Memphremagog Monsters in Magical Realism

Last I wrote, I was on a work trip, my last one for the season most likely! I left a suitcase with my swim stuff and cold weather gear at home and A picked me up in midtown with everything in the car and we headed up to Vermont. We left around 4pm and hit a lot of traffic, got in around midnight, checked into the hotel, and went to sleep.

The next morning we got ready and headed out to the swim. We checked in, I swam a breaststroke for time and then swam again with A for our fancy hat contest. We had a secret in store. We were swimming in Lake Memphremagog, where there is a Nessie-like mythical creature named Memphre. I asked A to make us some hats shaped like Memphre, and I wanted us to have colored smoke coming out of the hats. I researched a theatrical supply store while I was away and saw that we could have purple and green smoke.

A was a sweetheart and picked up the smoke emitters and made the hats out of foam board. We were kind of nervous because A had a similar smoke bomb explode when he was a kid but it ended up coming off really well!

After the breaststroke we had a 25 free, 50 freestyle, and 100 free. It all felt okay, but not great. I am out of shape.

After swimming we went back to the hotel and hit the hot tub. We had limited time before dinner so we hung out a bit, then got showered. Went out to the dinner/awards ceremony which was really nice.

We won the hat contest and hit the podium a few times including a gold in the breaststroke. A did super well, we ended up bringing home a LOT of homemade jerky and Vermont maple syrup.

Per tradition we hosted the afterparty at our hotel room, it was pretty tame but nice to hang out a bit more. I think everyone was out before midnight, we slept well and then up early the next day.

First event on Sunday was the ice butterfly. This was my condition for coming up to this event and it felt great. Very sadly I have a very fast but non-photogenic fly where I rarely put my head up to breathe, so I have no pretty photos. Then we did the 200 which was boring and terrible. I should have just done the 200 fly - I would have been much happier and probably placed the same.

Then A and I did a relay with our new friend Talbott who loves ice fly as much as me, and our good friend Patti that we met in Antarctica last year. Patti’s a brand new winter swimmer, so she preferred to swim breaststroke and was a little nervous about whether she could do the second lap of the 50, so I was on the other end of the pool ready to jump in in case she just wanted to do the one lap. We decided to make it an IM relay with Talbott doing the ice fly, A freestyle, and me ice backstroke because I had never done backstroke in the ice before. I was ready but Patti did great and finished the full 50 herself. We had so much fun and even got 3rd place in the relays (woot!)

The awards luncheon was nice and the swim organizers sent me on with me the society flag to bring to the World Championships later that week. The drive home was easier this time, and I got unpacked, cuddled up, and repacked to fly out to Russia the next day.

Last updated April 13, 2016