the next two years and Hall missed 2022 due to commitments elsewhere. But it all came together for him in 2023, when he swam a 2:48:16 to emerge victorious.
"This year I said nothing is going to get in the way," he said. "I don’t care if someone dies. I'm going to be there."
According to Hall, his biggest worry was teenage females. And for good reason. In 2022, it was 17-year-old Quinnlan Bymoen of Calgary with the victory and a time of 2:37:14.
Before that, it was a period of dominance by the amazing Chantal Jeffrey of Victoria. She won it in 2017 at the age of 16 with a time of 2:35:03. She finished second the next year. And she took the title again in 2019 with a scorching 2:31:08.
"I was looking at the entrants this morning," said Hall. "And then I remembered that when I did it four years ago a 17-year-old girl won at 2:31. And that's amazing. So I was looking around wondering what high school girls are going to win the thing today."
As it turns out, there was Shelby Lehmann of Cranbrook. Lehmann completed the 2022 Ironman Canada with a sub-12 hour clocking and looked ready for a fast time Sunday.
Her final time was 2:57:40, approximately ten minutes behind Hall and sandwiched between two 50-plus Penticton athletes, Chris Garwah in second place at 2:52:51 and Ironman/Ultra520K star Dave Matheson in fourth at 2:58:47.
Hall's wife Andrea, who paddled alongside him from beginning to end (each competitor must be accompanied by a kayak), believes this year's performance was even grander than it looks on paper.
"This time he swam longer," she smiled, "because I got off course. He did 7.73 miles (12.44 kilometers)."
And Hall wants to come back. He calls the event "great" and the water "perfect," and says the organization is top notch.
"And I just talked to Peter (Rudd, the Across the Lake Swim Society executive director) and he says he’ll take it over and get it to grow and I'd love to help him do that wherever I can.
"But my long term vision is to be here when I'm 70 and see if I can maybe get that record (70-79) too."
As for Shelie Best, Sunday was bittersweet. The 2023 event unfolded without serious incident and the temperature was far more bearable than it is now, but the number of finishers was down rather substantially (47 versus 77 in 2022) and it was, after all, her last day at the helm.
"It's been a great time," she said wistfully as other respected veterans in the endurance race community -- people like Steve King, Steve Brown, Chad Bentley, Bill Fulton and Best's hubby Gary Scatchard -- disassembled gear and said their goodbyes one more time.
"It's like family here. The crew has just been amazing. But it's just time to leave.
"We're getting older. It’s time for the younger folks to take over, and we'll support it in the background."
Best, a career lifeguard and former endurance athlete herself, got involved in the Ultra Swim in 2017.
"The event's been going on since the 80s," she said. "In the early 80s, it used to go from OK Falls to Penticton, for the first 15 years.
"Then the race director took a bit of a reprieve. Then the race was brought back again in 2016. Steve Brown was in charge that year, then from 2017 on it's been me."
"We just didn’t want to see the event die, so Steve King, Chad Bentley, Matt Hill and I formed a society and kept it going."
Best says she's happy with the new organizers.
"Peter and his society is taking it over, and we told him we'd support him in his first year. I think it'll be great. They'll do well. Across the Lake Kelowna has 800 swimmers."
Across the Lake Swim Society boss Peter Rudd is thrilled to have the Skaha Lake Ultra Swim in his organization's stable.
"It complements our existing historic swims," he said. "We have Kelowna, which goes back 75 years, and Rattlesnake Island goes back 30. The Ultra Swim has been around since '85. So it's a great addition."
"And it'll be the sixth swim in our portfolio. Now we have swims up and down the Okanagan Valley."
Rudd says to expect other modifications beyond the name change.
"It will look different as it'll be under the Across the Lake Swim brand," he said. "And we'll expand the event to include other distances, so not only the 11.8 long distance, we’ll add shorter distances as well. Maybe a 2k or a 4k."
But if he has his way, some things won’t change.
"We're hoping a lot of the volunteers will come back and join our family," he said. "And we'd love to have Steve King continue to announce. That's very important to us. It's very important that traditions like that are upheld.
"I did Ironman in 2009, and he's the guy who said 'Peter Rudd, you are now an Ironman," and that's stuck with me ever since."
It will remain part of the Peach Festival too, and it will continue to start at Skaha Lake Beach in Penticton.
Something Rudd hopes will change is the attendance trend. Eighty-two entrants finished in 2017, 80 in 2019, 79 in 2019, 77 in 2022 and just 47 this year.
"First year we'll probably cap it at 100, but our intention is to grow the event," he said.
Certainly Rudd and his crew are no stranger to reinvigorating swims. His involvement with endurance swim organization began in 2008 when the Kelowna event had reached rock bottom.
"Back in 2008, the Across the Lake Swim had almost ceased to exist," he said. "So my partner at the time and I jumped in and took it over.
"That was 2009. I started the society then, and slowly over the years I've added other swims, the first being the Peachland swim, then West Kelowna and so on."
These days, Rudd says his group is well-oiled machine.
"We don’t have issues getting volunteers anywhere because who doesn't want to spend the morning at the beach," he said. "And we have all our own equipment -- our own sound system, generators, flags, banners, trailers and more. We're fully equipped."
To read more on the Skaha Lake Ultra Swim and see all recent results, go here. To read more on the Across the Lake Swim program, go here.
