Life Is Good!

Swimming World and Junior Swimmer, Nov 2004 by Mullen, P H

The RCP Tiburon Mile is the richest and overall one of the best one-mile open water swims in the world.

TIBURON, Calif.-Nearly 900 of us stand on the freezing sand of Angel Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. The water is flat. The start of the Sixth Annual RCP Tiburon Mile Swim is exactly one minute away.

Next to me, someone yells in surprise, "Hey, Chad Carvin shaved!"

Maybe it's Justin Mortimer who says this. He won four events at this summer's USA Swimming nationals. Maybe it's Scott Goldblatt, who won a relay gold medal in Athens.

Sure enough, there he is: check out those silky-smooth gams. The sneak! He'd been wearing pants until the very last moment!

Check it out: Carvin's shaved; Carvin's tapered; Carvin's gone bug-eyed serious over that $10,000 first prize.

The revelation hits us hard. All the happy pre-race yuk-yukking ends. Most of us had planned to draft off Klete Keller. And why not? Keller won gold (800 meter free relay) and bronze (400 freestyle) in Athens and nearly won a medal in the 200 free, while Carvin, a 2000 Olympian, missed making the 2004 Olympic team by a fingernail. But now we collectively move toward our hairless new leader.

"Thirty seconds!" the starter says.

While the rest of us adjust to Carvin, three-time Olympian Brooke Bennett attempts to turn herself small and inconspicuous. She inches away from the pack.

Nice try, girl. Bennett owns this race. Every top female contender is watching her movements the way a kid tracks a moving ice-cream cone.

My, oh my. Life is good here at the leading edge of the richest and overall one of the best one-mile open water swims in the world.

A red rope separates about 30 of us from the groaning, pressing mass of humanity that's about to charge pell-mell into the freezing San Francisco Bay. Pity those poor Berkeley swimmers who are stuck on the other side of the rope; they're getting jostled and bumped, and you can see them wince as they step on small stones.

Over here in paradise, you have all the room you need. Everyone here is Olympian-mat, world-class-this, champion-whatever.

Everyone except one intrepid Masters swimmer crashing the party: moi.

Getting here was as easy as bathtub backstroke: I was supposed to receive a red bathing cap that designated me as the average adult Masters swimmer that I am. Instead, a volunteer handed me a white cap reserved for Olympians, professional open-water specialists and current Division I collegiate swimmers.

Maybe I should have exchanged it. Yeah, right.

And They're Off

When the gun goes off, the sound echoes magnificently around the inlet, and all my new Olympic pals rush into the water.

All except Carvin, who takes off running down the beach.

I follow him. He's a genius! He's running to the mainland of Tiburon!

Twenty feet closer to the finish than anyone else, my compadre and I leap into the water.

Well, Carvin leaps. I sort of stumble. As he sails over a submerged rock, I kick it full-on. Carvin begins six-beating. I would, too, but I've just broken the fourth toe on my right foot.

I hear my wife talking in my head: "Isn't that a sign? Like maybe you're too old for this?"

But forget the insane toe pain, which I hope ends once the cold numbs it. It's beautiful here, it's gorgeous. It's 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning, with breathtaking cumulous clouds acting as our gilded ceiling and bracing emerald-green water serving as our pews...and Chad Carvin and I are winning the Tiburon Mile!

We share the lead for approximately two seconds. Or however long it takes to complete a full armstroke. Then I am in second place. I am riding a sweet mountain of wake.

Then everyone simultaneously sees Carvin and surges at him. I'm suddenly in fifth place. Then tenth. Then I'm living in a sea of elbows and pale-foot bottoms.

People who are reasonable humans on land are clawing up my back and using my head to re-dive into the water. The water is no longer green; it's frenzied, white froth. The only surprise is that I'm still swimming, still alive.

And then: bliss. The champions are ahead, and I'm the last Canadian goose in the V. Aaah, this is easy.

The next wave hits, and it's the 18-wheel truck convoy known as the Cal Bears varsity men's swimming team.

Oh Good Lord, they're moving fast. They swim super-high in the water-like they're freezing or something. See kids, it pays to maintain an adult layer of insulation.

Next come approximately 25,000 age group swimmers from Mission Viejo, Walnut Creek, Carson, Nev., and everywhere else.

Pre-race, I had actually watched these eager young swimmers in their matching parkas and I had listened to their juvenile concerns about sharks, cold and currents, and I had actually said this aloud:

"It is so great to see young swimmers in this race."

I'm a fool.

I'm getting murdered. I'm getting two-beated to death by 16-year-old girls who are either: a) having the time of their lives; or b) reviewing how the Great White's preferred method of dismemberment is to swim directly up from the dark depths at 20 mph for one massive, chomping coup de grace.