It’s been a month since we took on the Long Bridge Swim.
Talk about a special swim with Kamiah. It’s always so meaningful sharing these experiences on the North Idaho waters of my youth with Kamiah and Amanda (my wife). I gave Kamiah the option for the weekend’s plans on a drive home from a Butte lap swim: 1) go to Driggs to cheer on daddy at a mountain bike race, or 2) take on the Long Bridge. Knowing we weren’t going to be able to keep our annual Coeur d ‘Alene Crossing ritual alive this year for the first time since we started doing it, without hesitation, she chose the Long Bridge. I was honestly a bit surprised as she had just wrapped up the Montana Long Course State Meet and I assumed she might want a break after a grueling and emotional (ups and downs) three days of competing in the pool.
It was on the drive to Sandpoint that she made the decision to tackle this open water event a little differently than years past. I can’t keep up with a racing Kamiah, so in years past, she’s swam easy, stretching it out and swimming long, in the wake of her dad.
Though we swam together, we didn’t swim side by side this year. She chose to race this open water event and the girl is fast. Out of 500 swimmers, Kamiah took a top 50 overall, and out of 228 female swimmers, she took 19th. I think it’s safe to say that my Pierre’s Hole deferral (the Driggs mountain bike race) won’t ever get used since it lands on the same weekend as the Long Bridge each summer, as Kamiah is all in on this open water event—after the founder of the Long Bridge told her, “You could win this thing one day.”
If you want to see what it looks like to compete until the final bell, to dig deep and fight until the finish, check out this video of Kamiah crossing the finish line https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COHtfdfhdfQ&t=13m15s. I heard all about it when I finished twelve minutes later and we were rolling watching it when it went live. You’ll see Kamiah swimming in on the left (green cap). A man in a blue cap pops up in front of her and then to her left (right on the screen) a girl with a pink cap pops up and Kamiah thought she could be in her age group (she ended up being 18) and watch Kamiah run her over at the line. It’s hilarious. It was all the talk when I got out of the water. And wait for a few seconds and you’ll see Kamiah pop up smiling in the far right corner and hobbling on her cramping legs. Classic Kamiah with the elbow at the finish.
In the words of her swim coach who I shared this with, “She wasn’t going to swim for almost 50 minutes and let some other girl beat her to the line! What a fighter!”
Fifty minutes going all out in the water is truly an endurance effort. My goal was to see if I could go under sixty minutes like I did in 2019 when I hit my stretch goal (58:42), and this year I came in at 59:32, 28 seconds under my stretch goal for 2021, so we were both feeling good about our effort and results.
The water was choppy and churning, pulsing with life and we’re still riding the high of our effort and execution. When we saw the waves on the dark waters of Lake Pend Oreille, I thought Kamiah would choose to play it safe by swimming with her dad, but she was determined be to be bold and audacious, and she kept that fighting spirit going until she crashed across the finish line.
These are life experiences that are hard to put into words, but I always try, because they’re golden.
Love, dad