I SURVIVED....my first (sort of) open water swim

The weekend saw my first ever open water swim…I will admit that for some reason I have some pretty irrational fear of open water swimming so this for me was a pretty big deal.

Now when I say “open water” it was within the protected shark net of Coogee Beach but it was in the ocean and all the joys that comes with that (waves, sea weed, fish, current, etc)! My dad seconded me by sitting in his paddle ski and gliding alongside me attempting not to get too bored as we traversed back and forth between the side nets.

When I first got into the water I was a little tense (to say the least) and actually couldn’t wouldn’t put my face in the water properly to look down whilst swimming. This meant that I ended up dragging my legs way too low and putting under strain on my arms and neck. Now I can’t really type descriptively enough to say how I was swimming but needless to say it was if I was breathing on every stroke on the left and right (so at no point did I look down!).

After about 4 laps of this my dad pulled me up and gave me a bit of a pep talk (read stop being a sook you have 4 kms to swim at the end of the year and you will not manage like that!). So despite my complaints about feeling tired and enough he coaxed another two laps out of me swimming “properly” with a much better style (he even said so…high praise indeed!). On return to the starting point a suggestion was made (not mine) to get two more lengths in just to cap the swim off at an hour….gee thanks! Not one to say no to the old man I dutifully set off on two more lengths.

Need to work on my straight lines a little more!

I will say that my confidence was growing as I was swimming “properly”. I know the fear is irrational but it is one of the things that I need to get over as part of growing as a person/adult over this journey! Don’t tell him but I am grateful for his presence with me and his encouragement to swim better. A few more practise swims at Coogee and I may actually be ready for a real open water swim…who knows!

After the swim we had a very leisurely transition to the bikes. We got the ski out of the water, loaded it on the car, changed into bike shorts and tops, shoes et al had some water and then set off on what turned out to be a very disappointing little 8km loop. Not really conducive to getting any pace or comfort levels up.  

My boot became my transition station

As we freewheeled back into the car park it was about 40mins before the family was due to join us for breakfast so my dad headed off up the road for a better ride to stretch his legs and I changed into my runners and headed off down the 8km bike loop we had just done. It was definitely better as a run route than a ride route.

Pseudo-brick course

Managed to end the morning with breakfast with the family on a beautiful autumnal morning…not too bad a way to start a Sunday!

Pretty tough views on the run

Thanks for reading, hope your weekend was awesome too!