Marathon Swim Stories with James and Jillian Savage

As marathon swimmers we know what it’s like to be misunderstood. But can you imagine being the mom of a young marathon swimmer?

I was struck by the amount of judgement that Jillian and James have faced in their 6 years of pursuing James’ dreams. While signing your child up for violin lessons or gymnastics at a very young age is perfectly acceptable, supporting your child as they push themselves in the water can apparently lead to Child Protective Services showing up at your door?! 

Fortunately James and Jillian have found a great network of supportive mentors and adult swim adventure buddies, who want to see how far this kid can go.

I hope you enjoy this episode!

About James:

James’ older brother, Tyler, accidentally joined the county recreation swim team when he was younger.  He enjoyed it and wanted to do it a second year.  James was 5, the typical age one can join the summer league, and when I asked if he wanted to join Tyler on the team, without skipping a beat, he replied with a strong, confident, “NO!”  When I reminded him that he would still have to attend practices with us, sitting on the pool deck while we waited for Tyler, it would be well over 100 degrees with little shade, and it would be a very long, hot summer.  He may as well get in and beat the heat at least.

With his crossed arms and grumpy face, he looked right at me and said, “Fine!  But I am NOT doing back stroke and I am NOT doing butterfly.”  I didn’t care.  I just didn’t want to spend a summer listening to him complain about being hot and miserable on the pool deck where he would probably insist on getting in the entire practice.

James took to the water quickly.  He grasped all four strokes with ease.  That first summer he broke his first two county records….in back stroke and butterfly, the two strokes he said he was not going to do. 

Over the next three years, James prograssed, breaking records in all the different strokes, through each age group, and never wanted to leave the water.  He was always the first kid in and the last kid out.  Practices were broken up into two groups…the 5-12 age group and the 13-18 age group.  James wouldn’t get out after his session was over and was allowed to swim with the big kids.  He loved it.  The boys would come home from practice and go to our backyard pool.  James would play “coach” to his older brother.  He would lay out on top of the waterfalls and blow his whistle and yell “Go”, forcing his brother to do lap after lap.  He really loved imitating his coaches.

When James was 7 and his brother was 13, his brother decided he had had enough of swimming.  He was done.  James’ sister was 5 so she could have joined the team.  She was adament about not joining.  I figured James would be over it until he said, “I want to go year round.”

So we did.

James attended his first Junior Olympics just 4 months later and medaled in all of his events.  A few months later, after seeing a new clip about some guys in Merced who swam from Alcatraz, my sweet, innocent, very tiny 40 pound 8 year old informed me that HE wanted to swim from Alcatraz, too.  Nevermind the fact that he had never swam open water.  Dad and I both laughed in his face.  Who in their right mind would ever entertain that thought?  After a quick Google search, we found the Sharkfest Escape from Alcatraz Duathlon happening in 3 days. He begged.  And begged.  And we finally hit the REGISTER button.  I had a plan.  We would allow it, he would absolutely hate it, and we would be done with any more stupid ideas he comes up with.

He was down to two days before the race and he didn’t even have a wetsuit.  I live in the sticks and drove everywhere to find a wetsuit for him.  We ended up with a short spring suit that was way too big but it would have to do.  He tried to fill up the gaps with a jammer and rash guard underneath but it really didn’t work.  He was too small.

Race day came.  My 8 year old boarded a ferry boat with over 500 other adults and left while my husband paddled out to Alcatraz with a GoPro strapped to his head.  I knew they would have some support out there but I also wanted someone there specifically for my baby.  I paced the beach of Aquatic Park for what seemed like hours.  I honestly figured he would be picked up and brought in.  Swimmers started rounding the pier and before I knew it, I saw my husband kayaking around the corner with the smallest of splashes right next to him.  Next thing I knew, my 8 year old with no open water experience was being pointed towards the finishers chute…and he was smiling.

I met him at the end.  He was cold, shivering, red, neck bleeding from where the wet suit rubbed him raw, and he looked at me and said, “Mom, when is the next one?”

My imaginary planned failed me.  The kid loved it.

He came in 171st out of all those adults.  He won a bottle of wine.  On our way home we stopped at my inlaws where he played with toys cars and ran around driving grandma and grandpa crazy with all of his energy.  It hit me that even though he just did a big boy thing, he is still a little boy.

He did his next Sharkfest about 6 weeks later, San Diego to Coronado.  He again won his age group (But like Alcatraz, there were no other kids)  On our drive home, he told me he saw that a 10 year old had completed the Touch and Go from Alcatraz.  He wanted to do that, too, but he wanted to be 9.  So he did.

From then on, we would go to our little lake.  He began swimming longer distances and in colder water and realized that the open water was his happy place.  He started swimming in different bodies of water and discovered that no matter how many times he swam the same route, the swim was always different.  The wind, the temps, the currents, the tides…it was like a new challenge every day.  James is all about challenges.  Telling him he can’t do that is the fastest way to make him prove that he can do that.

While James loves swimming Sharkfest races, which he still does every year, he wanted longer distances.  He came up with the idea of swimming in Tahoe.  After many calls to many people, we found Tom “Reptile” Linthicum.  He didn’t shy away from James’ young age.  He took James under his wing and has become one of his biggest mentors, friend, cheerleader, captain, and swim buddy.  Because of Reptile, he has been able to achieve so much more than he imagined.  By Reptile giving him a chance, it has opened up so many opportunities for James to become the swimmer he is, to allow him to live his passion and dreams, and to keep him busy.  James has met an entire community of people, of role models, to help guide him and navigate the waters quite literally.  It’s helped him grow into a responsible young man.  He still has time to be a kid, to hang out with his friends and play video games or ride his bike, but it’s not unheard of to have older adults call and ask if James can play hooky from school just this one day because there’s a swim that just has to be done. 

Now we can’t stop him.  I don’t want to stop him.  I want to be able to give him every chance he can get to do what he loves.  Sometimes we drive very long distances to do a small swim.  There’s a Sharkfest race in San Diego.  It’s only a mile long swim but he likes it.  Because it’s on a Sunday every year, we make it a day trip.  Unfortunately for me, it’s an 8 hour drive one way.  We leave in the middle of the night, drive 8 hours, swim for 20 minutes, grab lunch and drive the 8 hours home and get back to school Monday morning.  Thankfully that’s only once a year. 

One of James’ favorite races is the RCP Tiburon Mile.  After his round trip Alcatraz, I was contacted by Robert Placak, asking if James would want to participate.  I knew nothing about it because we were still very knew to the open water thing.  I told him I would research it and get back to him.  A few Google searches later made me realize that I didn’t think James would be “good enough” for the line up they already had scheduled to compete.  James was 9.  His competition were literally coming from the Rio Olympics that year.  They had nothing in common with James.  We would know absolutely no one.  I called Robert back and reminded him that James was 9 and probably not a good a fit and I really didn’t think James would be able to do it.  He assured me that James could and should do it and I reluctantly agreed……while James was so excited.  Robert invited us to the the test swim the day prior.  At the time, I thought a test swim was actually a test to see if they were physically capable of doing the swim.  I figured all the kids would be there because surely there would be kids at the race, right?  Wrong.  We arrived to a small, select group of elite swimmers like Keri Anne Payne, Chip Peterson, etc.  James looked so tiny next to them.  The test swim was a blast as we took a ferry out and got to jump in and swim just for fun!  Keri Anne, who was already a favorite of James’, actually swam back to James and did the entire swim with him.  He was star struck!  Later on that night he was invited to Robert’s house for a pre-race dinner.  There were so many amazing swimmers from all over the world.  SportsNet was there filming.  He met Catherine Breed, who is now one of his dear friends, who helps him train, and will be his pace swimmer for his Tahoe length.  And there was James, 9 years old, 47 pounds, running around in a pair of Alcatraz pajamas with the “big boys and girls.”  James completed the race the next day.  He had a cold and was not feeling good but again, nothing was stopping him from getting in that water.  He will continue to race the RCP TM as long as it continues. 

San Luis Reservoir was definitely a “one and done” swim.  While it was his first legal marathon swim, the day was just so bad.  Everything was against us.  We came in a day early to make sure all of our boats and kayaks were inspected and ready to go at 6AM, only to be stopped the next morning and reinspected by an over zealous park aid who claimed we may have left after 10PM and taken all our vessels out to another body of water and made it back by 5AM and might contaminate the lake with uninspected vessels.  A lot of eye rolls later, the reinspection of the same 4 vessels, and another briefing, we were finally able to start…..over two hours late!  The Zodiacs broke  down, the wind picked up, the actually red-lighted the lake, meaning all boats had to get off the lake due to wind, and the only one to make it to the finish was James and I in my kayak.  James had all of two days to train for this swim.  It was complete misery.  But it was done.  ABC news ran a story on it because it had never been done before.  About a month later, I got a call from ABC stating that they had not only nominated James (without me knowing) but he won an ESPN ESPY award.  James didn’t even know what an ESPY was.  And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t know much about it.  James was only worried about if a trophy was involved.  When they assured him there was, in fact, a really cool trophy, he was pretty stoked.  He got to go to ABC30 in Fresno and go through a little ceremony that they aired on the news a couple of hours later.  He LOVED that trophy.  In fact, for about a week, James lugged that thing everywhere….swim practice, the gas station, the grocery store….he even buckled it in the seat belt while it was in the car.  And he slept with it, too.  What can I say?  He was 12.

There are so many other swims he’s wanted to complete but due to his age, they may have to wait.  Until then, he will continue to swim whenever and wherever and with whoever will allow him.  And as long as he loves it he will be allowed to continue. 

Sharkfest Escape from Alcatraz 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

Sharkfest San Diego 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

Sharkfest Lake Tahoe 2017, 2019

Sharkfest Golden Gate 2017, 2018, 2019

RCP Tiburon Mile 2016, 2018

Alcatraz Touch And Go 2016 (9 years old)

Bridge to Bridge 2017 (10 years old)

San Luis Reservoir 2019 (12 years old)

Lake Tahoe Viking 2019 (12 years old)

Lake Tahoe Godfather 2020 (13 years old)

Lake Tahoe Fat Middle 2020 (14 years old)

Round Trip Angel Island 2020 (14 years old)

Around Coronado 2020 (14 years old)

ESPN ESPY Award 2019