Double Tahoe Length

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Double Tahoe Length - July 21-22, 2026

This swim started as a joke, but quickly became my favorite adventure yet. Last October, I asked Sarah Thomas what I needed to do to prepare for my 2026 North Channel swim. She responded that Tahoe would be good, but Ryan, her husband, thought a “double Tahoe length would be great training for the North Channel.” I responded “ha maybe….” And within 5 minutes of that conversation, I had emailed Tom “Reptile” Linthicum about a double Tahoe length. Within 15 minutes, I had booked it. I’m beginning to think I might be easily talked into things… Keep in mind, my longest swim up to this point was ~20 miles/9 hours and only 3 people had successfully completed the double (~42.6 miles). I had just signed myself up for a completely unknown, unfathomable, and frankly terrifying adventure. What could go wrong?

Around 7pm on July 21, I boarded Reptile’s boat with Sarah Thomas, the first and fastest person and only other woman to have done this double, and my mom, kayaker and medical expert extraordinaire. After a short boat ride from Tahoe City to the beach at Incline Village, Sarah lubed me up with Desitin and Lanolin (sun and chafing protection, respectively) while my mom put the kayak in the water. Before I really had time to register what I was doing, I had jumped off the boat and was swimming to the start. Standing on the beach in Incline Village just before sunset, I took a deep breath and told myself “I can do hard things. I like challenges” and waded into the water.

The first hour was magical. The water mirrored the incredible orange sunset that radiated behind my mom as she kayaked for me. Normally, the first hour of most swims are some of the longest 60 minutes of my life. But the first feed came before I knew it, arriving just as the last light was fading behind the mountains.

I rarely feel good for the first few hours of a swim. Maybe the conditions were just perfect, I hit my taper just right, or I had a bit of a wind push, but I don’t recall ever feeling this good during a swim. I had to remind myself I was in this for up to 24 hours so I needed to slow down. But while my swimming was going well, about 3.5 hours in, we encountered our first major issue: a pedal on the kayak had fallen off and my mom could no longer keep up with me. Sarah instructed me to follow the boat while my mom caught up. I don’t really know how long it took for my mom to catch us, but it was at least one full feed later (so at least 30-45 minutes). I later learned she had hand paddled the kayak back up to us and was exhausted from the effort.

Once my mom caught up to the boat, I could see the crew working on the kayak while I continued to swim. For me, this was the hardest part of my swim. I think my crew might agree. I was so worried about my mom, whom we had left in the middle of a lake in the dark. All ended up fine, but it took a bit to shake the worry. To be clear, I don’t think this cost me much (if any) time. It was just stressful to know your parent was stranded alone in the middle of a dark and unknown lake without a paddle.

At some point, they fixed the kayak and we switched kayakers (Sarah joined me for a few hours). In our haste to get started before sundown, we hadn’t properly illuminated the kayak, so visibility through the night was another mild issue. The moon was so bright that I thought someone was shining a spotlight on me and, at one point, I asked the crew to stop shining the light at me (oops). At another feed, I requested a dimmer for the moon. Eventually, I just decided to deal with the lighting issues, hoping the red light I was following was in fact on my kayak and not a reflection off the glassy water or the boat or something else. (I’m not a saint. I did yell at my mom about the lighting issue on two occasions… sorry mom. It wasn’t personal.)

Not being able to see wasn’t going to kill my swim — frankly I wasn’t going to let anything kill my swim, so I let it go by telling myself “everything will be fine when the sun comes up.” I decided to enjoy the incredible night sky. I could see the Milky Way through my Desitin-covered goggles. The Little Dipper shone so clearly right above the kayak that I nearly reached for it at one point during a feed. This is also when my new mashup of Coldplay’s Yellow and Florence + the Machine’s Shake It Out took over my thoughts: “Look at the stars and how they shine for you…and it’s always darkest before the dawn.” This will be released later this month so pre-save on your music app of choice today!

Before I knew it, a faint glow of light started to shine to my left and I could see! I COULD SEE! I genuinely thought I had a few more feeds, but minutes later (probably an hour or two actually but I lose track of time during a swim), I could see the rocks beneath me and knew I was close to shore. At 10 hours on the nose, I stepped out of the water onto the shore at Camp Richardson.

When doing a “multi-leg” swim or a “double,” a swimmer can spend up to 10 minutes on shore and has to reenter the water before 10 minutes is up. Sarah had laid out many solid food options alongside tinted goggles because daylight was coming, a new set of earplugs because I had lost mine in the night, and more lanolin to prevent chafing. I devoured a small tub of diced peaches (YUMMM) and a DIVINE strawberry PopTart, took a swig of water, put on my new goggles and ear plugs, and was ready to go! Unlike my “turn” during my double Lake Titicaca, I was actually excited to get back in the water. I didn’t need a pep talk. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to swim back and, so far, felt really good! If you were to ask me when I knew I could finish this swim, I would probably say at the turn. Maybe I was being overconfident, or maybe I decided to trust my training. I just had a feeling it would all be downhill after the turn. (TL;DR: It was not but that’s okay lol)

After 9 minutes on shore, I launched back into the water. For the first hour after the turn, my shoulders felt pretty stiff, but I was confident I could shake the stiffness. Sure enough, I felt invincible between hours 12 - 15 of this swim. I realize that is an insane sentence, but I trusted the work I had done leading up to this swim. Around hour 14, Sarah asked if I wanted a support swimmer. I said “If you want…” I’m not the most verbose human on the planet during swims… So she got in with me for an hour shortly after that. It was lovely to be able to swim with a friend, especially during a particularly lonely part of this swim.

Things started to go downhill a bit starting 16.5-17 hours in. I was getting a bit tired just as the wind started to pick up. Normally I like a headwind, but now I lacked the tricep strength to drive through the chop like I normally do. I found it a bit frustrating but wasn’t disturbed by it. When the wind shifted to a North-easterly tailwind around hour 19, I was grumpy. I looked over at the kayak and noticed a big piece of kelp? grass? something stuck in the propeller. Rather than tell Rhys (kayaker at this point) there was a piece of something in there and that was why he was having to pedal hard, I let him struggle. Okay, fine, I’m not that mean… I just figured he would figure it out eventually and I was too tired to communicate beyond a few words. During the next kayaker switch, they figured it out…

The last 2-3 hours were a slog. I continued to swim, but I couldn’t anchor my arms. I was slipping through the water and could hear my childhood swim coaches screaming at me to fix it. I knew I was going to finish – I wasn’t dying and wasn’t cramping – but I was frustrated that the wind waited 18+ hours to torture me. It was clearly picking up just to mess with me, right? My ankles, wrists, and hip flexors were all on fire. I could feel my back, face, and butt burning in the bright hot sun, and I have the battle wounds to prove it. I don’t need to dwell on it, but I wasn’t having all that much fun for the last 3 hours. The shore never seemed to get any closer. I just wanted to be done. Yet, I still wasn’t going to give up. I was just going to have to sit in the pain and exhaustion and press on. I kept telling myself “Just enjoy your last few hours in this lake. You may never swim here again. Treasure this water. One stroke at a time.”

When Sarah got back in for the third time, I knew I was close. One feed later, I saw shadows below me — rocks on the floor of this crystal clear lake. I looked up and saw boats, then a giant white buoy (I nearly swam headfirst into it), and then the beach I started from. The last few minutes, the waves shoved me toward the shore. And then my hands touched sand. A voice in the back of my head that sounded like my swim coach at age 11 told me to be an athlete and stand up or else I had to do this all again. So I stood up. My ankles, having not been flexed in almost 21 hours, were not confident in this plan. But I slowly wobbled onto dry sand – landing on the very beach I started from 20 hours and 54 minutes later.

I am forever grateful to my incredible crew: Tom “Reptile” Linthicum (pilot), John Grunstad (co-pilot), Rhys (observer/kayaker), Cathy (observer), Sarah Thomas (kayaker/support swimmer), and my mom, Jill Murphey (kayaker/crew chief). 21 hours is an eternity on a boat and they did not have an easy job. Frankly, what they did for me was harder than what I did. I was fine and happy as a clam floating in crystal clear 70F water. They did the hard job.

Thanks to Tony Lillios, who boated out to the middle of Lake Tahoe in the middle of this swim to bring the crew snacks. And then Tony and his lovely daughter greeted us at the finish in Incline Village and shuttled me and Sarah back to our Airbnb. I only just met Tony this week, but he quickly became one of my favorite people. I am so excited to hear about his Tahoe length in a few weeks!

Special thanks to Sarah, who led the way for this swim. As the first person to do this swim, having her on the boat was incredibly special. If anyone knows how to complete this swim, it is Sarah. Having a friend who was willing to swim with me and support me, even when she had her own swim later this week, was monumental. I am so grateful to have such a generous training partner and friend, who just so happens to also be the open water G.O.A.T.

And, of course, I need to thank my biggest supporter, bestest friend, kayak machine, and most devoted momma in the world. I spend a lot of time during swims thinking about how lucky I am to have my mom by my side. She’s with me every stroke, watches me like a hawk, and knows what I need often before I need it. She is my biggest inspiration and the only reason I can do this silly little swimming thing. It is no small feat of endurance that she was able to kayak 11+ hours of this swim while managing my feeds and making sure I was completely okay the whole time. And she looked like E.T. pedaling her kayak in front of the moon across Lake Tahoe.

Learnings:

Time passes much slower during the day than during the night.
Less is more when lighting a kayak. And all lights need to be equal brightness.
Consider the fact that you might not be able to see the buttons on your bottles at night before using bottles with buttons. I struggled with opening my bottles on a few feeds and nothing makes you feel less like a functional adult than not being able to feed yourself.
Swimming 21 hours is hard, but still easier than writing your PhD dissertation, which I have now neglected for a full week oops
My new feeds worked! I could eat after swimming! It’s a miracle! Thank you, Infinit (seriously, I’m not kidding about this!)
Lake Tahoe is the most gorgeous lake ever and was incredibly nice to me for about 18.5 hours. We won’t talk about the last 2.5 hours, thanks.
Surround yourself with people who believe in you and will go out of their way to make your dreams come true. All you have to do is trust they have your back and do the work.

Double Length of Lake Tahoe

Incline Village to Camp Richardson to Incline Village (N-S-N): ~42.6 miles/68.5 km.

Lap 1: ~10 hours (N-S directional record);

Lap 2: 10:54; Total: 20:54 (Tahoe Double Length Record)

Double Lago Titicaca

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lake Titicaca Double Zemaitis Route (Copacabana to Isla del Sol and back) - March 18, 2026

In 4th grade, I won my class geography bee by correctly answering that Lake Titicaca is the highest elevation lake in South America. This sparked a lifelong dream to merely visit this incredible lake. At 12,500 ft, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in this world and has significant cultural meaning as the homeland of the Incas. 8 year old Corey could never have imagined swimming in it, let alone swimming her longest swim ever in the magical Lake Titicaca.

Yesterday was a dream come true, but not without challenges. The first 15km were some of the hardest swimming conditions I’ve ever faced. With unpredictable, rather big chop, and water temps around 60.4F, this fresh water swimmer was not having a fantastic time. For me, altitude feels like heaviness in the arms—and I certainly felt that for the first half. I was fully ready to quit at the turn, recognizing it would still have been an amazing accomplishment to swim one way (only like 7 or 8 people have done so). Physically I felt fine, but mentally I was not in a fantastic place.

After a conversation with Ryan Willis at the turn, he convinced me that I needed to at least start swimming back and see how I felt. I don’t know if it was some magic from the temple del sol (a 1400s Incan temple located at the turn/one-way finish), the pep talk from Ryan, or some good snacks, but I felt better after the turn. Conditions died down and I was swimming faster than I had for the first 4.5 hours. And the sluggishness was gone!

I told myself I just had to make it back to the tree. And then I just had to make it 3 feeds beyond the tree. And then Sarah told me I only had 7km left. “I can do 7km.” I told myself. And then the sun came out, a blessing. And then I saw the white hotel—my landing spot. My exit was ugly. A combination of extremely rocky and debris-covered beaches make the act of standing after 9.5 hours challenging. But wobbling onto shore, I saw the wonderful faces of new and old friends. I was just grateful I stuck it out.

Big thanks to my crew Sarah Thomas, Ryan Willis, and pilot Max. Thanks to Joe and John Zemaitis for organizing this adventure and pioneering this route.

A huge congrats to everyone who swam this week. This swim is incredibly challenging. From duck itch, to altitude, to cold water, to unpredictable chop, we all had to endure a lot (even swimming one way). It’s a massive accomplishment to swim in this lake at all. I already mentioned my crew, but I am ever so grateful for the mentorship and care both Sarah and Ryan have provided me this trip. They have kept me hydrated and safe. They are special people. And I’m glad to have them in my life.

Unofficially the first double crossing (of this route) of Lake Titicaca. ~31km in 9.5 hours. Officially my longest swim ever.

Lap 1: 4:32:02 (fastest one way, Copacabana to Isla del Sol)
Turn time: 7:07
Lap 2: 4:51:29
Cumulative Time: 9:30:39, First and fastest double

Lake on Corey Murphey

Double Tahoe Length

Double Tahoe Length - July 21-22, 2026

Learnings:

Double Lago Titicaca

Lake Titicaca Double Zemaitis Route (Copacabana to Isla del Sol and back) - March 18, 2026