A sunny but windy day greeted us for the 17.25km swim at Balmoral today. In order to stick to my eating plan for the swim the morning started 2 hours before; a large bowl of muesli, 2 sea sickness tablets and 2 Beroccas.
The water conditions that greeted us were bumpy and toward the end of the swim it was rather choppy. Those conditions are great to swim in as i find i stay far more alert than just going through the motions when it is flat.
The first 10km flew by quite quickly and before i knew it we were into the business end. I love this part of the swim because this is where I see all that hard work in the pool really pay off.
Because a few of us decided to go for a swim up to the Spit I totally messed up my food schedule. I was running close to empty and it was lucky Dean was there with a smile and a spare bottle of Endura that could get me back back to my food...life saver mate!
The last lap was challenging, the weather was turning and the chop increasing. It was time to put the head down, sink the body a fraction and grind out the last 1250m. After turning the headland it was nice to finally get some runners into the beach. After 5hours 10 min of swimming, 30 min of eating/chatting and 20 minutes of looking for a lost swimmer the swim was done, with lots of petrol still in the tank (after i got back to my food that is)!
