Open Water Swim gives swimmers strokes

[mouakter13]

Juneau’s Open Water Swim Series continues to be a hit among local swimmers looking for a few more strokes outside their normal pool routines.

On Saturday, roughly 15 hearty souls entered the third contest in the six-week race calendar on Auke Lake.

“It is so uniquely Alaskan,” Mitch Schumacher, 37, said. “You see it frozen all winter and then to be like, ‘Oh, it’s 58 degrees.’ Like, that sounds great, and then you get out there. It’s a little disconcerting because it’s pitch black so you really don’t know where you’re going unless you’re looking. A couple times when it’s been really nice and you’re swimming and if you look and you breathe on the right side, you can see the Mendenhall Glacier and there’s just like nothing like that, like, here I am in an Alaskan Lake, I can see a glacier. It’s just truly incredible. And so exhilarating and fun, too, so it’s great.”

This is the third year of the Open Water Swim Series. The phone number list event’s motto echoes the words of renowned open water swimmer Steven Munatones: No lines, no lanes, no limits.

“The key in cold water is staying relaxed,” race founder Scott Griffith, 52, said. “I think a lot of people get out there in a panic. So key is staying relaxed, having smooth sighting and not having to waste too much energy looking where you are going. And having a good pace.”

The race was started by Griffith, Juneau’s Glacier Swim Club coach, to create more interest in open water swimming and keep the GSC masters swimmers in the water.

“We would lose a lot of our masters in the summer because they would come swim on nice days in the lakes,” Griffith said. “So we just said, ‘Why don’t we put together a series of lake swims?’ We did the first year, just kind of trial and error, and everybody loved it and wanted to see it again. So every year we have more people and it kind of leads up perfectly to the Aukeman Tri. So it kind of gives people a race environment to come swim open water and get ready for the Aukeman.”