Arrival in Rapperswil
An Awesome weekend away
Glad I was not facing Hurricane Bertha in Blighty
The time had arrived for me to head off to Zurich - then to Rappperswil - to take part in the 27th Self Transcendance swim up lake Zurich. After a pretty mixed week, work was a bit of a nightmare, made better by the evenings spent with my parents, who are over here on holiday. Friday morning came and Audra - my support crew - and I managed to catch our cab and get to the Airport on time. After not being able to check in online the night before, it was a bit frantic; it seems that noone had been able to, so we were queueing for about an hour. I thought that went out with the arc! We finally checked in, we had our boarding passes, so now on to the next challenge of the day - to find some breakfast. Sufficiently fed and watered, we found out where the gate was and then proceeded to ask one of the airport information guys how far it was to the gate we were leaving from. He said about 25 minutes walk - I thought he was joking but, after a 15 minute jog across Heathrow terminal 1, we finally arrived hot, sweaty, and out of breath at the gate.
Arrival in Switzerland was typically swiss with NO hitches. The information given to us was superb and tickets to our final destination purchased, we headed off to Zurich Burkiplatz (the ferry port). On the advice of an open water swimming friend, we decided to catch the ferry to Rapperswil to locate the landmarks that were, hopefully, going to be useful to me in two days time. The weather was great and the sun was out and after a very insightful 2 hours - yes, 2 hours!!! I figured if it takes 2 hours by boat, How bloody long is it going to take me to swim it?
Rapperswil is a gorgeous little village and we had barely got off the boat when the bags were forgotten about and the cameras were out. There was a lot of Wow!, stunning! This is amazing! look at the mountains, OOh, look at the castle etc. etc. About half an hour after landing and taking more photos than your average tourist takes on a week holiday, we decided it was time to go and find our hotel. Fortunately it was about 10 minutes walk from the harbour.
Afternoon in Rapperswil
After checking in at the hotel, it was now time to try and have an afternoon kip - we had both not had a great night sleep the night before. Sadly, we - rather I, was too excited to sleep so it was off to explore. The old town is stunning and we headed up to the castle to see the view. It took us about an hour to get up there - usually about a 10 min walk, as there was SO MUCH TO SEE on the way up there. It was well worth the trip up there but sadly the view across the countryside was obscured by the bloody huge mountains all around the place.
After spending a fair amount of time up at the castle soaking in the sunshine and also the amazing views of the snow capped mountains in the distance, which blocked the real view of anything past them, we then went down the other side of the mountain to the Lido to get the lay of the land. This was the place where we were going to start swimming from. Lidos in Zurich are generally an area of the lake that is cordoned off for swimming. They range from the very simple to the pretty ornate manicured areas like the one where I finished the swim in Zurich.
As you can see in the above photo, the lake is stunning and that is where we started our swim from. As the weather was so agreeable, we decided to go back to the hotel and fetch our costumes to go for a dip in the lido. So off we went, dropped off the cameras - thank god for digital, if we had to take as many photos as we did on film, we would have had to take out a loan to develop it.
Audra got in slowly and was a bit cold and then I just had to go and practice my diving off the 3m board that they have there - you never know when I might get a call from Tom Daly or the likes to be a synchronised diving partner.
After about half an hour of wallowing (and staying off the diving boards - I might have got a bit more adventurous and done myself a mischief before the swim!) We got out and headed back to the hotel only to be interupted by the most amazing storm that came across the lake. The sky was astounding and the vibrant colours were out of this world. We just sat on the waters edge watching the rain roll in on the left and the sun setting to the right of the clouds. It was an amazing way to end what had already been a wonderful start to my swim weekend. After this it was time to go and find some food. With all the excitment of the day, food had been a bit of a forgotten past time so we were both hungry enough to eat the leg off any low flying duck. A Fine Italian, on the edge of the harbour fitted the bill and were happy to assist us in parting with some money.
Saturday
After a good night sleep we were up and raring to go with thoughts of tourist stuff to do and the like but we just opted for a bit of last minute shopping for supplies for my swim and also a little wander around the town again to visit places that we had not found the day before. We were not disappointed, as around every corner there was something new to see and more shops to relieve us of our money. Rapperswil is often referred to as the "Town Of Roses" with no less than 15000 plants of 600 different varieties in three main Rose gardens and throughout the village. We came across a wedding at the castle at the top; it started with a procession that headed through the entire village with people adorned with giant cowbells and a leading whip cracker followed by the wedding party. There was a lot of stuff left undone as we ran out of time.
In the afternoon we headed off to the registration and race briefing of the swim. Here we had photos taken for our certificates and were given caps, t-shirts and general instructions and more healthy food. The organisers are very much into their Health and meditation and eating properly so there were no unhealthy snacks. After this the race briefing took place and we found out all that we needed to know about what was in store for us the following morning.
As it was a lovely day again, We headed back to the hotel and dropped off our kit and checked on Facebook. This was quite interesting as I got a message from a friend on facebook who had seen some of my posts. She had a friend who knew of me and my past dalliances with open water swims. He had just moved to Rapperswil from Yorkshire and wanted to meet me so I messaged back that I would be at the Lido. Off we went again to the lido - by now, the fixation on photographing EVERYTHING had abated enough for us to leave the cameras and phones and all technology in general at the hotel. We actually managed to survive about 2 hours without checking facebook or photgraphing a single thing!
Whilst sunning myself on one of the sun decks in the lake, thinking about the adventures of the following day, a Gentleman swam up to the deck and, recognising me by my trade mark orange budgie smugglers introduced himself as Martyn Webster - The guy I had been liaising with on FB. We spent a while chatting on the sundeck about marathon swimming in general. Really Nice Guy and I am sure someone whom I will keep in touch with and probably visit again.
The sun was starting to set so we headed back to the hotel for some dinner, after which it was down to the serious stuff of mixing my turbo juice, packing the bags of food supplies and preparing for a 4.30am start on Sunday. I must admit that this time I think I still overcatered but not by about 100 times - like I did when I swam the channel. I blame my mother for that sort of overcatering and she was not with me this swim
The day of the swim.
I did not get a hell of a lot of sleep but this time it was different. I was not nervous, I was not anxious, I was just not tired. I placed no expectations on myself at all. My only hope was that I was able to get to the end - at some point during the day - with all my limbs still attached to my body. I think the lack of expectations really helped me to relax. I know that I can get by on very little sleep. So after about 2 interrupted hours, I was awake well before my alarm so busied myself with final preparations and a bit of reading. At 5.30am we had a quick bite to eat and collected our ice packs for the cooler bag from the kitchen before grabbing our three - yes THREE bags and took a stroll to the lido.
The plan was, get to the lido, locate your support boat, grease up and get ready, roll call then Solo swimers start at 7 am and teams start at 7.15am.
Breakfast and coffee was being served at the lido and then we had to go and locate our boats. This is where the competitive spirit of these swimmers really showed through. The boats for the 40 soloists ranged from a 30 Ft sunseeker style luxury cabin cruiser to a single man kayak --and EVERYTHING in between, including sail boats. It was now a guessing game as to which swimmer got which boat and all the chuckles and laughter and banter that went with this comical excercise as swimmers found their boats
We were lucky enough to be allocated a very lovely couple who had a pleasure boat with a suntanning Deck on it and seats and everything. Audra would not have to kayak up the entire length of the lake - having never kayaked before. How lucky was she??? Marc and Janine were lovely people and they had a great boat. Also, ironically, they were also suckers for punishment. At the same event a year earlier, they had piloted for another swimming friend of mine, who was also born in Zimbabwe and now lives in South Africa - Roger Finch.
The boats and the crew all jumped in their boats and headed out into the lake whilst the swimmers all jumped into the lido and gathered behind the floating bariccades at the shallow edge. The start gun went and we were off.
It took about 30 to 40 minutes to find my boat and link up with it as all the boats were waiting for their swimmers and joined them as they went past. As mentioned earlier, I was not at all nervous this time. I just got on with the task at hand, settled into my stroke at about 65 strokes per minute. When I finally met up with my boat and got to my first feed, which was an hour in, I looked around and there were only about 5 boats. I asked where all the others were? I was then told that they were behind me and I was currently sitting in about 6th place. I was a bit shocked as I really did not expect this. The feeding went well and I was liking the fact that if I swallowed water I did not feel like throwing up.
So what does a Marathon Swimmer do to occupy themselves?
The swim progressed, the weather was great, water temperature was about 20 degrees, a bit of light rain in the first couple of hours and then slightly overcast for the rest of the day. As I was lying in 6th place, I decided that I would alter my stroke. My stroke rate was not slowing down so I then started swimming with a completely open hand - the effect of this was that I was not putting as much strain on my shoulders. At least that was my practical mind telling me that - less surface area pulling = less stress and less propulsion- doesn't it? I knew that between 4 and 6 hours the little signs of my body getting pissed off with me would start to show themselves so anything I could do now to limit such manifestations would be good.
I actually switched my stroke quite regularly. Single side breathing to bilateral breathing. Shorter strokes with a higher head position to longer strokes with a very low head position. Watching other swimmers near me to monitor my speed in comparison. Songs in my head - thank you ChrisTurner - your bloody hatred for the Happy song struck a chord in my head and that bloody song permeated my every thought for a while so there was a fair amount of mental energy spent trying to get that rubbish out my head. I had a swimmer slightly ahead of me and I was concentrating on maintaining speed with him. After 2 hours I was very comfortable and happy with my progress. My feeding plan was working and Audra seemed confident to do the right thing.
After about three hours, My pilot and helper came over to me and said that they were going in for a comfort break, "was I happy to carry on on my own?" I was happy with that, so off they went and I was on my own for about 30 min. During this time, the race umpires came up to me and chided me for not staying with my boat. We should stay with the boat at all times.
My boat finally caught up with me and we carried on. My first milestone that I was sort of aiming to hit before the cutoff time was Meilen. A village along the shores that was 14.3km from the start. I mention cutoff as, this is the first of two points that you have to reach before a certain time. If you do not, the organisers will pull you out - as it is unlikely you will reach the end before 7pm. The cutoff at Meilen was 5.5 hours. I managed to get to it in just on 4 hours. At this point I was happy, I had gotten to just over half way and I was still feeling great. No niggles, all body parts in tact and working correctly, feeding going well, this was a huge boost for me as this is one point I wanted to get to within the time limit.
At Meilen, there is also a ferry that crosses the Lake. We stopped for about 2 minutes while I fed and stretched and waited for the ferry to go past. Then we were off again. Another boat had caught us up in this time so I trudged on with them. it is nice to have another swimmer to gauge your speed on from time to time. Another hour in and another feed. And, the first signs that my body was rebelling. My elbow started to ache on my right arm and my shoulders were starting to get a bit fed up with me. The rest of my body was fine. I changed my stroke again, so I was not really using my right arm as I sliced my hand through the water rather than pulled it flat through the water. This eased the pain in my elbow.
6 hours and another feed, but this time, my team needed another loo break - what were they drinking on that boat??? This time I opted to go to shore with them and just tread water and do some stretching in the water whilst they went to the loo. I did see Janine coming back to the boat with a bottle of bubbly- now I know why there were so many loo breaks. If the truth be told, I was not complaining, I was now about 20km into the swim and my body was still working, I had some Ibuprofen for my elbow and shoulders and they were feeling much better.
After this 10 - 15 minute respite I was ready to do battle with the last 6 km. There was only one problem, 3 boats had passed me. Again, I was not too worried about it as I had achieved more than I had hoped for already. I did however manage to storm past at least two of them, my stroke rate had gone up to about 72 per minute.The next cut off point was at 21.8km and I reached this milestone with ease.
Now, at about this time, we reached the last headland, afterwhich we could see the finishline 5km ahead of you, straight across the bay whilst the shoreline curved away from the headland into a bay. This is when I learnt that NOT ALL KILOMETRES are equal. Some have 1000m in them and others seem to have at least 3000m in the; that last 5km was probably the hardest stretch of the whole lot. and it seemed to take me as much time to swim that stretch as it had taken me to do the 20km prior to it. It did not help that there was a fair amount of pleasure boats on the water so waves were coming from all directions. On these pleasure boats were some very interesting characters, some, quite pleasing on the eye. I just had to adjust my stroke again and do some head up breast stroke as I was getting really tired now!!
Anyway, at about 23km, I had a bit of a tiff with my support crew! She enlightened me to the fact that I had been in the water 7 hrs 10 min but I was convinced that it was more like 8 hours 10 min. I know her powers of time keeping are pretty rubbish. This is when I learnt that Women are Always Right. (What am I saying???) The boat left me for a while and went ahead and I was wandering what they were doing. I carried on regardless and then, out of nowhere, this mermaid appeared out of the swell beside me. I looked at her and thought, Mermaids do not where orange goggles, and those Orange goggles look suspiciously like my spare pair. Upon further inspection I realised that Audra had decided it was time to take a dip and join me for a while. We swam together for about 15 minutes then she went off back to the boat to get me some more feed.
During these last 5 km I went straight across the bay. I then noticed another swimmer much closer to the shore and it was now my goal to at least beat him. there was also a swimmer about 200m ahead of me and there was a mental battle raging in my head, Should I push myself to try to beat them? against the thoughts that I have done more than I had hoped for already so just take it easy? Which do I do?
I chose the latter as I really needed to do a lot of heads up breast stroke at this point trying to "dodge" all the pleasure craft.
I was nearly there
That was the finish. Those sundecks were quite a distraction but we managed to get past them onto the finishing steps. The First thing that happens when you get up those stairs is they put a garland and a medal round your neck and thrust a microphone in your direction and ask lots of questions. A bit hard when you have just finished an 8 hour 20 min swim, overcome with emotion and trying to stand upright without falling over, there is lots of clapping and the atmosphere is pretty electric. Sadly my support team were not there to see me get out as they had to go and park the boat around the corner.
Then it was just a matter of resting, enjoying the atmosphere and getting a massage and some beer and just chilling in the sun whilst the others finished. All in all it was not a bad way to spend a Sunday. I know I would NEVER have gotten here without all the friends and Family that I have, that pretty much do everything for me, all I have to do is a bit of swimming. I only had one support crew with me but I had many more sending me good positive vibes, without which, I would never be able to achieve anything that I do.
I sat on the grass in quiet contemplation asking the question, "How is it that someone like me, from a small country in Africa, without much focus and drive can be privileged enough to get a podium position- ahead of an Austrian with the name MAX BEER, in one of open waters bigger swims. And find myself in such a beautiful place surrounded by such amazing people?????
The answer is------- MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
All of whom play a key, pivotal role in making me the person I am
So where to Now?
Well, it is nearing the end of the season and I might do a few smaller swims and pol swims but I already have my sites on my Big swim for 2015 and I see that the entries have jsut opened.
SCAR swim in Arizona. Four lakes in four days through the lakes in Salt River Canyon.
This poses various challenges which I need to start working on. Firstly i will be looking for sponsorship so if anyone knows of anyone, or company who might be interested then please email me. the next challenge is the training. It is right at the start of the Open water season in Europe. There are very few lakes around to swim in during the Winter so I will be spending a LOT of time in the pool over the next 8 months, I do not like them at the best of times but if needs must? There will be very little races between now and May next year.
I will keep people up to date on tis blog and facebook
After spending a fair amount of time up at the castle soaking in the sunshine and also the amazing views of the snow capped mountains in the distance, which blocked the real view of anything past them, we then went down the other side of the mountain to the Lido to get the lay of the land. This was the place where we were going to start swimming from. Lidos in Zurich are generally an area of the lake that is cordoned off for swimming. They range from the very simple to the pretty ornate manicured areas like the one where I finished the swim in Zurich.
As you can see in the above photo, the lake is stunning and that is where we started our swim from. As the weather was so agreeable, we decided to go back to the hotel and fetch our costumes to go for a dip in the lido. So off we went, dropped off the cameras - thank god for digital, if we had to take as many photos as we did on film, we would have had to take out a loan to develop it.
Audra got in slowly and was a bit cold and then I just had to go and practice my diving off the 3m board that they have there - you never know when I might get a call from Tom Daly or the likes to be a synchronised diving partner.
 |
| The perfect landing |
Saturday
After a good night sleep we were up and raring to go with thoughts of tourist stuff to do and the like but we just opted for a bit of last minute shopping for supplies for my swim and also a little wander around the town again to visit places that we had not found the day before. We were not disappointed, as around every corner there was something new to see and more shops to relieve us of our money. Rapperswil is often referred to as the "Town Of Roses" with no less than 15000 plants of 600 different varieties in three main Rose gardens and throughout the village. We came across a wedding at the castle at the top; it started with a procession that headed through the entire village with people adorned with giant cowbells and a leading whip cracker followed by the wedding party. There was a lot of stuff left undone as we ran out of time.
In the afternoon we headed off to the registration and race briefing of the swim. Here we had photos taken for our certificates and were given caps, t-shirts and general instructions and more healthy food. The organisers are very much into their Health and meditation and eating properly so there were no unhealthy snacks. After this the race briefing took place and we found out all that we needed to know about what was in store for us the following morning.
As it was a lovely day again, We headed back to the hotel and dropped off our kit and checked on Facebook. This was quite interesting as I got a message from a friend on facebook who had seen some of my posts. She had a friend who knew of me and my past dalliances with open water swims. He had just moved to Rapperswil from Yorkshire and wanted to meet me so I messaged back that I would be at the Lido. Off we went again to the lido - by now, the fixation on photographing EVERYTHING had abated enough for us to leave the cameras and phones and all technology in general at the hotel. We actually managed to survive about 2 hours without checking facebook or photgraphing a single thing!
Whilst sunning myself on one of the sun decks in the lake, thinking about the adventures of the following day, a Gentleman swam up to the deck and, recognising me by my trade mark orange budgie smugglers introduced himself as Martyn Webster - The guy I had been liaising with on FB. We spent a while chatting on the sundeck about marathon swimming in general. Really Nice Guy and I am sure someone whom I will keep in touch with and probably visit again.
The sun was starting to set so we headed back to the hotel for some dinner, after which it was down to the serious stuff of mixing my turbo juice, packing the bags of food supplies and preparing for a 4.30am start on Sunday. I must admit that this time I think I still overcatered but not by about 100 times - like I did when I swam the channel. I blame my mother for that sort of overcatering and she was not with me this swim
The day of the swim.
I did not get a hell of a lot of sleep but this time it was different. I was not nervous, I was not anxious, I was just not tired. I placed no expectations on myself at all. My only hope was that I was able to get to the end - at some point during the day - with all my limbs still attached to my body. I think the lack of expectations really helped me to relax. I know that I can get by on very little sleep. So after about 2 interrupted hours, I was awake well before my alarm so busied myself with final preparations and a bit of reading. At 5.30am we had a quick bite to eat and collected our ice packs for the cooler bag from the kitchen before grabbing our three - yes THREE bags and took a stroll to the lido.
The plan was, get to the lido, locate your support boat, grease up and get ready, roll call then Solo swimers start at 7 am and teams start at 7.15am.
Breakfast and coffee was being served at the lido and then we had to go and locate our boats. This is where the competitive spirit of these swimmers really showed through. The boats for the 40 soloists ranged from a 30 Ft sunseeker style luxury cabin cruiser to a single man kayak --and EVERYTHING in between, including sail boats. It was now a guessing game as to which swimmer got which boat and all the chuckles and laughter and banter that went with this comical excercise as swimmers found their boats
We were lucky enough to be allocated a very lovely couple who had a pleasure boat with a suntanning Deck on it and seats and everything. Audra would not have to kayak up the entire length of the lake - having never kayaked before. How lucky was she??? Marc and Janine were lovely people and they had a great boat. Also, ironically, they were also suckers for punishment. At the same event a year earlier, they had piloted for another swimming friend of mine, who was also born in Zimbabwe and now lives in South Africa - Roger Finch. The boats and the crew all jumped in their boats and headed out into the lake whilst the swimmers all jumped into the lido and gathered behind the floating bariccades at the shallow edge. The start gun went and we were off.
It took about 30 to 40 minutes to find my boat and link up with it as all the boats were waiting for their swimmers and joined them as they went past. As mentioned earlier, I was not at all nervous this time. I just got on with the task at hand, settled into my stroke at about 65 strokes per minute. When I finally met up with my boat and got to my first feed, which was an hour in, I looked around and there were only about 5 boats. I asked where all the others were? I was then told that they were behind me and I was currently sitting in about 6th place. I was a bit shocked as I really did not expect this. The feeding went well and I was liking the fact that if I swallowed water I did not feel like throwing up.
So what does a Marathon Swimmer do to occupy themselves?
The swim progressed, the weather was great, water temperature was about 20 degrees, a bit of light rain in the first couple of hours and then slightly overcast for the rest of the day. As I was lying in 6th place, I decided that I would alter my stroke. My stroke rate was not slowing down so I then started swimming with a completely open hand - the effect of this was that I was not putting as much strain on my shoulders. At least that was my practical mind telling me that - less surface area pulling = less stress and less propulsion- doesn't it? I knew that between 4 and 6 hours the little signs of my body getting pissed off with me would start to show themselves so anything I could do now to limit such manifestations would be good.
I actually switched my stroke quite regularly. Single side breathing to bilateral breathing. Shorter strokes with a higher head position to longer strokes with a very low head position. Watching other swimmers near me to monitor my speed in comparison. Songs in my head - thank you ChrisTurner - your bloody hatred for the Happy song struck a chord in my head and that bloody song permeated my every thought for a while so there was a fair amount of mental energy spent trying to get that rubbish out my head. I had a swimmer slightly ahead of me and I was concentrating on maintaining speed with him. After 2 hours I was very comfortable and happy with my progress. My feeding plan was working and Audra seemed confident to do the right thing.
After about three hours, My pilot and helper came over to me and said that they were going in for a comfort break, "was I happy to carry on on my own?" I was happy with that, so off they went and I was on my own for about 30 min. During this time, the race umpires came up to me and chided me for not staying with my boat. We should stay with the boat at all times.
My boat finally caught up with me and we carried on. My first milestone that I was sort of aiming to hit before the cutoff time was Meilen. A village along the shores that was 14.3km from the start. I mention cutoff as, this is the first of two points that you have to reach before a certain time. If you do not, the organisers will pull you out - as it is unlikely you will reach the end before 7pm. The cutoff at Meilen was 5.5 hours. I managed to get to it in just on 4 hours. At this point I was happy, I had gotten to just over half way and I was still feeling great. No niggles, all body parts in tact and working correctly, feeding going well, this was a huge boost for me as this is one point I wanted to get to within the time limit.
At Meilen, there is also a ferry that crosses the Lake. We stopped for about 2 minutes while I fed and stretched and waited for the ferry to go past. Then we were off again. Another boat had caught us up in this time so I trudged on with them. it is nice to have another swimmer to gauge your speed on from time to time. Another hour in and another feed. And, the first signs that my body was rebelling. My elbow started to ache on my right arm and my shoulders were starting to get a bit fed up with me. The rest of my body was fine. I changed my stroke again, so I was not really using my right arm as I sliced my hand through the water rather than pulled it flat through the water. This eased the pain in my elbow.
6 hours and another feed, but this time, my team needed another loo break - what were they drinking on that boat??? This time I opted to go to shore with them and just tread water and do some stretching in the water whilst they went to the loo. I did see Janine coming back to the boat with a bottle of bubbly- now I know why there were so many loo breaks. If the truth be told, I was not complaining, I was now about 20km into the swim and my body was still working, I had some Ibuprofen for my elbow and shoulders and they were feeling much better.
After this 10 - 15 minute respite I was ready to do battle with the last 6 km. There was only one problem, 3 boats had passed me. Again, I was not too worried about it as I had achieved more than I had hoped for already. I did however manage to storm past at least two of them, my stroke rate had gone up to about 72 per minute.The next cut off point was at 21.8km and I reached this milestone with ease.
Now, at about this time, we reached the last headland, afterwhich we could see the finishline 5km ahead of you, straight across the bay whilst the shoreline curved away from the headland into a bay. This is when I learnt that NOT ALL KILOMETRES are equal. Some have 1000m in them and others seem to have at least 3000m in the; that last 5km was probably the hardest stretch of the whole lot. and it seemed to take me as much time to swim that stretch as it had taken me to do the 20km prior to it. It did not help that there was a fair amount of pleasure boats on the water so waves were coming from all directions. On these pleasure boats were some very interesting characters, some, quite pleasing on the eye. I just had to adjust my stroke again and do some head up breast stroke as I was getting really tired now!!
Anyway, at about 23km, I had a bit of a tiff with my support crew! She enlightened me to the fact that I had been in the water 7 hrs 10 min but I was convinced that it was more like 8 hours 10 min. I know her powers of time keeping are pretty rubbish. This is when I learnt that Women are Always Right. (What am I saying???) The boat left me for a while and went ahead and I was wandering what they were doing. I carried on regardless and then, out of nowhere, this mermaid appeared out of the swell beside me. I looked at her and thought, Mermaids do not where orange goggles, and those Orange goggles look suspiciously like my spare pair. Upon further inspection I realised that Audra had decided it was time to take a dip and join me for a while. We swam together for about 15 minutes then she went off back to the boat to get me some more feed.
During these last 5 km I went straight across the bay. I then noticed another swimmer much closer to the shore and it was now my goal to at least beat him. there was also a swimmer about 200m ahead of me and there was a mental battle raging in my head, Should I push myself to try to beat them? against the thoughts that I have done more than I had hoped for already so just take it easy? Which do I do?
I chose the latter as I really needed to do a lot of heads up breast stroke at this point trying to "dodge" all the pleasure craft.
I was nearly there
That was the finish. Those sundecks were quite a distraction but we managed to get past them onto the finishing steps. The First thing that happens when you get up those stairs is they put a garland and a medal round your neck and thrust a microphone in your direction and ask lots of questions. A bit hard when you have just finished an 8 hour 20 min swim, overcome with emotion and trying to stand upright without falling over, there is lots of clapping and the atmosphere is pretty electric. Sadly my support team were not there to see me get out as they had to go and park the boat around the corner.
Then it was just a matter of resting, enjoying the atmosphere and getting a massage and some beer and just chilling in the sun whilst the others finished. All in all it was not a bad way to spend a Sunday. I know I would NEVER have gotten here without all the friends and Family that I have, that pretty much do everything for me, all I have to do is a bit of swimming. I only had one support crew with me but I had many more sending me good positive vibes, without which, I would never be able to achieve anything that I do.
I sat on the grass in quiet contemplation asking the question, "How is it that someone like me, from a small country in Africa, without much focus and drive can be privileged enough to get a podium position- ahead of an Austrian with the name MAX BEER, in one of open waters bigger swims. And find myself in such a beautiful place surrounded by such amazing people?????
The answer is------- MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
All of whom play a key, pivotal role in making me the person I am
So where to Now?
Well, it is nearing the end of the season and I might do a few smaller swims and pol swims but I already have my sites on my Big swim for 2015 and I see that the entries have jsut opened.
SCAR swim in Arizona. Four lakes in four days through the lakes in Salt River Canyon.
This poses various challenges which I need to start working on. Firstly i will be looking for sponsorship so if anyone knows of anyone, or company who might be interested then please email me. the next challenge is the training. It is right at the start of the Open water season in Europe. There are very few lakes around to swim in during the Winter so I will be spending a LOT of time in the pool over the next 8 months, I do not like them at the best of times but if needs must? There will be very little races between now and May next year.
I will keep people up to date on tis blog and facebook
