Fun-raiser social event was FUN!

Well the fun-raiser was a success and alot of fun too!  If you made it, thanks for coming and I hope you had as much fun as I did.  We missed the people who weren't able to make it!



Fiona & Melanie

Mimi & the Highnote Ramblers

I have numerous people to thank:  Bronte Harbour Yacht Club provided the great location by the water, Fiona Lowden did an amazing job, organizing, selling tickets, setting-up, running and cleaning-up etc (this is why I asked her to be my manager); and Fiona's husband Doug, William Johnson did most of the food preparation (this is why I asked him to marry me, lol), Derek Russell worked the door, Mimi Clayton and the band Highnote Ramblers were awesome entertainment!, Janice & Jay Cantar, Ruth Price (mom), Colleen & Sean Chiki ran the games, Cadence Price-Johnson was a help-where-needed girl, Kristen and Cody for watching Dahlia while we were at the event, and Jackie Mersereau of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper (LOW), the charity I'm raising funds for, was giving out free memberships to Swim Drink Fish Music http://www.swimdrinkfishmusic.com/ (The Swim Drink Fish Music Club brings together artists, activists, and citizens just like you who care about clean water. By celebrating the Club's exclusive and rare music, you are contributing to the fight for swimmable, drinkable, fishable water in your community) and handed out buttons and stickers!

Auction items & door prizes for the June 25th fun-raiser were contributed by:

• Alexis Williams of Transition Health http://www.transitionhealth.ca/Welcome.html Alexis is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Personal Trainer from Burlington, Ontario.  Her combination of nutrition expertise and solid understanding of fitness and exercise science, position her to provide unique guidance on sports nutrition.  Alexis is an avid triathlete and completed the 2009 Ironman Louisville with Melanie Price.
• Ray Zahab, www.rayzahab.com  former pack a day smoker, ran 7500kms across the Sahara Desert in 111 days (an average of 70kms a day, without a single day of rest).  The documentary film 'Running The Sahara' - produced by Matt Damon, was filmed in an effort raise awareness for the drinking water crisis in Northern Africa. After witnessing and experiencing the water crisis in northern Africa, Ray decided to leverage his future adventures to raising awareness and funding for causes that he supports and believes in. "Running The Sahara would begin a journey of discovery- of learning that some of the largest barriers to success are the ones we put upon ourselves. Breaking these down, we can truly achieve extraordinary things."  Ray founded impossible2Possible (i2P), www.impossible2possible.com, an organization that aims to inspire to reach beyond their perceived limits, educates youth through adventure learning, inclusion and participation in expeditions.  i2P youth are ambassadors for social and environmental action.

Eye can swim painting

• Artist Catherine Shane http://www.catherineshane.com/  After a long career with a telecommunications giant, Catherine Shane pursued her artistic passion and embarked on her “Make Your Walls Laugh” series of imaginative, whimsical and abstract acrylic paintings, utilizing vibrant colours and humour in paintings that tell a story and may encourage a chuckle or two.  Catherine has studied with numerous artist mentors and has also studied the arts at Sheridan College, the Oakville Art Society and the Neilson Park Creative Centre.   Catherine is a member of The Purple Studio Painters.  Catherine is a swim parent, whose son swims with Melanie Price at BMSC.

• Barbecues Galore is a Canadian owned and operated store located at 3100 Harvester Road in Burlington. It specializes in all your barbecue needs, including quality barbecues, barbecue accessories and outdoor living.
• Keora Aveda Salon & Spa is located at 2025 Lakeshore Road in Burlington. It offers hair salon services, spa treatments and products all designed with little impact to our environment. Trained and up to date professionals and products that are 98% natural provide clients with quality and comfortable experiences. They are strong supporters of many local charities.
• Tyler Lord of Hiperformance Personal Training Studios Inc. http://www.tylerlord.com/ Tyler Lord is a professional triathlete, coach and certified personal trainer, who has started HIPerformance Personal Training Studios Inc, specializing in specific training, nutrition and weight loss for all enthusiasts from beginner to advanced.  Tyler has done some swim training with Melanie in the past.
• www.autoshare.com  AutoShare members get convenient, self-serve, access to the greenest fleet of vehicles at over 100 locations across Toronto at great rates.  It is estimated that every member of a car sharing organization reduces their carbon footprint by as much as 1.2 tonnes of CO2 per year.  Moreover, each AutoShare vehicle eliminates as many as 10 privately owned cars on Toronto's roads.
• HSBC, RBC and TD Canada Trust.  RBC has a Blue Water Project to help protect the world's most precious natural resource: fresh water, by providing grants to not-for-profit organizations that protect watersheds and provide or ensure access to clean drinking water (among other things). Melanie found out about Lake Ontario Waterkeeper through RBC's Blue Water Project.
• The following individuals also contributed items personally or helped find contributors:  Fiona Lowden, Dave Bilton, Melanie Price and William Johnson, Lorna and Ross Johnson, Geoff Farrow, Jennifer Fisher, Tyler Shane, Tony DeLuca, Gene Pettinelli, Rob Kent, Andrew Ullock, and a few who want to remain anonymous.

By the way the "runners" outlasted the "swimmers" this night



a few got hammered





Many people helped make the night a success and a great time.  Thank you!!!

Now back to training! 

xoxo

P.S. I think this should link to a slideshow of more pictures from the event, check it out! slideshow

1st official marathon swim completed

People ask what I think about during a long swim ... and sometimes it is hard to answer, because really it is just about anything and everything going on in my head and I like it, it's a chance to debrief my day, be peaceful or vent (quietly), to be thankful, to enjoy nature and physical activity, to think about all the things I need to do and also to let go of all the things I need to do for a little while...

This weekend, swimming 20k in a little under 7.5 hours wasn't much different (& yes I thought about what I could write in my blog too)...

This was the US masters swimming long distance open water 25k championships in Indiana.  I decided a while back that I wanted to do this event for training and experience for my Lake Ontario crossing, and I'm now quite happy I did it and glad I got in to it too because it sold out during the early bird registration at 70 people, can you believe it!  Even when they sent out a psych sheet and I realized most of these people are way faster then me, I was still excited that there were so many, because that's what it is all about, people enjoying water, nature and physical activity... okay 25k swimming is a little extreme,,, and it is nice to know there are so many other crazies out there who want a mental (multi-meaning) challenge too!



sunny and hot on the boat tour

So we flew to Indiana the day before the event, did the registration, did a boat tour of the course: it is a 5k course repeat 5 times, the boat tour of the 5k loop seemed to take a long time...yeah I had some questions pop in my head: "really Mel, this is your idea of a fun getaway weekend with your husband?"... Bill came along too to be my kayaker and since we flew, we rented a kayak.  By the time we went to get assigned a kayak that evening all the kayaks there were already assigned, but they had more coming on race morning.  I was slightly flustered by this, because I wanted it dealt with ahead of time, but oh well, adjusting is part of the game... and little did I know the morning would give me plenty of time to get it figured out...

Pasta dinner, race meeting and off to to the hotel to get my swim nutrition organized and early to bed.  

5am wake-up call, a little breakfast and we head off... We can tell it had rained and shortly after we started driving, the sky lit up with lightning!  And it started to pour! 

waiting for the start



our covered spot on the beach



At the race site we learn the race start would be delayed by 2 hours and at 1st we were told it would be a 20k race with a 8 hour time limited (instead of the original 10 hours for the 25k), but later we were told swimmers could do 25k if they could in the 8 hours, but that a 20k would also count as an official finish.    Almost everyone packed into the clubhouse, but they had this open air tent on the beach and Bill and I laid out a towel and rested, it was actually kind of nice, even though my nerves were making me just want to get it started. 



Finally we are off...



Finally the race got started and even the rain had stopped.  All 70 of us started together and we paired up with our kayakers around the 2nd buoy.  Bill found me easily enough and we got our rhythm.  We got some great practice feeding and guiding with the kayak.  (with the cold spring -> late open water season start for us at home, this was our real 1st practice with some of the logistics and all went well)





A little before I finished the 2nd lap, the leaders past me, neck in neck and apparently it was a race right down to the wire.  It was pretty amazing how fast they looked to be going, I joked to Bill that it was too fast for me to even catch a second of draft from them, they were there and then they were gone.
As I past 12.5k and started swimming further than I had ever swam before continuously, I did think about the things that started to hurt a bit, my back, my neck, my arms, the chaffing, even my abs were feeling it (I let myself think that was good because it meant I was rolling and thought Dave might even be proud) and my throat.  I had a cold and cough going into the event and at some point my throat started to hurt a fair bit to swallow; but I was able to push the negative thoughts away and focus on the positives, this was further then I had ever gone, this was a beautiful body of water (with beautiful houses around it) and I thought about how much I love water and all the great friends and experiences I have had; I thought how this was more time than Bill and I had spent together in awhile, we splashed each other, he squirted the waterbottle fluids into my mouth so I didn't even have to reach for the bottle; I ate a banana while swimming on my back which amused me; I thought about how cool it was to be doing this and about what was next: Lake Ontario...

By the end of the 2nd lap the wind seemed to pick up a bit, and the 3rd lap seemed the waviest to me, with the 2nd 1/2 of the 3rd lap feeling like it was against a strong current, but I actually liked this lap the best, I concentrated on my stroke and was working slightly harder (not quite as easy as prior laps) and it made me feel even better.

And then the 4th and what would be my final lap, I knew I wouldn't get to the 5th in time.  It was sort of a mixed feeling, disappointment at not doing what I really came to do but at the same time it was sort of nice too, knowing you are getting close to finishing is always nice; it wasn't quiting early, it was just the way open water works, a storm gave me less time, and it still was my 1st official marathon swim!  

I got it done, 20k!, I hugged and kissed Bill.  I asked if I could tip him in the kayak, but he declined, the bum!

Now though was the real test.  I was slightly worried because after Ironman I passed out and I thought maybe it would be worse also dealing with getting land legs back, but I was fine.  

And after some drinks and food even my throat started to feel a bit better.
And relaxing in bed til like 10am the next morning which I never do was icing on the cake.

Thanks Billy for your help out there and family back home who helped with the kids while we were away.  And thanks to many others who inspire and support me!



just a little wrinkled at over 7 hours in the water



Unofficial time 7 hours and 21 minutes

  







Colleen Chiki Burlington Masters Athlete of the Year

I attended the Burlington Sports Alliance dinner last night which honoured, for one, my friend Colleen Chiki as Masters Athlete of the Year!!  Congratulation Colleen!  I don't know if she heard me yell "Chiki, Chiki, Chiki" while she was on stage... but that's my little call for her (thanks to Sean for giving her a cool last name) when she is on the blocks about to swim too.

Colleen and I swim together at Burlington Masters Swim Club (BMSC) and she is a super hard worker; she is always in the top lane pushing the boys (and often kicking their butts).  Colleens is like a good wine and keeps getting better with age (Her times at Nationals this year were Masters Personal Bests!).  Some of her accomplishments while with BMSC include:

Colleen and BMSC
coach Dave Judd

• In 2011, she broke the Ontario Age Group Record in 200y Fly (the previous record was set in 1992 when Chiki was 19)
• She already holds the 100y Fly record
• At 2011 Provincial Championships she swam to 3 gold medals and 3 silver medals. This involved competing in both the 800m Freestyle and 200m Fly events (2 of the toughest events) on the final day of the competition.
• In 2010, Colleen was also a member of a World Record setting relay team 4x100m long course (LC) Free.
• She has also been a part of National Record setting relay teams in the 4x200m relays in both short course and long course.
• Her 2010 National Results of 5 gold medals, 1 silver medal, and 1 bronze medal were key to BMSC earning the Small Team Championship pennant.



Colleen and some BMSC team-mates



Not only is she an excellent swimmer:  Out of the water, Colleen likes to organize fun "cross-training" days.  She finds great adventures for us that has us hanging upside down, swinging on trapeze and walking in treetops, also earning us bruises of honour...

The cool thing about swimming with Colleen now for me is that I also swam with Colleen in university.  In fact we were room-mates.  She managed to get me to more university practices then I'm sure I would have without her.  And we still managed to have a riot (although we also had a very messy place -> we are a little better now)  Just on the weekend, with my daughter Cadence, we were looking at her name on the Brock athlete wall of fame, as Colleen earned a spot there by winning the Athlete Directors award her last year of university after qualifying for CIAU's in her highest number of events that year!  She was an Ontario finalist ever year in university and won the Joe Kerkohven award (swimmer of year) twice.

Colleen and I share a common joy of swimming but we share a great friendship and lots of fun memories and more to come!

I love cheering "Chiki Chiki Chiki"  Keep up the awesome work (and keep those boys in lane 4 in line!)

xoxo Melanie Price

multi-water story weekend

It was a great wet weekend: my daughter Cadence was swimming at the Regional Championships; we had a Hamilton Aquatic Club (HAC) novice vs vice-coach event; it was the 2nd LOST swim (my 3rd Lake Ontario swim) this year; and Christine and I did a 5k night swim in the canal...

Regional Long Course (LC) Championship

Cadence had an outstanding race weekend.  Gold in 100, 200 and 800 free and Silver in 50 free.  She took  chunks of time off all these and the IM races as well. 
I mentioned in a previous post how impressive it is when she holds a strong steady pace and then really turns it on and comes from behind for the win, but this weekend in the 100 free in particular, she impressed me in a slightly different way...by really going for a race from the get go, no holding back.  Going in ranked 4th, she took a commanding lead basically right from the start and held off the competition with the win in 1:08.27LC by over a second.  Super great race to watch!  Super proud mom, not so much about the wins or the time (although they are impressive), but by her pushing herself, her perseverance and strength!

HAC Novice vs vice-coach
This year I began as a coach in training for the Novice kids with HAC, it has been a very fun experience.  The kids are so great and cute and I love seeing them progress and enjoy swimming!  I have been working with Lisa Hodge, the head novice coach, and one of the kids Mikey coined me as "vice-coach" which I love and it has sort of stuck.

This weekend we had a little event where they swam in a continuous relay "against" me, while I just swam continuously.  It was so funny when Henry said "we never ever ever ever...ever stop!"  Well we did after about 35 minutes...  I could hear the kids cheering, and I will hold that in my memorybank as something to call up to help me when I hit a hard patch during my Lake Ontario crossing. 

It is great having the kids be interested in my crossing and super nice of HAC to make a "Good Luck Vice-coach" banner which all the kids signed.

I look forward to coaching next year!
See the event write-up in HAC's newsletter: http://www.hamiltonaquaticclub.ca/June2011-3.pdf
Some cute pictures of some of the kids I got while they were warming up and more available here

 

2nd LOST swim & my 3rd Lake O swim this year 

I will link this story to Rob's blog on the LOST website: http://lostswimming.com/?p=2356.  This was actually my 3rd swim in Lake Ontario this year as we went on Thursday evening in Hamilton when I was in for about 40 minutes.  Followed by a few good minutes of shivering while Dahlia played at the splash-pad area.

5k night swim in Welland canal

Christine is also swimming across Lake Ontario this summer and was nice enough to offer us to stay over-night at her place in St. Catherines, Saturday (with Cadence's meet at Brock it was very convenient for us) and go for a night swim with her in Welland canal.  This was a pretty cool, freaky experience.  We had glow sticks on our arms, which were so fun as you swam through the darkness.  The boys were in kayaks all lit up by glow sticks.  (Bill had bought a head-lamp too but a little malfunction of not having a screwdriver to open up the battery compartment rendered it useless for this night anyways) but we had a big strong flashlight and when he put it on in the kayak it made the kayak glow.  So cool!

This was the longest (at about 1 hour 40/45 minutes) I had been in coldish water this year and I realized although things have been going well with me getting in cold water so far that I need to start increasing the length of time I stay in it and push through the point when the cold just really completely sets into the body.

I also discovered I need to work my mind a bit more around the fact that out in the lake there will be no cues to how far I have gone or how far I have to go...  Remember when you were a kid in the back seat on a road trip "Are we there yet?"...Out in the darkness I felt a bit this way and it will be even more so out in the middle of the Lake.  All the racing I have done so far has mile markers or I have a lap counter or an odometer, even swimming LOST, it is along the shore and you recognize land markers... It will be different and I'm glad I am aware of this ahead.

A great fun experience thanks to Christine!!!

All in all a really great weekend full of wet adventures...

The water is finally open

yeah! We have managed to have some nice weather, which means we can finally get swimming outside! 
We (14 LOSTies) jumped in Lake Ontario last weekend, it was brrr cold!  Rob's thermometer read 44F/6C and Steve's read 40F/4C (I sort of wonder if Rob got a trick one)  Although not in for very long, I was happy with my bodies ability to return to comfort after getting out.  Apparently the Lake has warmed up already since (per Rob,,,hmmm) 

I also managed a couple swims up at Gullivers.  The one on Sunday was very fun.  The family all went, with the new kayak and dingy too.  I did a couple laps while the rest of the family had a picnic and got the dingy blown up.  Then they pulled up beside me, Bill kayaking, towing the girls in the dingy.  It was a little distracting, as they were talking to me, and with my cap over my ears I had to stop to hear, but it was a good distraction.  I did some swimming where each stroke I was high 5ing Dahlia.  Cadence also tried the kayak (with Dahlia tucked in front of her) and they seemed to enjoy it!  My only regret was forgetting the camera, it would have been a great shot from my perspective in the water looking up at them.  It was truly beautiful.
On the funny side, there is this spray fountain in the lake and Bill towed the kids towards it to get them a little sprayed on, but the dingy got stuck at the spout and they got drenched and the dingy almost filled with water!  (I heard the screams and saw them stuck there, but eventually Bill managed to get them moved off)

It is way later in the year then I thought to be starting open water swimming, but I sure am happy to finally be there.  It really is so enjoyable and invigorating!