Australian Ironman 2008 - Race Report (Swim)

There was a little bit of a tidal drift at the start with us drifting past the allocated zones. The tide was coming into the Hastings River so the swim to the turn around was with the tide and obviously coming back toward the finish was against the tide. With 1500 competitors all starting at the same time, the calm waters of the Hastings River was turned into one big washing machine….arms…legs…white water everywhere!

The aim of the first bit of the swim was just to relax and try and get through the ‘argy-bargy’ of the start relatively unscathed. It was virtually impossible to get any clear water for the first lap. The strategy I worked with throughout the swim was to focus on my stroke…reach…high elbows…catch and staying relaxed for the full distance. Other strategies I worked on was trying to ‘draft’ off other swimmers in front of me and kick during the time that my head is in the water after breathing from the right. These are all things that I worked on throughout my training. They all worked ‘a treat’ for the swim.

There were times when it was hard to continue swimming freestyle due to the number of swimmers in front of me.

I completed the first lap (1.9km) and eventually found some clear water for about 500m. I was able to get into a rhythm and was feeling great! In doing so, I needed to kerb my enthusiasm to push a little harder as I didn’t was to blow up in the cycle or run…the swim is such a small percentage of the day…this was just to be a warm up and I just wanted to pace myself and not expel too much energy in the swim. During the second lap I tried to navigate as close as possible to the ‘race line’, cutting down the distance I needed to swim.

Once I reached the far turn around point, we all came together again and the argy bargy was on again! This continued for the swim home to the swim finish. It was hard to get into any rhythm and slowed my progress a little…along with swimming into an incoming tide. Throughout this time I shortened my stroke a little just to protect myself from stray arms and legs.

I Reached the last turning buoy and could see the swim finish in sight! I was feeling great! I really enjoyed my first 3.8km swim and found it an absolute pleasure! Can’t wait to do it again!

I reached the shore and stood up…wow…what an achievement….the first part of the challenge had been achieved. From where I was 12-18months ago with my swimming this was certainly a great achievement.

I ran up through the showers under the swim finish timing clock to register a swim time of 1:07:25. This was 1:46min per 100m.