Local Swimmers Participate in First-Ever MoPo Miler

The inaugural MoPo Miler did its best impression of a penguin plunge, but despite temperatures in the 50s and clouds in the sky, 37 hardy swimmers — many in wetsuits — willingly stroked through the chilly waters of Morses Pond Saturday morning.

“Actually the water’s warmer than the air,” said a shivering Tanya Roy, 52 and the first woman to complete the one-mile, open-water course. “I’m colder now that I’m getting out.”

The swim was non-competitive: Instead of a stopwatch, Wellesley Assistant Director of Recreation Matt Chin held a lap counter — he tracked the number of participants returning to shore, rather than the number of minutes elapsed.

But we sportswriters have a thing for results, so the informal winner was 39-year-old Matthew McKay, who finished in about 19 minutes.

“Nineteen minutes for a mile is moving,” remarked an impressed Jim Conlon, a Recreation Commission member.

McKay is an experienced open-water swimmer who says he swims three or four times per week — enough to plaster on a Speedo without scarring retinas all over the beach. He didn’t mind the water’s nippiness one bit.

“It’s a nice temperature,” said McKay, who will compete in the eight-mile Boston Light Swim Aug. 13. “For some people, it might be a little cool, but when you race, you’re working hard, it’s nice.”

In a category of her own was Julianne Ivey, 46, who navigated the entire course by backstroke.

“I do everything in backstroke,” Ivey explained. “I mean I was on the swim team (in high school); I did everything. But when I first learned how to swim, I really preferred to be on my back. And when I did my first triathlon in Boston, I did it in Boston Harbor, and I was like, ‘There is no way I’m looking at the bottom. Nope, nope, nope!’ So, I flipped over and was like, ‘This is all right.’”

Ivey credits her brother, who lives in Idaho, with getting her back into the sport. He pushed her to join him in the potato state for a two-mile race a couple years ago, and she’s kept swimming since.

Don’t expect Jan Kaseta, the town’s ebullient recreation director, to adopt the same hobby.

“You know what it is?” Kaseta posed, after completing the event’s half-mile alternative. “When you hit the water, and everybody’s going in at the same time, you’re taking in a lot of water. You feel that in your lungs and get short of breath right from the beginning.”

The MoPo Miler doubled as a fundraiser for the Glenna Kohl Fund for Hope, an organization dedicated to combatting melanoma. Kohl, a former lifeguard on Cape Cod, died of skin cancer at 26 in 2008. The Massachusetts Recreation and Park Association, of which Wellesley’s recreation department is a member, supports the fund.

Chin also noted the swim marked one of the summer’s first opportunities to show off Morses Pond.

“We were looking to do something down here, kind of a showcase,” he said. “We’ve been putting a lot of time and effort down here at Morses Pond: We did some of the bathrooms here, put in the volleyball court, new kayaks, paddleboats. We figure any sort of exposure for here (is good).”

Even on a dreary day, the pond did look great, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“The place is nice!” Ivey said, stretching the i in nice, for emphasis. “We didn’t join a pool this year, and I’m thinking I’ll have to come over here. I always thought it was sort of grody, but I just swam the whole thing and it wasn’t grody. The water’s clear!”

I’m not precisely sure what grody means, whether I’ve spelled it correctly, or whether there even is a correct spelling.

But I think we get the idea.