These are the nightmares that plague me at night when I dream of swimming without a Neo in Hawaii! 🙂
there was a picture ... but for lack of space
Jokes aside, I love swimming in the ocean. It takes on completely different dimensions than turning its tracks in the pool and constantly following the black line. Swimming in the sea is authentic for me, all the better when I see a lot of fish around me. There are many who swim in the sea, but very few really swim in it. And there are those who would do it, but not voluntarily. Like my brother Thomas. We went to Lanzarote together this year and prepared for the Ironman South Africa together. Although Thomas had never trained so long and so hard, he was always there when it was called; "Today 5 hours of cycling in the headwind", or "Warm up for 30 minutes and then 8x1000m intervals". Even under the most adverse conditions, my brother was not back at the hotel a second earlier than the plan intended! (Just as an aside, Bennie had actually tailored the plan to me, but Thomas pulled it through 1: 1)
However, as soon as it was time to go swimming, the session couldn't be short enough. I have to admit that sometimes I felt a bit queasy when we swam 200 meters out and nobody was to be seen far and wide. I can only vaguely imagine what Thomas went through. He always swam so that he could see the bottom, each fish was scanned 10 times for size and speed. Although he always got neck pain from it, he only exhaled to the sea side in order to be able to recognize potential dangers such as sharks or sea snakes in time before they struck and devour an unsuspecting swimmer. I often had to swim back to him because he was completely deviating from the planned route in his highly concentrated work.
Still, he always did well and only returned to the bank when I did. Well Thomas, that's why you swam half an hour faster in South Africa than you had planned !! 🙂
Just a few more observations from me to those who do not regularly take part in competitions where people swim in the sea. It really helps me a lot if I swam down the route (part of the route) a few times beforehand. This calms down and takes away the nervousness before the swimming part. I knew exactly how shallow the bank was, so I could run in before I had to swim. I was able to practice with the waves, that is, to see the distance at which they come and dive through below. And the most important thing of all, you can only assess the current after a few practice sessions! In South Africa, for example, it was always in the same direction, only the strength was different. When, as expected, everyone was on the shortest line to the first turning buoy on the morning of the competition, I decided to start 100m further to the left, because I knew that the current was driving me to the right. Not only did I get off to a completely relaxed start, I also left masses of swimmers behind me, some of whom started to the right of me but had to go back a little to the first turning buoy. This enabled me to catch the professional women group that started 50 meters in front of me. When the group suddenly picked up the pace halfway through the route shortly before going ashore, I saw myself swimming alone for the second lap. After going ashore, they were already a good 20 meters ahead. Only my desperate act helped me here, namely the attempt in dolphin jumps (the tide started slowly and the bank became flatter) under the waves, legs back on the ground, pushing off again, etc., to get back to the group.
I noticed that my tactics were so successful that I could not only catch up with the group, but even overtake them and wait a moment for them. There are two reasons for this, on the one hand by jumping and pushing off you are always faster than an already swimming competitor and on the other hand the women in the group started swimming again too quickly. In the end, the thanks go to the women, who washed me ashore in 55 minutes and a new best time.
By the way, my brother Thomas also swam a new best time in 1:12, even though the bay off the South African coast was even called “shark bay”…. or maybe because of that 😉
krelli