Who knows what would have happened if Jim Mellon, Tom Halford and Mina Poppas had the chance to swim together. Maybe Halford wouldn’t have taken a slight yet rocky and costly detour at the finish, or perhaps the competition would have spurred Mellon to swim even faster.
Who knows what would have happened if Jim Mellon, Tom Halford and Mina Poppas had the chance to swim together. Maybe Halford wouldn’t have taken a slight yet rocky and costly detour at the finish, or perhaps the competition would have spurred Mellon to swim even faster.
As it was, Halford and Poppas battled it out in the first heat at Sunday’s Richardson Roughwater Swim, while Mellon took off minutes later in the second and – supposedly – slower heat.
While Halford endured the bumpy ride at the end in his first attempt at the out-and-back 1-mile course off Richardson Ocean Park, Mellon simply went out and swam here just as he has so many times before.
“I had no idea,” the 54-year-old said of his winning time of 23 minutes, 55 seconds. “I’m surprised.”
He wasn’t the only one. After he finished, a race official called him to double-check on a few matters.
“He asked, “Did you start with the first wave?’” Mellon said. “No”
“He asked, “Did you do the whole course?”’ Mellon said. “Yes.”
He always does, though this was his first victory, and the 30th edition of the race was the first to be divided into two heats.
“I didn’t even know we were doing two waves until a minute before the race and they told me I had to wait,” said Mellon, the director of international student services at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. “It would have been fun to all have been able to swim at the same time.”
Poppas, primed to start her junior year at Waiakea, was third overall and the top wahine finisher in 23:57, 1 second behind Halford. Poppas, Halford and Noe Vargas – a former wahine winner and a Hawaii Prep grad – separated from the pack in the first heat, which was for ages 15-49.
“It was like that way until the last buoy, and then (Tom) and I started battling it out,” Poppas said. “Then (Tom) kind of went to the side, and I was like, “(The finish) is over here.”
She took took second last year in her first try at the Richardson swim, but she’s a natural for the event, focusing on long-distance freestyle events in the BIIF and club competitions. Poppas was a member of the Hilo team that recently repeated as the Hawaii Island Junior Lifeguard champions, and she competed on Oahu on Saturday as the Big Island took third at the state finals.
“I love the ocean and being in the water, so swimming competitively is really fun,” she said. “(Tom) and I were slamming against each other and our arms were tangling. It was good.
“Just competing with different people and unfamiliar faces, it was refreshing.”
One unfamiliar face was Halford, who lives in Manhattan Beach, Calif. Vacationing with his wife and two kids, the 37-year-old saw a taste of the islands midway though the race when a turtle swam beneath him. Almost back to the beach, he felt a taste of East Hawaii, turning left instead of right and scraping himself against rocks as he tried to leave the water.
“I don’t know if I want to say spastic,” he said jokingly.
“I thought I was winning, but it’s hard to say,” said Halford, who gave a nod to Mellon. “In my experience in ocean racing, experience trumps fitness, because so much is knowing what the swell is.”
In Southern California, Halford swims in ocean races that are pier to pier.
No rocks hazards there, he said, but, “you corner a pier and you want to make sure you don’t get thrown into a barnacle.”
After the race, Mellon was congratulated by a few if his fellow “mature” competitors. The message was clear: Thanks for representing the older set.
“I’ve lived here 20 years, and I’ve been doing this race ever since,” Mellon said. “I’ve done four or five Ironmans, open oceans swimming for many years, I swam in college.
“I like this race because it’s low key and a great place to swim. It’s great they have this for the community.”