World Records set at LuckyLakeSwim/AQUATICA

Congratulations to all World Record Breaking swimmers and many thanks to all the volunteers especially Chris Bolfing the Big Cheese who pulled off a great event. Here are the Stats.  Yuko breaks the World record for the longest open water lake swim at 82 Kilometers swimming non-stop for nearly 30 hours. The 50 Swimmer 100K Relay Finishes Sunday afternoon after nearly two days of swimming, setting an RHR world record.  Over $5600.00 was raised for the YMCA scholarship fund.  Chuck Tanner won the boat escort costume contest.We had 10 new swimmers sign the wall of Fame. 2 Swimmers got their 25K racing cap.  Mike Marino drove the furthest to participate coming from Jacksonville Geeno Augustin was the oldest relay swimmer at 75 and Jake Meisenheimer was the youngest at 9

The Gory details    To see a video click here

On October 12th at 6PM Yuko Matsuzaki  started her world record breaking open water lake swim and the first leg of the 50 swimmer 100K relay.  We had about 70 spectators, and one channel 13 traffic helicopter that was apparently lost, attending the start.  Three amoeba were seen hanging around the dock, but they were politely asked to leave which they did grudgingly. Over 200 people passed thru AQUATICA during the three event either to participate, volunteer, cheer or just to drink beer.  Yuko was escorted the entire 30 hour swim by volunteer kayakers, who will get their reward in heaven, because it turns out Lucky was lying about that's how George Clooney got his first big movie break.  That is all but Chuck Tanner who won the costume contest dressed as a pirate. Better watch out Johnny Depp there is a new pirate in town.  Thanks to the escorts, Chuck Tanner, Chris Bolfing, Mark Meyer, Ron McDonald, Mike Marino, John McCall.  We would also like to give Fred Ehmke a special thanks for not killing Yuko when he ran over her in the kayak.

The film festival Friday night was a roaring success.  After some stress setting up we got the projector to work.  We started with "Finding Nemo" for the kids, but after 10minutes only Lucky was watching. The kids couldn't sit still and were running around the backyard like mental cases and strangely we could never find out what happened to all the Red Bull that was missing from the cooler. We never did get to Jaws or the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but Lucky was pretty scared after Fnding Nemo and refused to swim in the dark Friday night. 

Chris Bolfing's high tech gadgetry for lighting didn't work that well so we tapped our posse of intellectuals for lighting solutions.  After several hours of electrical designs they just said "screw it" and wore a necklace of skeletons with little LED's embedded in them around their necks.

A few people pitched tents and camped out over night because Lucky wanted $250 a night for bed and breakfast. Lucky was gracious enough after much begging to turn off the sprinkler system for the weekend.  It was nice to see so many people just hanging out on the dock all evening and night.  Most were over 30 years old which just goes to show how crappy life is after 30 where the most exciting thing left in your life is to hang around a dock and take swims in the dark.

Sat morning we had 30+ swimmers join the relay and Yuko for the normal 7:45 lake swim.  Lucky was conspicuously absent from the swim. He claimed to have seen a copy of Yuko's bathroom schedule and he was reported as saying that a 7:45 am swim just didn't work for him that day.  Of course if you were one of the 5 people that finished in front of Yuko on her 42nd lap you wouldn't have to worry about the bathroom break schedule.  The other 25 plus... well...should have just swam faster or at least thought before starting "do I really want to swim behind someone that just drank 5 gallons of tea overnight".

Justin a 14 year old first time Aquatica swimmer swam with Yuko for 12 kilometers.  That's a new first time swimmer distance record which just proves that 14 year olds brains aren't fully developed. 

After nearly 30 hours of swimming Yuko ended her world record breaking swim at 82 kilometers.  That's 51 miles!  She looked pretty good for swimming over 50 miles we thought she might do more since she was enjoying looking at the exotic tapestries that someone had stretched across the bottom of the lake.  Of course the Japanese letters that were moving around on her skin was being to freak her out a bit so it probably was a good time to stop. 

When she finished the race Yuko's hands looked like something from the movie the living dead, other than that she was fine except for the hallucinations, puking in the shower and then passing out.  She was carried to a bed where our very own Dr. Ehmke took her pulse and pronounced her alive  (since he's a radiologist that was about the extent of his medical abilities).  Lucky, the other physician on site conferred with Dr. Ehmke and they formed a detailed medical strategy for the evening. They decided  to have Lucky periodically check to see if Yuko was still breathing throughout the night.  In spite of the high tech medical care and someone bringing her sushi to eat Yuko did survive the night. Yes I know she asked for sushi, but she was also trying to scrub non existent Japanese letters off her leg in the shower and was talking to her Pooh Bear (which is not usual for Yuko except this time the Pooh bear was talking back),

The relay continued on throughout  the night and in to the next day. There were many high fives and much celebration when we beat Yuko's 82K record several hours later.  The relay went on to swim 100K,  read it again Yuko 100K,  and none of looked liked the living dead or were hallucinating when we finished, except for Fred and that doesn't count because he is a sprinter. 

In the morning Yuko complained of being a bit tired.  We all reminded her of the story of the little boy who cried wolf.  One day she might really do something that would make a person tired and then no one would believe her.  She took our advise and went down to swim the last lap of the relay with John Meisenheimer VII without complaining. 

Many thanks to Ted Strong who passed out flyers all around the lake letting folks know about the swim.  It was truly a thankless job as he got cussed at, shot at, had dogs set on him, but once he had finished with Lucky's house everything went well.  Ted also made his first base jump without a parachute off  of Lucky's dock. Nobody knows why but just like everything Ted does now everyone else wants to do it too.

We also ended up raising over $5000 for the YMCA Aquatic Center's learn to swim scholarship fund. Thanks, you are all very good people that contributed.  The irony is that the kids that learn to swim through your donations will probably be the same kids that break our record in a few years, so what were we thinking!

Finally, Yuko is planning on racing a 10K "sprint" race in Bermuda the next Saturday and she did ride her bike over to swim the lake on Monday at 6:30 AM, but she only did one crossing.....what a wimp.

We still have some world record certificates from last year's 100 K relay that swimmers have not picked up yet.  There are 3 certificates available, The Record Holders Republic official certificate is $10, The Aquatica and the Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame certificates are free.  All certificates are personalized with the swimmer's name. Lucky has all the certificates at his home "Aquatica".