Kim Bowler - Priest Lake

North to South
38.7 km (24.0 miles)
19 hours, 47 minutes on 19-20 August 2024
Observed and documented by Aida Patterson and Terry Utigard Rathbun
First woman
Contents
- Swimmer
- Support Personnel
- Swim Parameters
- Swim Data & GPS
- Observer Log
- Swimmer Statement
- Photos
- Video
- Media
Swimmer
- Name: Kim Bowler
- Gender: female
- Age on swim date: 41
- Nationality: United States
- Resides: Liberty Lake, Washington
Support Personnel
Observers
Aida Patterson
Aida observed for Kim during her Coeur d’ Alene Lake swim in 2022. Aida has a long history of organized open water swimming events in California, Idaho, Washington, and Canada. These include the Alcatraz Invitational, Lakes Del Valle, Berryessa, and Folsom, Santa Cruz Rough Water swim, Tahoe Relay, Across the Lake Swim, Flathead Lake Swim series, Whitefish Lake swim, Long Bridge, Columbia Crossing, and Penticton Ironman. She also has been swimming with US Masters Swimming for 30 years and currently practices with a local team in the pool and open water.
Terry Utigard Rathbun
Terry is a life-long swimmer. One of her greatest achievements is having qualified and participated in the Olympic trials in 1972. She is currently an active participant in U.S. Masters swimming as a member and coach.
Escort Vessel
Name | Type | Port |
---|---|---|
Crowne Belle | motor boat | N/A |
- | sit-in kayak | - |
Swim Parameters
- Category: Solo, nonstop, unassisted.
- Rules: MSF Rules of Marathon Swimming, without exception or modification.
- Equipment used: Textile swimsuit (TYR Diamondfit), silicone cap, goggles, lanolin.
Route Definition
Far north end of Upper Priest Lake, through the Thoroughfare, to Coolin Beach at the far south end of (lower) Priest Lake.
- Body of Water: Upper Priest Lake and Priest Lake
- Route Type: one-way
- Start Location: North end of Upper Priest Lake, Idaho (48.80363, -116.91015)
- Finish Location: Coolin Beach, Coolin, Idaho (48.48133, -116.84878)
- Minimum Route Distance: 38.7 km (24.0 miles) (map)
History
One previous swim of similar north-to-south route by Ned Hastings in 2019 (MSF documentation). Hastings started at a slightly different location in Upper Priest Lake, for a slightly shorter (700m) total route distance. Kim Bowler is the first woman to complete this swim.
Swim Data
- Start: 19 August 2024, 13:54:40 (Pacific Daylight Time, America/Los_Angeles, UTC-7).
- Finish: 20 August 2024, 09:42:23
- Elapsed: 19 hours, 47 minutes, 43 seconds.
Summary of Conditions
Feature | Min | Max |
---|---|---|
Water Temp (F) | 67.8 | 70.8 |
Air Temp (F) | 61.2 | 88 |
Wind (mph) | 0 | 12 |
GPS Track
Trackpoint frequency: 20 minutes. Download raw data (CSV).
Speed Plot
Nutrition
Observer Log
Swimmer Statement
by Kim Bowler
After a very successful and enjoyable marathon swim in Lake Coeur d’ Alene, I knew right away that I wanted to do it again in another lake. Priest Lake was already in my mind to tackle, as it is another beautiful lake in Northern Idaho. That Lake Coeur d’ Alene experience, although magical, set me up for a very false perception of how difficult marathon swims are. I was very naive heading into the Priest Lake swim. I told myself “I have done the distance before, so I know I can do it again.” Leading up to the swim, I really fell off my training but didn’t let myself worry about it and told myself “It’ll hurt more, but it’ll be fine.”
From the very start of the swim, we had wind and waves directly in our faces. I wasn’t worried and I powered through it, knowing its just 2.5 miles of the upper lake and thinking to myself “it’ll be easy after this.” I actually enjoy getting tossed in the waves from time-to-time so I chalked it up to being “fun.”
Once we got into the thoroughfare that connects the 2 portions of the lake, I had a little reprieve. I was worried about being skewered by sticks sticking up from the bottom, but otherwise, it was good.
We came out of the thoroughfare and my husband said that it was 5 minutes before the next feed but he wanted me to have it now, “while it was calm.” I didn’t get what he meant by “while it was calm” until we came around the wall of the thoroughfare and into to the main lake and were faced again with large waves and wind at our faces. They were big enough waves that I was worried one wrong wave could tip the kayak my husband was in. I stopped and said to my husband “I can’t do this the whole way.” He told me that the crew had looked at the weather forecast and the wind and waves should calm down soon. It was true, and after a couple more feeds, the wind had died down, and the lake was fairly calm. We took the time to apply more lanolin to some already-chafing spots and switched over to “night goggles.” Then we went into the night.
Sarah Thomas, who coached me in the past, often talks about the night being the worst and she’s right. The night brings visibility difficulties and cooler air temps and a general feeling of loneliness. For us, it also brought wind and waves again. I was so angry because they were always coming right at us. I told my husband “I’m so pissed!” The waves and wind came and went throughout the night, moments of peace, then moments where it picked up again and began to threaten to push me back. And every time that the wind and waves kept coming back, I was angry all over again. My husband told me “You were pissed at night last time too, we just have to get through it.” He read me a beautiful message that my mom had pre-written for a time when I needed it most. In her message, she said “…dig deep, physically and spiritually…” and I repeated that to myself countless more times before the swim was over.
Despite being “pissed,” I did a system check and reminded myself that other than the occasional wind and waves, my arms felt fine. My goggles weren’t leaking. I didn’t feel chafing pain anymore. I was actually fine, and making good time.
I was doing this whole swim as a fundraiser to raise money to build a well in Uganda. I had seen pictures and video of the actual people it would help and kept picturing them when I needed some motivation. The pastor in Uganda is named Ronald, and he knew about this swim and the money I was trying to raise for his community. I kept saying to myself “For Ronald…for his people,” and “I can’t let Ronald down.”
But things really went off the rails after that. I was starting to spit up some of my feeds. And I was having some right triceps pain with each stroke. We occasionally adjusted the feeds to be diluted with ½ feed pre-mixture, ½ plain water, which was much easier to stomach. I tried to let the water slip by my right arm and pulled harder with my left arm…then my left triceps started hurting bad. I prayed that God could just wrap his hands around my triceps to keep them safe and strong until the end. The only thing getting me through at this point was that the wind had shifted to be at our backs. It created some big waves again, but at least they were pushing us south, toward the finish.
A while later, miraculously, the first arm that was hurting, my right, improved a lot and I had no pain for a while. The left, however, completely “blew out.” I was completely unable to pull with that arm and was barely able to lift it out of the water. I was only able to do so if I kept my elbow tucked at my side and paddled with the forearm, like mimicking how a t-rex would swim. This is when I truly thought I would have to abort the swim before I finished. I really thought this was the beginning of the end. I, again, told my husband that I can’t do this the rest of the way. I imagined we still had ½ the lake to go at this point. I asked them to tell me how much further we have to go and they said 7.4 miles. Well, in the grand scheme of things, I actually thought to myself how little that was left and it gave me a boost for a couple more feeds. Until my right arm began to hurt again. At about 5 miles to go, I was in excruciating pain from both arms. The sun and come up and we could also see the shore at this point.
My crew told me “We’re right here with you. Just do whatever you need to, to get to the end.” I cried and cried while swimming. I tried everything: Side stroke, back stroke, flutter kick with my arms in front of me or at my sides, breaststroke kick, etc. Breaststroke kick was the fastest and least painful option when having no arms. But I kept popping up and seeing no progress and saying “I can’t breaststroke kick for 5 miles!” Then I came up for a breath during the kick and inhaled a wave of water and had to cough and choke until it cleared. After that, I didn’t want to do breaststroke kick anymore! I said to my husband “What else could go wrong!?” and like a light switch turning on, the wind and waves came directly at me again and began to push me back away from the shore. We were only 1 or 2 miles from the shore. I was in tears again and yelling at my husband “We’re not moving! We’re not making forward progress! We’re going to have to call it!” Thankfully, he wouldn’t let me. He said to me “We didn’t come this far to quit now!”
I wanted it over so badly and I finally pulled myself together and told myself that we need to end this now. I dug deeper than I ever thought possible. I began to kick. (Like a lot of longs distance swimmers, I barely kick while swimming?) I kept my legs going, never pausing, as I counted out 8 beats over and over. I over rotated enough to get my left, t-rex, arm out of the water and weakly pulled with my right arm, through searing pain. But I just kept going. Every time we stopped, we got pushed back so I knew if I kept stopping to complain, it would never end. My husband started steering us at a diagonal, away from the direct onslaught of the wind, to hopefully cut through the force of it. We still went on like this for what seemed like hours. I stopped one more time to look to see how close we were, and we were still so painfully far away, but at least I could tell we were going forward. Finally, I could see weeds below me and I could see them moving by as I swam, which was so encouraging. Then, at long last, the beach was there and I could stand and walk to shore. All I wanted to do was hug my mom and cry. And I did both.
I had a wonderful small group of people cheering for me and ready with blankets and a chair for me. I raised $3000 for the well in Uganda, and a generous donor made up the rest of the cost to be able to build the well. I’m taking a long break from long distance swimming, but one day, even though it was a not-so-magical swim, I hope to look on this swim fondly.
Photos
Click to enlarge.
Video
Media
-
CDA Press
-
Missoulian
-
Daily News of Open Water Swimming:
-
Krem 2
-
1st Headlines Idaho
-
Mazzarella Café
-
NewsBreak
-
KHQ
-
KTVB- ran KREM 2 story with their own into
-
Spotonidaho.com
-
Ground News
-
NonStopLocal
-
Idaho.com