Angie Swims

It is so great to be back home! And by home, I mean the Columbia River. Right now the Columbia at Broughton Beach is 47°. My first swim back was 48 a solid four to five degree drop from my last swim at Turner Lake. I forgot how much I love the 40s. Somehow it's easier to get going than in the fifties where I just want to stand on the beach and winge about feeling cold. In the 40s, there's no time for that I just have to get right on into the swimming. I love how freeing the cold water is I can have all the worries in the world and ironically they melt away in the icy water. The day before Thanksgiving a group of Yetis and friends gathered at Broughton and shared a lovely swim. It was almost like pre-covid times but not quite. We're still not back to huddling on the beach under blankets and sharing beverages. Sadly I don't know if we'll ever go back to those practices. I will always look back on them with love and fondness and keep...

It's my last day in Salem for my first level 2 fieldwork. It's also my last morning swim at Turner Lake. Appropriately, it is pitch black raining and windy. Both of my thermometers aren't working right now so my best guess is the water is somewhere right around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe a little warmer than 50 maybe a little cooler than 50 not really sure. Lovely swim to end on. 20minutes and some shivers in the parking lot.  It has been a true pleasure getting to swim with new friends and a new place for the last 3 months. Thank you Susan, Sue, and Marlis for coming out and swimming with me in the dark and the rain as it got colder and colder. Much love and gratitude to the Turner Lake Swimmers.

It's Halloween. The last day of October and what felt like the first Yeti swim of the season. It's not so much that the water was very cold (it was a balmy 53° f) but it was windy and bouncy.The water was crisp and the wind chilling but after the first 5 minutes all of it felt like heaven. The water there even when cold feels like a massage. Once my neck is in I feel my whole body relax. I know this is opposite of what most people feel when they get into colder water but for me my body seems to say, "Oh we remember this. This is lovely you're going to feel great." There's something particularly special about Broughton Beach and swimming in the morning. It feels like going home after months away even if it's only been two weeks. There's a level of comfort, satisfaction, and acceptance I feel there that I have felt only kayaking on the Middle White Salmon. It was great great swim great familiar feelings of being cold and my body reacting to ...

Theres a lake out there, I promise. It's 5:45 in the morning and I'm waiting for swim friends to join me in the pouring rain and dark. It's Tuesday of the 4th week of my first level 2 field work rotation as an occupational therapy student in Salem Oregon. I've made swimming here my morning ritual for the last month and missing a swim always makes my day at the hospital a little off. I checked my messages at 5:51 no one is coming.  I guess at this point I spend more time swimming alone in conditions I wouldn't recommend other people swim alone in. It's not that I think I'm a better or safer swimmer than others, it's that my soul feels claustrophobic the rest of the day when I don't get my gills wet in the morning. I'm  away from my tribe and rather than feeling lonely on my swims it feels right. Like the solitude of swimming even in a group of people is something that's hard to explain. You're never truly with anyone else in th...

UPDATE 2/27/2022: I'm planning to repeat this swim in 2022 using Marathon Swimmers Federation guidelines for documentation, so this time it will be official! For more info visit this link to Everything Lower Willamette  and LowerWillametteSwim.com . Currently, planning on July 30, 2022. If you or anyone you know would like to help out, please comment or contact me otherwise. 💖 It's taking some processing and time to sit with the events of last Saturday, 8/21/21. A lot happened, and nothing happened. Let's see. Where to begin? *Most photos are at the end.  Training for the swim was the easy part. I enjoy long swims and logging miles in the morning before class, and digging into the day's tasks.  Crossing under the railroad bridge in Milwaukie. Photo: Amanda Cross  Organizing was a challenge. I decided early on not to have a support boat and instead do the swim with kayak support and someone onshore in a car acting similarly to how a support boat would. I called th...

Howdy! It's been a minute...and about 193,463m (but who's counting??) since I last updated the blog. I guess you could say I've been busy. Since June, I've completed my last semester of didactic coursework for my OTD, swam another personal Portland Bridge Swim, and made 4-mile morning swims a fixture in my week. I've also kinda sorta started training for and then talked myself into a 24.3-mile swim. Oops. It'll be on August 21st and aims to raise some $$ for Human Access Project and Black Swimming Initiative. More about that here: https://sites.google.com/view/angieswims-swim-a-thon2021 I've had the please of swimming with new friends and old over the last two months and logged more miles of smiles than I can count (Okay, that's a lie, I totally count every single one!) I'll fill in the highlights starting with the most recent. Tracy returned to the North West! I drove up to Seattle last Sunday and spent two days with her swimming at Alki. The wa...