by Todd Lantry
2022 Applegate Lake Swims
On July 16 and 17, 2022, after a two year hiatus due to Covid restrictions and uncertainty, Rogue Valley Masters, based in Ashland, was excited to host 50 swimmers from Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, and Michigan at Applegate Lake! This event has been hosted at a number of Southern Oregon lakes since 1985; the last 20 years or so have been at Applegate. On Saturday were concurrent 10K, 5K and 2.5K swims, and Sunday was the OMS open water association championship, a 1500 meter swim, followed by the ever popular and exciting 3 x 500 M pursuit relay, where teams are randomly drawn from the entrants and seeded, based on their 1500 times, slowest to fastest to ideally all finish at the same time! Thanks go to Bob Bruce for organizing the relay and handling the seeding. Following the swims each day, lunch was served at the group campsite, provided by Auntie Carol’s Hawaiian Cafe, based in Medford.
In the 10K, Scot Sullivan and Ilsa Feierabend of the MAC were the top male and female finishers. They were awarded pottery donated by Frank Philips Pottery; Frank is a longtime RVM swimmer and career potter, now based in McMinnville. 5K top overall finishers received handcrafted wooden cutting boards by John Weston, also a longtime RVM swimmer. Those were won by Katlynn Emaus, who was visiting a friend in the area all the way from Michigan and decided to swim, and Evan Edwards, from Corvallis (CAT). Ed Ramsey of Tualatin Hills and Molly Gramley of RVM were the top overall finishers in the 2.5K and received stemless wine glasses. Full results for Saturday can be found here: https://www.webscorer.com/race?raceid=283582
On Sunday, the overall top prizes for the 1500 were handcrafted hardwood clipboards, again donated by John Weston. Scot Sullivan and Ilsa Feierabend were the top finishers again: I guess that 10K didn’t take that much out of them! As it was the Association Championship, team banners were won by the large and small teams that accumulated the most points in the 1500. In the large team category, COMA and RVM duked it out, with COMA finishing just ahead by four points. In the small team category, there were a handful of teams, with three or less swimmers. That banner was won by the MAC team. The full 1500 results can be found here: https://www.webscorer.com/race?raceid=283581
It was great to be hosting an event in Southern Oregon again, and see familiar and new faces in the lake and the campground overlooking the water! And a reminder, RVM and OMS are looking forward to hosting the USMS 10K national championship next summer, one week after the Portland Bridge Swim hosts the USMS ultra-marathon distance open water National Championship. The Bridge Swim will be July 8, and the Applegate 10K will be July 15, with a 2-mile national championship cable swim at Foster Lake in between them on July 13. Come for the Oregon National Championship Swimcation 2 next summer, and we’ll see you in the lakes soon!
More photos from the weekend can be found here:
https://swimoregon.org/2022-applegate-lake-photos/