Naples Island Swim, A California Classic
For over four decades, the Naples Island Swim continues on. The California classic consisted of five events in Long Beach, California’s Los Alamitos Bay. Race director Merrit Johnson Morris, describes the various courses in this unique venue, “The one-mile race cuts through the canals in middle of Naples Island. The 3-mile race is a circumnavigational course around the entire island. The 1000-meter race follows the swim buoy line [along the shoreline. The 500-yard race is similarly along the shore for our younger competitors. There is also a 200-meter race for the youngest kids. There were 230 swimmers total with over 100 in the one- and three-mile races.”
Jen Schumacher (shown below) from Irvine, California was the overall female winner of the one-mile race and describes her experience here:
Competing in the one-mile swim along with Jen, 26-year-old Pamela Tsakoumakis, a pool swimmer from Huntington Beach, California, competed in her first open water event and expressed her excitement about her second place finish in her age group:
Photo above shows a swimmer who competed in the three mile behind overall 3-mile race winner Alex Kostich, a former All-American swimmer at Stanford University.
“The Naples Island Swim is always one of my favorite local races because it’s so different than the others; no currents, no waves, and you swim in a complete circle. I am usually concerned about the temperature but today felt fine – probably in the low 60’s.”
Results are shown here.
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