USD Magazine Spring 2009

INTO THE SWIM

b y N a t h a n D i n s d a l e

endy Lynn Opdycke ‘06 eyed the dark blue water of Lake Washington first with curiosity, then determination. From the banks of Mercer Island she could easily see the main- land neighborhood of Newport Shores across the lake. The crossing was a few hundred meters. A half-mile, tops.

What fools these mortals be, indeed. But the underwater dangers — sharks, whales, jellyfish, manatees etc. —Opdycke has encountered don’t give her pause as much as the above-water challenges, like the menacing storm (complete with towering 15-foot swells) that cut a relay swim across the Santa Barbara Channel short. “You don’t mess with Mother Nature,”Opdycke says. “I challenge her but I also know when to say when.” But that doesn’t happen often. Opdycke is the first woman to swim the Santa Barbara Channel and — in addition to being the record-holder — is one of only about 25 swimmers to have completed the Triple Crown. And while she excelled in long-distance events for the USD swim team, her true love is in open water. “Just chasing the black line at the bottom of the pool can get a little old after about, oh, 22 years,”Opdycke laughs. “Open water swimming is different because there are so many outside variables but I think that’s probably why I like it.” In addition to encounters with wildlife, tumultuous environmental conditions and the complex logistics involved in marathon swimming, Opdycke completed her record-breaking Catalina swim nearly two years to the day that her father, an engineer, died while working on a job site. Refurbishing the Corvette she inherited from him is just one of the ways Opdycke occupies her time away from the water. She’s also an amateur photographer and artist, listens to electronic music (Daft Punk in particular) before swims and is a fervent supporter of the San Diego Chargers. And if swimming marathons weren’t ambitious enough, Opdycke ran the Los Angeles Marathon earlier this year. Her prowess in the water has also allowed her opportunities to engage her other passions, like ogling Monet’s “Water Lilies” at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace in England and strolling through the Louvre in Paris. (“It was like doing another marathon,”Opdycke jokes.) She reads inspirational books (including biog- raphies of Albert Einstein and Lance Armstrong) and watches inspirational movies ( Remember The Titans and Miracle are two favorites) but acknowl- edges that she avoids watching films like, say, OpenWater or Jaws . After graduating from USD with a communications degree, she recently finished her master’s degree from the University of Southern California with an eye on working in athletic administration. In the meantime, there are always other records to break. “Records are meant to be broken,”Opdycke says. “If somebody breaks my record, I’ll be happy for them. I’m going to shake their hand and say, ‘Congratulations, you’re crazier than I am.’”

“I can swim that,”Opdycke told her mother. The precocious 8-year-old was informed that she’d be grounded if she did. Opdycke was on restric- tion by the end of the day. That was 1992. Sixteen years later, she stepped out of the Pacific Ocean and into history after swimming 21 miles across the Catalina Channel, officially shattering the record for completing the “Triple Crown” of marathon swimming. Only one other person —Opdycke’s coach Alan Voisard—has ever successfully swam the Manhattan Island Marathon, the English Channel and the Catalina Channel all in less than a year. It took Voisard three months. Opdycke did it in 34 days. Her run at the Triple Crown started in Manhattan on July 5, continued in England on July 27 and culminated with the Catalina swim on Aug. 9. She swam the cumulative 70.5 miles in 26 hours and 50 minutes (another record) while becoming the first person to ever complete “The Quad,” having also conquered the Santa Barbara Channel in 2007. “After Catalina, I was so out of it I didn’t know who I was at that point,” Opdycke laughs. “It didn’t really hit me until about a month later that I actually did this.” Then again, she has made a lifelong habit out of shrugging off obsta- cles, be it swimming through a school of jellyfish or earning a master’s degree despite physical and learning impairments. “I’mdyslexic, I’mhard of hearing and I don’t have great vision but I’mnot going to be ashamed of it,”Opdycke says.“I have a great momwho has always helpedme with everything. She’s always beenmy biggest champion.” Opdycke calls her mother, Rendy Collobert,“my rock”and her sister Shawna“my cheerleader.”Both are the core of a support team that has helped Opdycke succeed both in and out of the water. It was Shawna who cheered Opdycke on as she battled nausea, frigid temperatures and daunt- ing swells in the English Channel and it was Collobert who read Shakespeare to her daughter when Opdycke struggled to decipher the words herself. It’s only fitting that Opdycke’s favorite Shakespearean character is Puck, the mischievous woodland jester from AMidsummer Night’s Dream , consider- ing she has an exceedingly dry wit for someone who spends somuch time soaking wet. “Come on, I swim open-water marathons,”Opdycke quips. “You have to have an absurd sense of humor to do something like this.”

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