What if the three days before the Olympic open water marathon swim of 10 kilometers you had to swim 15.2, 14.4 and a whopping 27.3 kilometers on three other bodies of water?
That's what Chattanooga resident Jamie Ann Phillips did last week in Arizona - and she did it faster than anyone else in the four-lake race, male or female. In fact, she did it in the fastest time in five years.
Jamie Ann Phillips has a big smile after her Canyon Lake finish on her way to victory in the four-day SCAR Swim Challenge in Arizona. (Contributed photo: Stephen Rouch)The 32-year-old Papercut Interactive operations director won the annual SCAR Swim Challenge - named for the first letters of the lakes involved: Saguaro, Canyon, Apache and Roosevelt - in 15 hours, 15 minutes, 20.6 seconds. The overall runner-up and male winner was 59-year-old Stefan Reinke of Honolulu in 15:37.47.3, and the 34th and final four-leg finisher needed nearly 26 hours.
"What Jamie Ann did was a pretty awesome achievement. That's a big race," said McCallie School aquatics director Stan Corcoran, an open-water guru with the Chattanooga River Rats. "That third day is 17 miles."
The previous best time since Grace van der Byl's record 13:07:16 in 2013 was Stephen Rouch's 15:45:31.11 in 2016. He also won last year but in 16:48:49.3.
Conditions play a big part in the speed, of course, and Phillips acknowledged Wednesday that they were very favorable.
"It was perfect," she said. "It got close to 100 every day, but the water temperatures were in the high 50s to 70s. Every lake was different, but they all are in canyons with high walls and the wind can really get down in there and stir up the water, but this year we got really lucky with that."
Phillips grew up in Gadsden, Ala., got bachelor's and master's degrees at Alabama and moved to Chattanooga in October 2009. Gadsden High School had a swim team one year she was there, but otherwise she was limited to swimming for fun.
Here, though, she "got involved in the triathlon community" though still "a beginner as far as running and biking went." From those contacts she discovered the COWS - Chattanooga Open Water Swimmers, women and men ages 18 and older - and became a regular.
"I still don't feel like I take it that seriously," she said in contradiction to those who know her, "but I do wake up very early in the morning consistently and like to go swim, and I've built a really good network of people who join me occasionally. Now I've met other open-water swimmers from all over the country - a lot of them do races here - and I enjoy the community.
"I guess that's what drives me - the community."
"She's just a natural talent," said Karah Nazor, a COWS leader. "And she's worked real hard in her late 20s and early 30s. She's really good."
Blaik Ogle of Knoxville, who "had the privilege" of piloting Phillips' remarkable crossing of Apache Lake, said she is "the hardest-working, most determined athlete I've ever met. Since signups in November I followed her training in complete awe. Every morning at 4:30, 5-6k in the pool, with longer sets on the weekends."
Rouch, who lives in Indiana, is one of the good friends Phillips has developed in the sport, and he has been unofficially coaching her since January. He accompanied her to SCAR but wanted to swim only one lake, otherwise serving as an adviser and one of her kayak pilots.
"It obviously went well, so he's probably going to be my official coach," she said.
Rouch, the 2017 male Barra Award winner for "most prolific year" in marathon swimming - with two Chattanooga races included - swam only Apache last week and jumped way ahead out of the first wave on the way to a record. Otherwise that lake belonged to Phillips, who started in the third wave but quickly passed everyone but Rouch.
"By mile five we were completely alone with no other swimmer in sight," Ogle wrote in an email. "For the rest of the swim we crossed Apache Lake by ourselves, with the race director appearing every 45 minutes or so, checking in and noting landmarks to guide off. ... Honestly, I think I felt more pressure than she did to give her the straightest line possible to the finish."
Ogle admitted to getting "choked up" when seeing the finish line and hearing Phillips' first words upon completion: "Thanks for being here."
"I'll never forget that moment as long as I live," Ogle added. "She's a champion in every sense of the word. Her work ethic and character, in and out of the water, put her in a class all her own. I'm thrilled she got to show the world at SCAR what she's made of, and I have a feeling it's just the tip of her true potential."
Nazor and Phillips both participated in the 25k Border Buster from Vermont to Quebec and back in July 2016, and they've also done open-water races together in Lake Tahoe and at San Francisco and San Diego. Phillips did the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim in 2017.
With another Chattanoogan, Jenny Smith, having swum across the English Channel last summer and the Catalina Channel off the coast of California in October, "We've got two club members kicking butt right now," said Nazor, who did her own English Channel crossing in 2008.
"Jenny's training for the North Channel in Ireland this summer and the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim - and she's the mother of two teenage boys. She's amazing, too."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6291.