New Year and Sorrento 2km Open Water Swim Report

Ok it’s now 2013 and it’s a New Year, as I type this blog up, I notice it’s only some 36 days until my next Olympic Tri (Geelong Mutli-Sport Event). I used the previous Xmas Period to put some training in. My Tri Club runs an event call Hell Week, Basically, Bike, Run and Swim all in one day. It’s more about completing the distance not at a fast pace.

  

I had to work during this period so I had plan my hell week a little differently, lucky Coach Sarah arrange the working days for a 5:40am start which allowed those who had to work to get everything done. I managed to  get in around 55km on the bike, 3-4km off the bike and around 500m-700m swim in.

On the other days I was able to put in a longer ride and swim. Over all I was happy with Hell Week, nothing sore or a problem afterwards.

I also signed up for 2km Open Water Swim at Sorrento my first real long distance open water swim of the season. Few from the club have signed up for this event as well.

Race Day - I got up earlier and did my standard breakie routine, Sorrento is approx a 90min drive from home plus being a Saturday, Holiday Session and a nice day traffic was going to be a little mad. We headed down the coast and got there around 7:30 with the registration tent not opening until 8am we decided to go for a look around Sorrento and get a coffee. Not much open for a beach town at 7:30am. We managed to get a coffee and wait for the registration tent to open, I picked up my race kit, t-shirt, etc and caught up with Steve on of the TA crew down for the race. We listened to the race briefing then a quick bathroom break before heading off to what the Novice Race (600m), on the way down to the start I ran into Ryan Mannix,  who run the Triathlon Level 1 Coach course, we had a chat about coaching, racing, etc. wished each other good luck and head off to the start.

The novice race was fairly quick we managed to get back to the finish line just in time to see the winners cross the line.

Novice Start

We head back to the car to pickup my gear bag then headed down to the start line which was a 20minish walk.

Once there we had some 30mins to the start, so I changed into my wettie, Pam’s Hubbie Sam took a photo of us all before we all did a warm up swim before the race. 

TA Crew at the start line

At 11:10am, we all stood at the start line waited for 11:!5 our start time, the siren sounded and way we went out to the first buoy then a turn to the left and out to open sea. I found this no very fast almost like the water was keeping me steady but I did manage to keep moving. At the third buoy the turn towards the finish line it felt very fast and at the same time being pulled out towards the middle of the bay. I was some 10m away from the buoy line but I made the call to aim for the final turn buoy towards the beach. As I came up on the final buoy I found myself way off course I turned towards the beach and headed in. I found the shore line and run into the finish line. Mr Garmin said my time was 29m 57s but swam another 250m. Oh well, I was happy with that time I did manage to catch up in the swim some other TA members in the previous group. Meg said she thought I had swam some 4mins quicker than she did as she had only been on the beach for minute or so.

Coming into the finish line

Great event certainly I will be back next year and this is a real shoot in the arm for Portsea and Geelong.  I am yet to make a call if I will race at Elwood next weekend or not.