The Greatest Relay

This past weekend I participated in The Great Relay held at Lyndon's alma mater, Columbia. It was a fundraiser my swim team and a few other teams in the city teamed up with Trident Swim Foundation. A couple of my teammates created Trident Swim foundation a few years ago to help organize and run swim lessons, competitive swim teams, and academic programs in the inner cities in NYC, And the good news continues, they are about to get the okay to start one in L.A! It is now going to be a bi-costal organization. Trident helps kids through swimming with academic success. They provide help with college applications, SAT prep, and a safe place for them to be. So kind of an awesome organization. They currently have programs in Washington Heights in Manhattan and one in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn.
To help this great organization as well as my beloved swim team, Red Tide, the Great Relay was created. The Great Relay is the longest relay in the country. It is a total of 5000m (200 laps) that is divided up among the relay team members. Each relay team was made up of 8-20 swimmers. Each swimmer swam a 50 (two laps of the pool) at a time until the roster ran out and then we would start from the top again. It turned out that each team had eight swimmer so each swimmer swam 12 or 13 50's. I was one of the lucky few who got to swim 13 50's. I was having such a great time I was kind of sad it was over, and we were the last team in the pool, haha. Yeah, I could have kept swimming for another hour. It is probably good when it ended because my lips were the same color as my swim suit, purple! The Columbia pool water and deck is cold.

This was not a "real" competition, but it was the first time I have "competed since high school, so it's been a long while. Now it has me jazzed about competing again. It was a great way for me to dip my toe in the pool of the competitive swimming world. Let me tell you I have a long way to go to get back to be a serious competitor. I really want to put more time and energy into swimming, but at this point in my life I have to save some energy to take care of my two wiley kiddos. There is a time and place for everything. I am just grateful I found a team that I can work out with and keep up my swimming with. It really is the greatest sport.

Warmed up and ready to swim.
One of my adorable cheerleaders. I think I had the biggest cheering squad there.
Coach Jeremy getting us pumped to swim!

Let the relay begin!

Cheering on my team mate ready for my first 50.
Swimming in lane two.


My other sweet cheerleader. Lyndon told me that she cheered for me everytime I stepped up on the block. I wish that I could have heard them. I did look for them and waved every time. I am glad she got to see me participate in swimming because swimming is an important part of my life, not a big part but a very important part. This sport gives me so much and helps me be a better mother, wife, basically overall person. I hope that both my children and develop their talents and find hobbies that help them be the best they can be. 
It was really fun to use my relay dive again. It is different from your regular start. I have not used it for years. Glad to brush up on my skills.
This was my favorite part of the race. I jokingly challenged one of my friends in the lane next to me to race and he surprised me by accepting my challenge. The swimmer in his lane finished before the simmer in my lane and he waited for my swimmer to come in and we went at the same time. He beat me pretty good, but I guess I was in the water first so one of our coaches said I won because of that.  But the reality is beat me pretty good.

My relay team's name was Red Wine. We were told that it needed to go along with our team name, Red Tide. We put our team together kind of last minute, but were still able to raise $2,110. I had a goal of raising $200 and I made it! A HUGE thank you to all of you who donated. I really appreciate all the support from friends and family for this event. I am very thankful to know that I have people who are supporting me in my life. The Great Relay event had the goal to raise $30,000 and we raised a total of $34,000! 
Here we are, team Red Wine! I have had that song stuck in my head all weekend long.

Once again a huge thank you to all those who donated and to my sweet Lyndon, Cosette, and Henry for cheering me on the whole way. Thank you!

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