Great Australia Day Swim 2012 Report

This morning saw me take part in the Great Australia Day Swim at the Brighton Baths. The conditions were more or less perfect not too hot, not too sunny, not too windy.  After parking and walking down to the registration area  on the lawn in front of the Brighton Baths collect my bag of stuff, timing belt, swim cap and got marked, I noticed a few TA people and we started to hang out in front of the registration area chatting away in the true TA team spirit.  We heard that the 5km swim was won by a 13 year old in 1 hour and 2 mins. (very quick) In the group there was 2 that have done Ironman’s and they completed the Ironman swim in some 3.8km in around 1 hour 8mins and 1 hour 16 mins. So that was a very, very quick swim.

As my wave event was 11:10am  we started to change into our Wetsuits, drop our bags off and get a warm up swim in. Ryan (another TA team member) and I swam out to near the marina  docking area. The water was clear and warm. When we got further out we noticed a bit more of swell nothing too bad. We both felt good and headed back in the beach.

Ryan and I headed out along the pier to the marshalling area and waited to enter the water as required. After the first wave went off and 2^nd wave was called I jumped in (I was in the 3^rd wave) did another little swim caught up with another 3 TA guys in my group until we called up made our way over to the line. We wish each other good luck waited for the horn to sound and we headed off. It was the same old washing machine start with bodies everywhere. Finding space to get a good rhythm was hard, but after getting past the first can I expected to do a right turn, but the course was more curved then square but as we moved along the breakwater towards the end of the breakwater the swell which was on our left side was now on my tail and pushed us all along.

Got to the final can just past the breakwater we turned in towards the beach and then started to go past the opening of the marina we then turned right again and headed along the inside of the marina  then back into the beach. Once inside the marina I pushed hard to pass other swimmers. As we came into the beach my Tri training kicked in with a few dolphin dives and run up the beach to the line.

My Garmin said 25m 30s  but official time was 25m 31s.

After pulling the wetsuit down to my waste and saying g-day to another swimmer (Peter) from my gym a friend of my Ellie had come to watch and say g-day.

I loved every minute of it and want to another swim again soon. Perfect way to spend Australia Day. 

TA Team ready to swim