ESTEVAN - Bruce Haralson loves to swim. And he has found a knack for swimming great distances.
The Estevan athlete recently entered the Crown the King competition at Waskesiu Lake north of Prince Albert. Swimming in the four-kilometre division, he placed sixth among the 23 participants, finishing in a time of one hour, six minutes and seven seconds. He shaved about five minutes off of his time from 2021.
Haralson said he was pleased with his result.
“I’ve had a background in swimming. I’ve also done open-water swimming for quite a while,” said Haralson, who has competed in swims as long as 12 kilometres.
“I heard there was one [open-water] race in Saskatchewan, so I thought it would be neat to do that kind of thing again,” he added later.
He also competed in triathlons and has been in other fitness events prior to entering Crown the King. This is the only outdoor, open-water swimming event that he knows of in Saskatchewan that has a swim as long as four kilometres.
The event starts at King Island, and swimmers are vying to be crowned the King of Waskesiu.
It started with 12 swimmers and has grown over the past few years to become a Labour Day tradition.
Swimmers have traditionally had three options: circumnavigate King Island, which is the four-kilometre swim; take a shuttle and then swim the 1.6 kilometres back; or participate in a 10-kilometre marathon swim. The 10-kilometre option was cancelled this year.
Completing a long-distance, open-water swim of four or five kilometres provides a real thrill, he said.
“No matter how badly you’re swimming, once you get to the finish line, you feel like you accomplished something,” said Haralson.
It’s also nice being able to swim outdoors in a large body of water.
“It’s nice to do lane swimming in the pool, but when you go in the open water, it’s more of a challenge. You get the elements like the waves … and sometimes it’s smooth. Open water you don’t have the black lines, so that makes keeping your line quite challenging, too. So it’s a bit more of a challenge in open water than it is in the pool.”
A four-kilometre swim forces a competitor to swim for an hour or two. For those who have competed in other sports, he compared it to a 16 or 20-kilometre run.
“Those that swim, they will probably understand that four kilometres is a long distance,” said Haralson.
Haralson hopes to be part of the 10-kilometre race next year. He would like to see more swimmers entered between the different distances.
“Next year … Crown the King should have quite a variety of distances. Next year they’re thinking about adding a 10-kilometre swimming race to it. And then they’re going to stick with four kilometres, and for those that don’t feel comfortable with four kilometres, there’s the 1,600-metre swim as well.”
