Sunday, 22 February 2015

Rottnest Channel Swim

So like I mentioned on Friday, yesterday I spent the day helping a friend in the Rottnest Channel Swim. For those unfamiliar, the Rottnest Channel Swim is an annual event where about 500 individuals and teams swim the 19.7km from Cottesloe Beach to Rottnest Island. Of the 500, about 300 are individuals doing the entire swim themselves. It has become a bit of an iconic event in Perth, with a ballot required to enter as a team these days. Many consider it a Perth bucket list event, ie something that you have to do before you die.

This was the first year I have ever been involved in the race in any capacity. Although I have always thought it would be cool to be part of the race. My involvement was as a paddler to a friend of mine Shao Wu who had entered the swim as as soloist. Given that I always wanted to be involved, and that Shao is a good friend of mine, I didn't hesitate when he asked.
Pre-swim style
Heading into the race I had a pretty good idea of the role of the paddler and I now have a much better idea. Basically they are the swimmer's pantry, that blue bag in the photo above is full of drink bottles, gels, baby food, you name it, it was in there. Since the swimmer has nothing to sight off, the paddler also ends up doing most of the navigation. If you look closely I have wearing two GPSs, the Garmin 920XT was used to distance and pace, the Garmin 910XT was programmed to point squarely at Rottnest. Finally, the paddler keeps track of nutrition, ie when to stop for a feed, what is being consumed etc. Well that is how we did it anyway.

Whilst I knew what the role would entail, I have to say I severely underestimated how tough it would be. By the end of yesterday I was totally exhausted and I haven't really been much better today. I am not sure if it was the day in the sun, of just that I was working harder than I thought, whatever the reason though it totally flattened me, and I wasn't even doing the swimming.

So how did the whole thing go. Well despite fairly challenging conditions Shao made it across in 7 hours and 20 minutes. Yep a bit of 7 hours of swimming. To put that in context, the winner was about 4 and a half hours. So it is a long day for everybody. Shao's swim went farily smoothly. He paced it quite perfectly, we got the course more or less correct, he didn't bonk or anything. It went about as smoothly as a 20km swim can.

The only hiccough of the day had nothing to do with Shao. I mentioned above that the conditions were quite challenging. Talking to people who know these things, the swim has certainly been done in worse conditions, but this year was up there in the unpleasantness scale. Straight off the beach and it was clear that the forecast southerly wind had turned up early and was blowing quite healthily. On top of that there was a little bit of swell rolling through. My first reaction when I got out there to link up with Shao was that it was pretty lumpy and it wasn't going to get better. Think of the sort of triathlon swim where you would get through but you wouldn't enjoy it, that was what this was like, for 19.7km. Not so bad that you couldn't swim, but bad enough that it interrupted your rhythm and style etc. The conditions were such that I think it probably added between 30 and 45 minutes to everybody's times.

To Shao's (and everyone elses) credit though, they just knuckled down and got into it. I remember wondering at the 3km mark how on earth he was going to get through, the conditions were just unrelenting. The answer to that is one stroke at a time. It is amazing how the miles roll along, one metre at a time.

I can't help but be amazed by these soloists, it is such a long way to swim, add in the conditions of the day and it is just so impressive.

I have to say though, having watched the race up close, I have almost no desire to do it myself. Perhaps as a team sometime, but as a soloist, no thanks. I like swimming, but that is just too far.

Training wise today and it has been a bit of a non event. I had a very solid brick session on the program this morning and I know that it is an important session. But I am just on empty. Sometimes you just know when you body doesn't have what it needs to get though a session and that is what I have right now. I am surprised by just how much yesterday took out of me, but I am not really questioning it. Waking up this morning, the body just wasn't up for it. My biggest concern at the moment is that being very tired and a bit stiff and sore from siting in a surf ski for many hours yesterday is that I injure myself by training. I most certainly want to avoid that. I have been feeling a bit more human over the course of today, so I might get some training in tonight. Otherwise I am happy to just reset and regroup for next week.

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