The Skaha Lake Ultra Swim is the great equalizer. Hometown, age, gender - none of it really seems to matter once you take a look at the results sheet. And that's just one of the reasons it's such a cool event.
Yesterday on the north shore of Skaha Lake, the sold right out 2019 edition of the Ultra Swim began when 80 endurance athletes tentatively waded into the water at 7 a.m. Alongside each swimmer was an "escort" - usually a kayaker but sometimes a canoeist - who'd accompany them on their journey, supplying them with nutrition and watching over them in case of emergency.
And what a journey it is. The finish line lay 11.8 kilometers away, at Christie Beach in Okanagan Falls. None of the swimmers would touch land before then.
It was not a pretty early morning. Cloudy, unseasonably cool, and prone to the odd shower, it wasn't the summery type of dawn the tourism brochures advertise. Nor was it particularly pleasant for those in the escort boats.
None of the above would matter to the swimmers of course. But the condition of the lake's surface would. It was quite choppy during the early going.
Some two hours later, legendary race announcer Steve King, stationed with numerous other veteran volunteers at the Christie Beach finish line, put a pair of binoculars to his eyes once more and this time was able to spot the escort boat of the lead swimmer. Granted, they still had a long way to go, but just the sighting set off a wave of excitement.
The weather had changed now. It was appreciably brighter and warmer, and, especially near the traditionally calmer Skaha southern shore, far more enjoyable for both the swimmers and their escorts.
A half hour later, Victoria's Chantel Jeffrey emerged from the lake, crossed the official finish line at the water's edge, and proved without a doubt that she's the event's current dominant force.
Her time of 2:31:08 was almost three minutes better than her second-place 2018 effort. And that time was a minute and change faster than her 2017 winning result. Two victories and one second place in the past three years. And she keeps getting quicker.
"Gender doesn't really matter in this I think," she said moments later. "Most of the time it's pretty equal between the sexes. Women can win just as easily as men can."
Jeffrey says she just returned from the Pan-Am Games and the World Championships, where she swam long-distance events for Canada. And to think she's just 18 years old and didn't even begin open water swimming until three years ago.
"I wanted to try it for fun at a provincial meet, and I decided I really liked it, and now I just train for this type of stuff all the time."
Jeffrey admitted that her swim wasn't without a few nagging doubts. "About halfway I start to crack a bit. I couldn't see the finish and it's, 'Oh man, it's so long.' You've just got to keep pushing through."
But with her mom doing duty in her escort boat for the third straight year and Jeffrey clearly getting faster each time out, this was her day. She won by nine minutes over her closest rival, Alberta's Michael Adams, racing in the Men's 30-39 age group.
She says her goal next year is to "go under 2:30."
Another notable was Maple Valley, Washington's Chris Hall, who shaved ten whole minutes off his 2018 time, finished third overall at 2:47:34, finished first overall in the men's 50-59 age group, and was one of only three racers on the day to go under the three-hour mark. And he blew away his age group record in the process.
And this was only his second year swimming this sort of distance.
"I did the race last year too. I was recruited by one of our team members. He said I should do this race, that it was up in Canada and really fun. I'd never done a distance like that. It was a bit of a stretch, but I figured why not. I'm a swimmer. I could probably do it."
Hall missed his age group record last year by a mere 14 seconds. So he vowed to come back. "I thought this year I could probably go a little faster if I trained a little harder. And I got the record."
As we spoke, the former 50-59 record holder was still swimming. And that wasn't lost on Hall. "I want to see him when he gets in and give him the good news," he joked.
Like many, Hall came to the Okanagan primarily for the event. Check the 2019 competitor sheet and you'll see swimmers from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and several states beyond Washington too.
Indeed, just four Okanagan athletes would crack the top twenty. The fastest of those was perennial endurance sport favourite, Penticton's own Dave Matheson at 3:08:27. His time was good for fifth overall and first in the men's 40-49 age group.
