water up my nose

The other morning at Masters we had a time trial, the Postal Swim. This time you had the choice to swim the 1500 and the 3000 (yards). I swam the 3000. It was freaking awesome. I was not sure of what to expect except for one thing: I was swimming with Les. We have history and by now I feel I have earned his Varsity Jacket at least. I'd better ask his wife first though.

I met Les about 11-12 years ago on the bike course at the Hamlin Beach Triathlon, right on the Lake Ontario State Parkway. I remember coming upon a lanky man with bike shorts and no shirt, I could see every vertebrae on his spine. When I passed him I heard him say something.

BITCH.

I remember looking over at him, and he was smiling. That's a compliment in bike speak.

Over the next few years I ran into him here and there, probably on the same bike course. When I joined RAMS in 2001 he was there too. He became one of those guys I'd see around at races and such. I noticed he swam and biked yet didn't run. A hip replacement at an early age had ended his running career yet he still remained active in the sport. Soon the races I came to love were the ones where I'd catch Les on the bike.

In 2003 I started joining his Tuesday morning TNT rides. His group of friends welcomed me and I hung on for dear life. I liked riding with them, they were nice, they didn't mind my time trial bike, in fact I'd ride about 10 yards back of the pack so I could ride aero.

One May morning in 2003 I was hanging back from the pack on a Tuesday morning and fiddling around with my loose saddle. I remember looking up to the group ahead of me and in the absolute blink of an eye there was a horrific crash. I recall there was about 8 of us and ahead of me I saw the sudden collapse of all of them. I saw Les hit the ground with his left hip, shoulder and the sound I will never forget, is the sound of his head hitting the ground. To this day it sends shivers up my spine.

When a group crashed at 26 mph there's rolling, flying, bikes that launch. I was never so lucky in my life to not be riding with the group. Les and another rider had crossed wheels. They went down like a ton of bricks. It was a stroke of luck that there were no cars.

I arrived at Les first, and rolled him onto his back, maintaining his C spine. I am a pediatric emergency nurse, I am used to emergencies but nothing in the world can prepare you for holding your friend's C spine in the middle of the street with cyclists in heaps all around you. Les looked up at me and asked me if I thought his shoulder was hurt. He was on his side and when I rolled him over his shoulder and hip stayed where they were. I wanted to lie to him but I told him, I think this is bad.

As I held onto his head and neck he dialed his phone and handed it to me. I was panicked. "Call my wife." he said.

"Hi Lisa...." I said, "This is Mary Eggers. Les is breathing."

That was my big introduction to his wife. Very smooth Mary. Very smooth.

As she started to scream into the phone, I tried again. "There's been a bike crash, and Les is hurt, but he's awake and he's breathing." How come I have placed this call to families so many times and today I was just not getting it right?????

That ambulance took 3 minutes to get there but in my mind it was hours.

That accident took Les off the road for good and it's a loss I will never get over. However he is still in the pool, and that brings me to today and why I even talk about it.

I chose to swim the 3,000 yard time trial this morning and when I saw Les was swimming it also I knew this would be good. We were in lanes right next to each other. I looked over at my friend.

"We will take this out slow." He said. I nodded. Plan set. We would swim together.

There is something about this team, the RAMS (Rochester Area Masters). I have been swimming with this team for 8-9 years and our coach, Lorie has somehow created this incredible atmosphere of family. I feel like this is my family. As a team we've been through a lot of things. There is camaraderie like I have never seen on any other Masters team. There's just something I can not explain.

Our coach Lorie called out go and off we went. Although we had our own lane I hugged the lane line closest to Les, and he hugged the lane line closest to me. My first flip turn, I got water up my nose and I started to giggle. Just the previous week I had mocked my lanemate Maureen out for getting water up her nose. We are swimmers! I scolded her, we don't get water up our nose!!! And here I was getting a little B*tch slap from karma.

The first 1,000 seemed to go on forever, but we stayed side by side and for some reason, I thought that the first 1000 was a 500. I am not good at math when I am swimming. We stayed right next to each other and we occasionally hit hands we were swimming so close. We had a good steady pace going and I felt great. I felt even more great about swimming with my friend. The memories started to flood me. Hamlin Beach, the bike crash, the open water swims. The history.

The best part of this sport, this community are the relationships like this. You form these close bonds, you don't send one another Christmas cards, talk on the phone or really anything else, but you form the common bond that sport provides us. Throughout my career I have won races, lost races, set records, been all American, qualified for Hawaii, but truthfully all of those accolades are in boxes in the basement. When I win something these days I tend to lose the trophy, because it's what it all represents that means so much to me now.

Halfway through the 3000 I saw Grimm and his boy Scott walking to the locker room. Damn, I thought, here comes the heckling. Sure enough, he began to heckle me. For the first time ever in my life.... I began to breathe to the left. I wanted to stop and call over to Coach Lorie "DID YOU SEE THAT I JUST BREATHED TO MY LEFT!" because I never ever do (for no good reason at all either.). We flip turned and he was gone. Whew!

Maureen was on the other side of me and I knew she had lapped us 3 times at least. Man she was rocking today.

I was asked later on how on earth did Les and I stay together? I don't know. It's like an unspoken language between athletes and between friends. In retrospect I think I could have swam this time trial faster, but it meant more to me to swim with my friend and add another chapter to the memory book in my head.

I decided that our plan was to finish the last 500 strong and when I counted lap 14.... Maureen next to me stopped. Whoa, she couldn't be a whole 500 ahead, could she? Then I realized that the reason that first 500 seemed long was because it was a 1,000. In my head I called out to Les, all right let's go! And I started to kick.

My kick at the end taught me that I had a lot left in the bag. But again it wasn't about being the fastest today. I will worry about fast next week in Clearwater. It was about swimming steady, tackling a longer swim, and swimming with a friend.

I flip turned at the finish because I wasn't sure if we were done and I listened for Lorie, who did scream my name. I stopped and I smiled. This is the stuff great memories are made of. Les and I high fived and hugged. I could not have swam a straight 3K swim in a pool without him. It brought me down memory lane. The places we have all been together, the places we all will go together. Thee kind of memories get tucked into the mind and thought about now and again. They are richer than trophies and records and accolades. These are the things that life is made of.

Was it difficult to stay together? No. Gosh no. It was perfect. 3K is not that long either. Getting past the first 200 was the hard part. But know that the end will come. Kim smiled at me and called me a sandbagger, it made me laugh (she was right). But these are the things I treasure the most, the experiences that make up our lives. These are the true rewards. It's taken me a long time to realize that, but after today it is a lesson I don't forget!