Goal... to swim under an hour and with a bit of luck about 57 mins.
It’s generally considered that the left hand pier was for the more competent, faster swimmers leaving the right hand pier for those who wanted to pick a more favorable spot before joining the ‘washing machine’.
The pros were already in the water some 15 metres in front giving them a chance to escape the 2600 ensuing thrash paddlers when the cannon sounded.
The cannon’s boom indicated it was 07:00 and more importantly the race had started. It was every man and woman for them self as they charged into the water elbows and fists flailing. Jumping on people’s backs seemed the only way forward as the initial water wasn’t deep enough to swim in. This will calm down after 400 meters, or so I thought, and then I’ll be able to start getting nearer to the front. Sighting was a waste of time as the buoy was just a tiny balloon in the distance so you had to trust that the person in front was heading the right way. But they weren’t, and I watched frustratingly as swimmers zig-zagged whilst cutting me up as they over-corrected their mistakes. Unless they were going straight and it was me that was zig-zagging….now there’s a thought!! I felt two arms wrapped around my leg for what seemed an age. I can only think that someone wanted a free tow or wanted to drown me. Were they trying to nick my timing chip? I wasted lots of energy trying to kick the perpetrators off and then made the mistake of trying to get revenge wasting more valuable energy. I soon realized you had to put up with the toe touching after all I don’t suppose it’s intentional but it’s bloody annoying. I got my cap whipped off which turned out to be a blessing, giving me a cooler bonce in the 24 degree water.
I have to say I didn’t enjoy the swim especially when it bottle-necked into a canaI for 800m and there was almost gridlock as you waited for the swimmers whilst jostling for positions. I imagined the swim to be a little hectic but I thought it would soon calm down so you could concentrate on your stroke, maybe even draft off a slightly faster swimmer. I think my positioning in the group was all wrong, a learning I’ll have to put down to experience. I likened it to( and I’ve done this myself) the Great North Run where you position yourself at the start under a banner indicating 1 hr 20 mins even though you’re more likely to finish in 1 hr 35. After just 5 miles some people are walking in front of you and you realize either they can’t read the timing banners or they were just stealing a few cheeky positions!!! Well in this case of an Ironman swim it’s like all 50 thousand runners (including the Rhinos and Shreks) have decided to stand with the elites under the 5 min mile banner!!!
Things of note during the swim was I noticed a guy in front of me at the 2.2 mile stage with his legs bound together doing a butterfly kick, surely he hadn’t done butterfly all this while? On closer inspection I realized he only had the use of one arm too………amazing!!
A woman doctor, as it happened, from our bus, had it slightly worse than me as she had to re-set her broken nose during transition when she got the full force of a leg kick on her hooter. She looked like a panda at the end of it, proudly sporting two black eyes….so it could have been much worse.
One guy just made the swim cut-off time of 2 hrs 20 mins by a matter of seconds, he was encouraged and pulled up the ramp by the marshalls. The guy who was only several seconds behind him wasn’t so lucky as they pulled him out of the water but then shut the gate to transition in front of him….game over!!
Swim time…1-01- 37 secs …………3-4 mins behind schedule!!
Position at this time of race....34th out of 554 males in my age group...223rd overall.
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