After entering on the day and looking out at the grey choppy sea and grey sky I was thinking 'hmmm is this a good idea' I had also had the thought of doing the 2km swim rather than the 1km , but stuck to the 1km as it was the BAR event... I'm very glad I did.... There were surprisingly few club members present, although I know a some people were off marshalling for Olympic preparation events. In fact there weren't that many people entered at all...a lot of DNS maybe because of the weather.
So it was left to Colin, Andrew, Jules and me to share out the points.. Jules being very happy she was guaranteed 10 points and wanting to know how much of the swim she actually had to do to get them!
I wasn't at last year's event which I had heard a lot about; especially the strong current against you on the return leg and the choppy waves making it a lot lot harder than it should have been. So I was mentally prepared for a struggle on the way back. The start was a run into the waves and out to a buoy before turning round it and West. I dived in a bit early as after a quite a few strokes I noticed Jules was still bounding through the waves beside me! I must learn that dolphin diving technique for going through waves...anyway I got behind Colin and drafted him to the buoy , everything ok so far and then round the buoy and I had no idea where Colin was anymore. There are more important things on my mind, such as the waves being a lot bigger than they looked like from the shore. I found the out leg really hard, with the waves picking me up and throwing me down... at one point I was feeling quite sea sick due to the swell and the amount of water I was swallowing. So I stopped bilateral and just breathed on the one side which was better as I took on less water. At one point a wave just left my arms flailing out of the water and just left me static trying to spot anyone else above the waves to see where to go.
At this point I was still thinking that the return leg was going to be worse. I hadn't yet worked out the current was going the other way from last year. My joy at not having entered the 2km was lost in a struggle to survive the waves. Finally I spotted the turn around buoy and headed back and everything became a lot easier! The waves were now carrying me along with them and I really started to shift, a wonderful feeling after the battle outwards! So I regained my form and chased down a swimmer ahead and suddenly there was the finish. Navigating round the groynes I sprinted up the beach with encouragement from Colin to run... once a triathlete always a triathlete! He later told me I overtook 3 people from the water edge to the finish line :) thats 2 more than I did in the swim.
So all 4 of us finished and I think we all found it a struggle, I know Jules and Andrew did, Colin maybe less as he came in 8th overall! The times were surprisingly fast, at least I think mine is ...last time I swam a 1km sea swim it was 18 mins and that was one direction with the current, this time it was 15 mins which I find hard to believe given the battle outwards but I assume they got it right!
So the 1,2,3 of MTSC men was Colin (8th), Trevor(20th) and Andrew(25th) and Jules(34th) was 1st woman :)
Writing this now I'm tempted to say it was a great swim , its amazing what the human mind is capable of forgetting, as really I found it pretty hellish. Halfway through I was seriously thinking I might not be able to finish the event if the return leg was going to be the same or worse as the outwards leg. Thank you for letting me forget how bad it was... bring on the next one!
Author: Trev Moore