Madison Open Water Swim
Making a splash at last year’s Madison Open Water Swim.
What began in 2003 with 41 swimmers — many from the Lussier Family East YMCA Masters Swim Program — has evolved into a major training event for Ironman Wisconsin triathletes and other experienced swimmers looking for a break from the pool.
The 14th annual Madison Open Water Swim, with 1.2- and 2.4-mile courses, will be held in Lake Monona on Saturday, Aug. 20, with 550 participants from all over the Midwest. Initial online registration closed five-and-a-half hours after it opened in May and the waiting list remains long.
“Swimming in a lake is very different than in a pool, because you don’t see any black lines at the bottom,” says Suzi Green, director of the Madison Open Water Swim. “You don’t know where you’re going and how much farther you have to go. You’re going to get kicked in the head and elbowed in the face, too.”
Despite all that — and the fact that open water swimming has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, as the 6.2-mile men’s and women’s marathon swimming events took place earlier this week at the Rio Olympics amidst concerns of swimmers navigating through raw sewage — open water swimming is the fastest-growing Olympic sport in the world, according to the World Open Water Swimming Association.
The Madison Open Water Swim is a grassroots effort. Organized by members of the nonprofit Madison Swim Club Inc., it receives no outside sponsorship money and donates proceeds to scholarship funds for age-group swimmers, Madison’s Clean Lakes Alliance, the YMCA of Dane County, Goodman Pool and the city’s new-pool fund. The club is governed by United States Masters Swimming, which approves the event’s safety plan and helps promote it.
“About 70% of our swimmers are triathletes, and many of them are doing Ironman Wisconsin,” Green says, referring to the event that takes place Sept. 11, beginning in Lake Monona. “That was never the purpose of Madison Open Water Swim, but we have certainly benefitted from that.”
She advises adult swimmers who want to begin training for next summer’s swim to gain some non-event practice first; Devil’s Lake, with its clean water and lack of motorboats, is ideal, Green says. Participants also should be able to swim 1.2 miles in less than 70 minutes and 2.4 miles in less than 140 minutes. “If you can’t do that in a pool, you have no business being out there in the lake,” Green says. “It’s just not safe.”
