Getting ready for the 2013 Take the Lake Wrap Party.
Outgoing Take the Lake Foundation president Mark Gilchrist hosted a party at his home Saturday to put a close to the 2013 Take the Lake Training Season. About 50 people dropped by to celebrate the year that "We called the cops!"
The party would have been a complete bore had Gilchrist organized it, so fortunately Pickett Council-Ellis and Harry Foley offered their many talents. Picket dressed up the joint so beautifully, it was hard to believe Mark lived there. Harry cooked up an awesome Low Country Boil that absolutely everybody loved. Many people brought appetizers that were such a hit that everyone feasted before the main course.
Mark and the board of directors have put in place a plan for the 2014 season that has him working on the theme and materials in the next few months. He plans to move out of the area (if not the country) by early next year, and will put many things in place before then.
Julie Strickland will lead the organizational effort next season, with a growing group of talented volunteers to ensure that 2014 and the coming years will guide Take the Lake into a greater and even more successful era.
| Samantha Lane, 15, after swimming, cycling and paddling 39 miles prepares to run 15 miles in the Take the Lake X-TREME! challenge Aug. 24.
| This article appeared in the Sept. 11, 2013 edition of The News Reporter.
Leading up to the Labor Day weekend Take the Lake events, a much smaller event Aug. 24 challenged individuals and teams to complete all four Personal Endurance Challenges in a single day.
Starting on the public beach near Dale’s Restaurant, 20 swimmers entered the water shortly after 6:30 a.m., with most beginning a long day covering 54 miles.
Highlights of the solo competition include 17 people who finished the four-mile swim, 21-mile bike ride, 14-mile paddle and 15-mile walk / run.
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 This article first appeared in The News Reporter, Sept. 5.
With more than a thousand stories of success emerging over the past two weekends, Take the Lake has fulfilled its mission for another season.
Faced with troublesome flooding of the dam and nearby park trails in August that forced Lake Waccamaw State Park Superintendent Toby Hall to close that area to this event, disappointed organizers
 Click for full-size pdf | Each year, The News Reporter publishes a full page of dozens of photos from Take the Lake shortly after Labor Day weekend. The objective is to not just report on the event through photographs, but to convey why people participated. The page is usually filled with the excitement of the day, but also with the motivation and the drive that got people there, and the rewards they took home with them. For links of The News Reporter's coverage of Take the Lake over the years, click here. |
| For the third year in a row, more than 40 people swam across Lake Waccamaw for Take the Lake, with 23 swimming in the X-TREME! on August 24, and 20 in the Labor Day Swim. A few people swam both days.
With a persistant breeze from the south, Brett Gore and his crew set the course to start at the dam and finish at Dale's - everyone's preferred route. Faced with the usual combination of dead calm to choppy waters, a few finished in less than three hours.
Winds picked up - although favorable from behind the swimmers - challenging the slower swimmers and pushing them east. Some had to make late westward adjustments back toward Dale's. | 2013 Swim Times  Click image to enlarge. |
| Sunday morning began as more than 90 paddlers climbed in kayaks and canoes and paddled into the mist on Lake Waccamaw. They headed east for a clockwise circumnavigation of the lake. Very few dropped out and most completed the 14-mile course.
The afternoon brought the "fun" event of the weekend, as hundreds of cyclists filled the lawn of the N.C. Boys and Girls Homes across from Dale's Restaurant.
They rode five miles to the state park visitors center first, turned around and headed for the other side of the lake. This second leg, at 10.5 miles was the longest, and when they turned around at the dam, they had just a little more than five mile to return back to Dale's.
| 2013 Paddle Challenge times
2013 Bike & Hike times
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| The table below has times for the Walk / Run. Everyone who started at 8 a.m. can find their times below. Those who started earlier will just add the minutes they started before 8 a.m. See the "Full Screen" link? Handy. | We had a beautiful day today, with more than 400 runners and walkers finishing the 15-mile route from Elizabeth Brinkley Park to the dam and back.
A cool, foggy morning greeted everybody, but that burned off by 9 a.m. and only a nice breeze off the lake helped them under a hot sun.
Lake residents were out in force, giving participants good cheer, water and snacks, but most of all, big smiles and that great Columbus County hospitality. |
Volunteers, participants and others should view our Master Schedule here for information and to see where we need help and when. You can leave comments in the document. Thanks, and see you this weekend! | Harry Foley and Pickett Council joke around inside the TTL Jail, a free photo booth at the finish line of all PECs this weekend -- take your photo and salute law enforcement at Take the Lake! |
| Kids say the darnedest things.
When 11-year-old Ethan Stoll asked his parents last summer if they could all participate in Take the Lake, he was flatly turned down. But his ambition set his family on a journey that would have a dramatic effect on them all.
“It was a life changing event,” LaDonna Stoll said about what followed.
“My husband and I had both said ‘no,’ because we were not in any way, shape, form or fashion fit to do any of the personal endurance challenges,” LaDonna said. “That started a chain of events for us where we realized how unhealthy we were as parents, and that life was just passing us by.”
The Stoll’s wanted their children to grow up healthy, but they had just realized that might not
| When Ethan Stoll, 12, center, asked parents LaDonna and John Philip if they could participate in Take the Lake one year ago, they said no, believing none of them were fit enough. The family has changed their nutrition and lifestyles and plan to participate this weekend. Alex, 6, left, and Wesley, 9, right, will support them and all participants along the route.
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Click on the buttons below to see who you will be with this weekend. _If you do not see your name, simply register at your Personal Endurance Challenge. The Walk / Run and the Bike & Hike are expected to be pretty crowded, so arrive at least 30 minutes before start time.
If you believe you registered online and wonder why you don't see your name, well, there are any number of things you could blame it on, but please don't blame it on the friendly volunteers. Blame it on technology or blame it on the organizer, and work with us. We all hope to have beautiful days this weekend, and your smile will help.
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