So, today was the first "race" of my training program, and involved a trip for the family and me to Canberra our nation's capital. When we got in the car yesterday I was suffering a full blown cold, stuffed up, sweating, and suitably grumpy! On the way I made the first mistake of the weekend - deciding to stop midway through the girls' sleep. Stupid, stupid boy. They both woke, and we suffered three hours of whinging kids before finally arriving in Canberra. We had a lovely afternoon with the in-laws, played with a puppy, and went for a quick swim in the pool, really feeling like we were on holiday.
Then the evening reconnaissance mission across the city and my nerves hit! Driving across the city, and out, it quickly hits you that almost the whole city is surrounded by water........lake burley-griffin. After about half an hour of wondering where the sat nav was taking us we ended up at scrivener dam - the far end of the lake. Duly laid out in front of us was a string of large yellow buoys. This was good, as at least the risk of having a marital through navigation stress / failure was greatly reduced! My mission for Sunday was to swim 9km solo from one end of the lake to the other, being navigated and fed along the way by my lovely wife in a kayak.
As it was, it was a great day. Several Vlad-swimmers, and three from the Bold & Beautiful (Collie, Alex and Me) were there. Only about 50 people swam it, most in teams, so just being there seemed like a privilege and despite my sniffles I was excited and ready to get going. We all gathered at about 7am, and it quickly became apparent that two of the vlad-swimmers were just arriving at the start. But, not by car, they had swum through the early hours from the finish to the start! So 9km, then another 9km back! These guys (legends - Ally and Wayne) are also training for the channel next year (August). Brilliant for them, and a great effort. They ended p beating me by 1 minute on the race (I took 3hrs 2 mins), but I spent most of the swim just thinking about how the channel is roughly equivalent to four laps of this swim (34km). Well, if the channel was perfectly flat with no wind and no tide it would be.!!!!!!........oh my God, what I have I taken on......this is crazy!
Anyway, as Vlad said to me afterwards, "this is only the first step of many on this journey". On the bright side, I swam with a cold, finished, swam reasonably well, didn't shout at my wife (or vice-versa), and got a small trophy for my efforts! So, onwards and upwards. Day off tomorrow (on Vlad's instruction), so enjoying a glass of rouge and some choccie tonight!
Then the evening reconnaissance mission across the city and my nerves hit! Driving across the city, and out, it quickly hits you that almost the whole city is surrounded by water........lake burley-griffin. After about half an hour of wondering where the sat nav was taking us we ended up at scrivener dam - the far end of the lake. Duly laid out in front of us was a string of large yellow buoys. This was good, as at least the risk of having a marital through navigation stress / failure was greatly reduced! My mission for Sunday was to swim 9km solo from one end of the lake to the other, being navigated and fed along the way by my lovely wife in a kayak.
As it was, it was a great day. Several Vlad-swimmers, and three from the Bold & Beautiful (Collie, Alex and Me) were there. Only about 50 people swam it, most in teams, so just being there seemed like a privilege and despite my sniffles I was excited and ready to get going. We all gathered at about 7am, and it quickly became apparent that two of the vlad-swimmers were just arriving at the start. But, not by car, they had swum through the early hours from the finish to the start! So 9km, then another 9km back! These guys (legends - Ally and Wayne) are also training for the channel next year (August). Brilliant for them, and a great effort. They ended p beating me by 1 minute on the race (I took 3hrs 2 mins), but I spent most of the swim just thinking about how the channel is roughly equivalent to four laps of this swim (34km). Well, if the channel was perfectly flat with no wind and no tide it would be.!!!!!!........oh my God, what I have I taken on......this is crazy!
Anyway, as Vlad said to me afterwards, "this is only the first step of many on this journey". On the bright side, I swam with a cold, finished, swam reasonably well, didn't shout at my wife (or vice-versa), and got a small trophy for my efforts! So, onwards and upwards. Day off tomorrow (on Vlad's instruction), so enjoying a glass of rouge and some choccie tonight!