Well, I had my first swim race in about 7 years today, and my first ever swim in open water. Myself and John entered the first race of the Men’s Health Ocean Racing Series in Watsons Bay this morning. 1.4km, starting at Camp Cove and swimming around the headland to Watsons Bay itself.

It was quite funny waking up this morning and feeling all nervous, wondering what it would be like. Would the water be freezing? What’s it like swimming with nothing below you? What’s it like swimming amongst a crowd of people? What time would I do? Hell, even what’s it like swimming a race longer than 200m! So many unknowns.

John had a dodgy shoulder yesterday, but he was determined to swim anyway. Kevin had planned on entering, but as he hadn’t done any training, and he had a work function last night, he decided it would probably be pointless. John picked me up around 9am and we headed down, paid our entry fee, had our race numbers scrawled on our arms in black magic marker, and got a nice yellow cap to signify we were in the 31-40 age group, along with our timing chip. Went back to the car and changed into our speedos, then walked the 5mins to the start at Camp Cove.

Had a quick dip to make sure my body was aware of the water temperature and wouldn’t seize with the shock when I jumped in. It turned out to be a couple of degrees warmer than it had been last weekend, which is probably down to the fact that we were in the Harbour and not the ocean. The 21-30 age group went off first, then we were next. Wished John good luck then we got started, heading straight out to the first buoy about 80m offshore. Got a good start, out in front of the crowd until I got to the turn when everyone converged at the same point. It was starting to get a bit crowded, and since there are no niceties in the middle of a race, I administered a few swift kicks to random punters trying to swim over me. Once around the buoy it improved quite a lot and I started to swim my own race.

We started catching the slow people in the previous wave which was great as it meant that I didn’t have to look up as often to make sure I wasn’t drifting off track. I got a few cuts on my hand from swimming too close to the rocks as I rounded the headland but I thought I was doing OK as I hadn’t seen a yellow hat since the first turn. Once around the point I had a few look ups to sight the next buoy and started swimming again. I was now at the front of a group, with about a 50m gap to the next bunch, and my compass started veering around a bit as I had no-one to sight off. It was then I noticed a yellow hat slighty behind and to my right, so I figured I’d better get my act together so he wouldn’t pass me. He was right beside me the whole way, then as we appraoched the final buoy he picked up the pace trying to get there first. I was having none of that, so I matched him and we went around the turn neck and neck. We were now down to the final leg, a straight 150m swim to the flags where we coul stand and run ashore. I picked up the pace and got ahead of him, but only by a metre or so. Kept the lead up to the flags, stood up and immediately had some wobbly legs since my upper body had been doing all the work. He came out of the water right behind me and sprinted up the beach to beat my by a couple of seconds. I crossed the line, stopped my watch and looked at the time: 17:14.40! I was pretty pleased with that as I’d expected to be around 20mins.

I watched the rest of the swimmers come in and cheered John home. The guy I’d raced to the end came over and mentioned that he thought we’d done quite well and wanted to know if I’d any idea where we’d placed. I hadn’t even thought of it so I couldn’t help him, but at the same time I hadn’t noticed any other yellow hats when I’d finished. Got changed, got a beer and went along to the presentation just in case I had won something. Alas, it was not to be, though I did win a spot prize which consisted largely of hair styling products which went to John. The results aren’t up on the site yet, so I’ll have to wait a bit longer to see where I placed. Hopefully Top 10. Anyway, it was good fun which is the main thing, so I reckon I’ll do a few more this year.

B: 88.2km – S: 9850m