Angie Swims

Standing on the beach at Broughton at 6:15 sun is already well above the horizon and the Delta jets overhead are flying north west, probably to Seattle. Yesterday was the first hot day of the season, it reached 85 here in the afternoon. the beach is evidenced to the late afternoon and evening revelers. Like every year, I simultaneously look forward to and dread warmer water and warmer weather. The return of warmer conditions means more dumped/left trash on the beach, clogged toilets at the boat ramp, and likely higher bacterial counts in the water. This morning while picking up trash I found Santa Barbara on the beach among an odd sacrament of shot glasses and discarded clothing. (Turns out she is the patron saint of armourers, mathematicians, and the Italian Navy, I'd like to think there were a bunch of hot Italians on the beach last night, but unlikely. She was gracious enough to hang out overnight and bless our swim this morning.)  At this point I do not have any lon...

It's taking me a long time to start writing, or even think about writing this post. I didn't post all summer while I was training for Catalina Channel, but hopefully this will make up for it. I'm sitting in my car after a brief swim at Broughton Beach following a mediocre to typical day working as an occupational therapist in home health. As I was swimming into shore just now I realized the things that used to frighten me about open water are now the things that excite me. The weeds at Broughton have grown from a few interspersed plants to a virtual forest of underwater plants. The weeds used to terrify me I joked that they were Ursula's garden because the joking made them less intimidating. I would scream and kick and swim as fast as I could to get away from them or through them. Now, I flip over on my back hold my buoy and lazily kick through them sometimes I even giggle because they tickle a little bit when you go through slowly and they don...

The start of 2024 marks the start of training, and planning, for Catalina Channel- both of which are epic feats in themselves and happen before I hit the water in Doctor's Cove. In talking to folks over the years people are always wowed by the swimming part, but really it's the planning and the crew that are most impressive. So, on my journey to Doctor's Cove, I'm going to bring the whole Internet along for the ride, well maybe not the WHOLE INTERNET just the handful of folks that read my blog. To start things out, this is my spreadsheet: Catalina Training  Yeah, it's a training plan/tracker and you can follow along with what I actually do to get ready for the swim. I'm working on a Spotify playlist too, if you have recommendations for pump-up songs- put them in the comments! This past November I attended Swim Camp Catalina for my birthday and got to know the water there a little bit. I swam with bioluminescence for the first time, a truly mesmerizing experien...

Mid channel to Alcatraz  Round Trip Angel Island (RTAI) A month ago now I was walking out of the water (at about the time I'm starting this post) after swimming 7 hours 50 minutes and 9 seconds in the San Francisco Bay. The course was the famous  Round Trip Angel Island , one of the  Toughest Thirteen  according to MSF. Leading up to this swim I was a nervous wreck. This past summer was especially tough. After a successful, but painful,  Portland Bridge Swim  I had to cancel my planned  Three Islands Waldo Lake  route to focus on stroke work with  Intrepid Water  (more later in this post on my work with Shannon at Intrepid Water) and shoulder recovery. I felt undertrained and like I was still mending when my feet hit the water in Aquatic Park at 3AM on September 23. For all those feelings of trepidation, I made it through- in large part to my crew: Sue Phillips, Wendy "Pepper", Vicky Miller, and Sumner Williams; piloted by Tom "Reptile" ...

Well, here we are again. It's the start of another summer swim season the Columbia River hit 50° this morning, so I suppose Cold water swimming is now over. As if a good testament to this statement, I swam for half an hour wanted to stay in but realized I had to get out to go to work. I'm sitting in my car rewarming and it occurs to me that when I started this Open water Swim journey almost 8 years ago I never would have thought that a half hour swim at 50°F would feel easy. but, here I am wishing I'd gotten up just a little bit earlier so I can spend more time in the water this morning. It's supposed to be my rest week. see how good that is turning out? I'm already plotting another swim on Friday morning and getting here even earlier. It's just so lovely when the day is new and fresh and I haven't logged on to my work computer yet to see how many patients I have for the day. it's a neat feeling. This morning we saw a first at the beach, a go...

Today was a special/exciting/anxious/marvelous day. It started at 5:30 in the morning when Tater Tot woke me up for breakfast. I had hoped to sleep I'm until 6 on my national board certification exam day, but no luck. Instead I had an early cup of coffee and watched the last of the rain before leaving for the testing center. It was an uneventful drive and an uneventful test. Hard, yes, but doing hard things is something I do voluntarily on a regular basis. Was it harder than an ice swim or a marathon swim, absolutely! Did I walk out with confidence, maybe a little bit. We'll see in a week of I passed, but overall I feel about as good about it as I did any of my practice tests.  After the exam I grabbed a cup of coffee (okay, an almond milk latte - I felt like I deserved a treat!) and headed to Sellwood to meet up with some Yetis and Cold Huggers for a post boards swim. As expected, it was fantastic and revitalizing. Walking out of the exam I felt exhausted,but after...

Fall swimming is in the air in Portland, but not in the Gorge!  The past two weekends I've made the short trek out to Hood River to swim 5 miles from Mosher to the Best Western in Hood River. It is such a gorgeous swim and the water remains a balmy 68 Fahrenheit while the rivers in Portland continue to cool down to the mid to low 60s.  On both weekends there was a moderate current assist, but the locals insisted "there's not any current right now."  Well, I know my 500 m splits and sub-7 minutes is not  my usual pace in open water. Regardless, the water and scenery are lovely and the company wasn't bad either 😉. The first weekend was a bit rough for me, I hadn't been sleeping well and was feeling burned out from studying. The swim was fine  the scenery was beautiful, but I was tired before I got in and so it was less enjoyable than a swim in the Gorge usually is. BUT! Week 2, wow. It was GREAT. I was better rested, Sue from Corvallis joined us, Brianna came, ...