POLSON — Flathead Lake is 28 miles long — that's longer than a marathon.
Just imagine the strength and determination it would take to swim the lake. Well, that's what not one, but two women had last week when they both, on separate occasions, swam from Somers to Polson. We caught up with Tess Andres and Isabella Seagraves to learn more about the achievement.
Watch Isabella Seagraves and Tess Andres recount swimming the length of Flathead Lake:
In July, two women have now become the third and fourth to successfully swim the entire 28-mile length of the lake.
"I stand on shore and I wonder why I'm doing it," Andres recalled.
Pre-race jitters are normal before a big event — especially deciding to swim across Flathead Lake.
"It's just gonna be what it is, and I'm gonna swim. This is the only time I have," Seagraves told MTN.
Both Andres and Seagraves feel at home in the water, but Flathead Lake has a nature of its own — one Seagraves felt her entire 17½-half hour swim.
"A lot of the struggle I had was from just how hard I was working and how long. I wasn't expecting to take that whole time," Seagraves said. "Just like, I'm exhausted and I have to fight all these crazy waves too, like, not cool, man."
While Andres had calmer water for her 15½-half hour swim, it was still quite the battle.
"There's nothing there. I am nowhere. I'm in the middle of this lake still. I'm never going to finish. They threw me lights at the end because it was starting to like get dark," she recalled.
Through her effort, at 23 years old, Seagraves became the youngest recorded to complete the swim — and the third woman to do so.
"The competitor in me just wants to do it again and see what I could do if I wasn't fighting the wind and the waves the whole time," Seagraves said.
Andres followed suit a few days later, becoming the fourth recorded woman to swim the length of the lake.
"I'm 44 now, you know, I don't get faster, so going further and trying new bodies of water is kind of what I've decided to do instead," Andres explained. "It's showing that as you get older, you can still do hard things and challenging yourself in different ways."
Both say they wouldn't have been able to do it without their friends and family.
"One is an official observer who writes down time, temperature of the water of the air, the wind speed, my stroke count, all the time. Heather and Amy — my awesome support crew," Andres said.
"The people at my job who encourage me and help me move my schedule around so I can fit my training in the swimming, and just, I mean, it's unreal the amount of support I had throughout this whole process," Seagraves noted.
