Get ready for Fat Salmon

Those living near Madison Park beach should be prepared for a large influx of early-morning visitors on Saturday as the 12th Annual Fat Salmon Open Water Swim gets underway (for some reason they are actually calling it the 11th Anniversary race, the first Fat Salmon having taken place in 1999). Check-in begins at 6:15 am, and hundreds of swimmers will be getting to the Park bright and early to participate in a pre-race meeting.

Our beach is the destination for two separate Fat Salmon events. There‘s a 3.2 mile swim from the Day Street Boat Ramp (near the I-90 floating bridge) and a later 1.2 mile swim from Denny-Blaine park. The swimmers will be car pooled from Madison Park to their starting points. If you live in the area you may recall from last year that most of the swimmers arrive here by car and quickly fill up all of the available parking within blocks of the beach. The first race starts at 8:30, and the whole show should be over by late morning.

The race gets its name from the prize given to the fastest male and female swimmers in each of the events: a big fat salmon. Here is one of last year’s Fat Salmon winners, Eddie Switaj, showing off his reward.

These races are limited to well-conditioned and experienced open-water swimmers who are members of the US or Canadian master swimmers associations. The number of racers is also strictly controlled, and all of this year’s available slots have been filled for weeks. Fat Salmon is the kind of swim meet where wet suits are absolutely allowed (although many elect to make the race without). The most-recent water temperature reading at Madison Park beach, by the way, showed 66 degrees.