Olympics

Beach Lifeguards compete. Did you know that? Not many people realize that aside from keeping our beaches safe and happy, we also take our life guarding skills to the next level by challenging other agencies in the region in LIFEGUARD OLYMPICS WOO! Every 2 weeks on the Outer Banks, the agencies of Corolla, Duck, Kill Devil Hills, and Nags Head collaborate at one of our respective beaches to put on a showing of our impressive life guarding skills. It is a hoard of extremely tan, blonde, fit beach lifeguard, seething in testosterone induced competitiveness. Quite a sight indeed, especially for high school beach week babes looking to get their fill of some athletic bronzed beach bros.

Each week, 2 or 3 events are held at a different beach. The events range from a beach 2k (barefoot in the surf), paddle board races, line pull (a "victim" swims out, a rescuer swims out with a line out to the victim, 2 tow-ers on shore pull them in), paddle board relays, run swim run, distance swim, Iron Guard (run, swim paddle), and the most exciting event of all is beach flags. Beach flags is like musical chairs; about 20 guards lay in the sand facing away from 19 flags with their heads on their hands. The starter calls out "You are now at the hands of the starter. Heads up. Heads down. TWEET!" You must get up and sprint as fast as you can in the soft sand to grab a flag, and there is always 1 less flag then there are competitors. It gets intense; the last few end in diving, scratching, sand burn, and hurt egos. I'm proud to say that Sylvia, our freaking AWESOME boss and mother of adorable Olivia won beach flags against 18 year old cowgirls when she was about 4 months pregnant. Coolest woman alive.

Not to brag (but bragging will inevitably follow),but Corolla has been the Outer Banks champions for the past 10 years. And there are those who think we strictly recruit college athletes to COR...but we don't. It just seems as though the best people know where the best place to go is, and through connections and Corolla's reputation it has built up an incredible group of lifeguards. Everyone has their specialty, and a some of us (the incredible Rachel) are just freaking beastly at everything. It's fun to compete, and also kind of "silly" (as Meggin would put it), to see us all out on the beach in the evenings diving in the sand for flags. Beyond the Outer Banks competitions, there are Regional events, and there are even National competitions, where the best of the best head out to awesome places to show their life guarding stuff. We send quite a few people to Regionals every summer and we usually end up doing extremely well for how small our agency is.

Last night, we competed at Duck in the 2k and the Paddle race. Chelsea from Corolla took first in the 2k, Ross took 2nd for the men. Bless their souls- the beach 2k is a SUCKY 1.2 mile sprint in the mushy sand that induced vomit status in the last .2 miles. Then we placed 2-8 in the men's paddle, and Rachel won the female paddle. Yours truly made it to the finals of the paddle this year, placing 7th overall and have incredibly sore shoulders from paddling for what seemed like 17 miles in the dark oceanic abyss. Well, looks like Corolla's reign of triumph will be continuing for Summer '10.