Last Saturday saw myself and TA crew down on the Mornington Peninsula for the 1.5KM Portsea Swim Classic. Some of us drove own and some of the crew rode down. We got down their nice and early to beat the traffic and get a park spot, the drive is some 100 minutes away from home. After collecting Ellie we started headed south on the way down we saw Steve who was riding down with his brother Mark. We pulled over and offered to take Steve’s bag with his swim gear down which he took me up on the offer.
The trip down was uneventful we headed down the new Peninsula freeway and got down to Sorrento in around 90mins, time for a coffee before doing the last 4kms down to Portsea just as we hit the National Park. On the way down Ellie and I spoke about if she should do today’s swim or not, her "A Race" is the Great Australia Day Swim the following weekend, we agreed to view the conditions and if she ok with it, she should do it. We had to stop at the visitors centre as the park was not opening until 8am, we bumped into JoJo (Another of the TA crew) who was down early to register for the swim. Once the park opened we made our way in, parked and then over to the rego tent and race pickup.
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| Ellie & JoJo at the Rego Tent |
After we all picked up our race kits we did a bit of a tour of the event had a look displays, the water, etc. and killed some time.
Shortly after 9am more of the TA crew started to arrive and before too long it was time to get ready and head over to the buses to be taken down to the start line. So we changed into swimwear / wetsuits (well put them half on) and head over towards the buses to run us down to the start line.
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| Steve and Mark |
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| TA Ironman Crew who rode down |
At the start line there was a little walk down the lane way to the beach. The beaches are just wonderful down on the Mornington Peninsula much nicer than the local beaches up in the city.
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| Down to the Beach |
After a little chatting and standing around it was time to get a warm up in before our wave starts we all seem to have our own warm ups, after a few photos then in the water we got for our respective warm ups and then a short walk down to the marshalling areas before the start beach.
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| TA Crew Group Pic |
I felt good and comfortable and ready for a good swim. Looking at the previous waves the water entry had a beach cove on one side and very shallow water start with some rocks. I made the call to let the pack go and then find my own space in.
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| Walk to the start line |
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| Start Line |
The horn sounded and off we went we went. The first 200m the water was not deep so it felt like it was going to be 1500m running event, but once the water got to my quads I dived in and off I went. At the first buoy I could feel the tide pulling and it made the swim light work and I went with the flow. Before you knew it I could see the finishing line turn past the final buoy and headed in. The swim was fast, very fast looking at my Garmin I registered a time of 15 minutes and 35 seconds. At first I thought it was wrong until I looked at the time of day and knew it was right. My Official time was 15 minutes and 15 seconds.
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| Swim finish line |
After the race I caught up with Ellie to see how her first race was and she loved every minute of the race.
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| Us at the finish |
A few of crew headed to the Portsea pub for a drink before we headed back to town. Over a beer someone pointed out a long way to come for just a short time to swim, but it was fun.
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| Drinks at the Portsea Pub |
This weekend it time the Great Australia Day Swim at Brighton Baths.
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