After Covid-19 hit, a friend suggested a "long swim" that became another chance to push people toward new goals.

To be honest, I've enjoyed the Covid lack of racing. Early on I made my mind up that racing was likely an impossibility and decided to just "have fun with it". A key to this time for me has been getting more people out and pushing their previous limits while maintaining the joy in the process; along with setting new and bigger goals for when life returns to normal - or doesn't.

This event was created by a new training friend in our area that has also pushed himself to new achievement this year. He has already packed away a number of ultra races so I don't want to make it out like he is new to the endurance world. This "event" was during one of our rides or post swims where dumb ideas are usually formulated in the endurance world. "We should do a long swim" turned into this, his title - not mine, "EPIC swim" and it stuck.

There were more swimmers than in this photo, but this gives you some idea what this turned into from just two of us going for a long swim. We had a number of people that previously never did more than a 2000yd swim complete 3000yd swims to full IM length swims for the first time in open water. We had 2 others complete the full 6.2mi (or whatever their GPS readings said they did in swimming the shore of our local lake); 1 without a wetsuit and never doing more than a mile... in a pool. He said he struggled with a little bit of anxiety during the first few miles, but perservered through the 1/2 day swim. 

We didn't set any records for speed, but we finished and motivated a number of others which has become the name of the game for 2020. Train hard! 

#iaminfinit