Sunday, February 28, 2010

February Swims



Mona Vale ... Surfwatch Australia's Michael Brown … said he was "certain" the attack was made by an adolescent great white. hahaha


With today's swim at Long Reef cancelled, February turned out to be a rather quiet month of ocean swimming, although I have been doing a little more distance in pool training.

Only 3 swims this month:
- Cole Classic Manly 2k
- North Bondi (1.5+2) 3.5k
- Malabar to Little Bay 2.7k
Total distance 8k

I had a pre-season goal of trying to clock up 100k in open water swims this season. Will get close, but it's looking unlikely now, unless I can commit to doing a couple of long ocean swims (5k & 10K) in April & May. Won't get either of those without lots of pool training. Back in the pool training Monday, hope the shoulders can hold up for another 3 months.

Long Reef 28th February .. Swim Cancelled











Long Reef ocean swim this morning was cancelled, after SLSA closed all beaches in NSW due to a Tsunami threat in the Pacific region, following the earthquake in Chile last nite.
Not before I had driven out to Long Reef this morning. On the way I was hearing radio reports that some beaches in Sydney had been closed, so I wasn't surprised when I arrived to hear that the swim was off.
Looks like it will postponed to another Sunday in April, but that will probably clash with another ocean swim I'm doing that weekend.
A little disappointing, it's a lovely late summer's day today, and conditions this morning would have been perfect for a swim. Still SLSA are trying to do the right thing to protect the public in the face of a credible threat, so it's all good. Do not fear the ocean, but do respect it. Can't argue with that.
Now 5 hours later, there's still no sign of any Tsunami in Sydney. Actually there won't be any big wave, it will be more like the tide coming in and going out very quickly, which will create currents, rips and turbulence and could pose a danger to unwary swimmers.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Malabar to Little Bay 21st February
















Oceanswims.com posted Youtube video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTDrLiOxUVo&feature=player_embedded
"Swimmer with dodgy hand position" at 8:03 to 8:11, red cap, dark goggles

Malabar to Little Bay ocean swim 2.7k
This turned out to be quite a challenging swim
It was the first year this swim was run over the full distance from beach to beach
The first part from Malabar beach to the south headland of Long Bay was a long 1k+ swim in sheltered water. Then into a good sized north-easterly swell as we passed the headland. Pitched and rolled around by the swell along the cliffs, then into Little Bay. Swam through a huge school of little fish (I think yellowtail) off the headland
Time 60:55

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Squad Training with Kevin Murphy




Squad Training at Botany - 100/200/300m consistency pace swims.
Guest appearance in the squad this week by "King of the Channel" Kevin Murphy, who holds the record for the most English Channel crossings (34) and his wife Jane

Sunday, February 14, 2010

North Bondi Classic 14th February




Photo: oceanswims.com









North Bondi Sunday 14th February, 1k & 2k swims
Calm conditions, Overcast, Water warm
A little debris in the water from the heavy rain this week, although the water was good, could see the bottom most of the way.
on both swims I swam through a patch of small stingers "sea lice" where the water was till near the middle of the beach, found out afterwards these were probably tiny thimble jellyfish larvae.
Did the 1k swim as a 'warm-up', distance was a further because the buoys were placed quite far out, distance was closer to 1.5k.
Time 26.34. Co-incidentally that's exactly the same time I did for the short swim at Bondi last month, was about 1.2k and I deliberately went slowly to have a look around the course then.
Went harder in the 2k swim, went out hard and kept up with a pack of faster swimmers for most of the way, slowed a little near the end. Time 40.06 for the 2k swim. Faster pace than last month. Feeling a little better in the water than last week, going out harder and maintaining a faster pace.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Cole Classic Manly 7th February




Sand run no fun








Cole Classic Manly - 2k
Grey day at Manly, Bit of a wave at Manly beach so the race started and finished in the bay at Shelly Beach which was sheltered from the Easterly swell. Water was a bit murky from all the rain last week and a bit of rubbish in the water, but not too bad.
I arrived at Shelly Beach just in time for the start, after spending 20 minutes driving around Manly trying to find a 2-hour parking spot, No time for a warm up.
I enjoyed the swim, we swam most of the way to Queenscliff and back. Nice swell most of the way once we got out of the bay. The course was well laid out, plenty of room to swim, didn't get crowded in at any time. Started slowly, took me a while to get into a relaxed stroke, felt more comfortable in the 2nd half of the race, finished quite hard. Time 43.58. A little slower with the swell and some slighty wonky navigation. I might have gone a little harder at the start with a proper warm-up and some training last week.