Well, that was an experience. But a lot of it was not one I would particularly like to repeat. The weather had a lot to do with that. Also, I am going to write a lot so I am going to chop this into at least a couple of parts.
I am going to grump a bit about some of the organisation as well. They did a lot of things very well, but it seemed that while they were focussing on the things that they wanted to do really well they missed some of the simple things that make a huge difference to the athletes. For example, there was no real need for the earlier start. Having to be there to set up for transition at 6am was completely unnecessary.
Briefing
It was the standard fairly pointless swim briefing. Made slightly more pointless by the briefer pointing at buoys that were out of sight and discussing sighting on alternate more obvious objects that you couldn't see and wouldn't know what he was talking about unless you were a local. I had my ear plugs in already for the swim, so I made sure I was fairly near the front to hear what he was saying.
Swim
At the end of the briefing the organiser asked us to follow the path round and get in the water, this meant that anyone who had been at the front to listen to the briefing properly had slightly further to walk round to the water. I thought this was fine as it would mean being in the water a few minutes less getting cold before the start. I was about two-thirds of the way down the pack as I got into the water. It is a deep water start, maybe 300m out into the loch. As I started to easily paddle out the line at the start was just beginning to form up.
There were a few cameramen in dry suits floating in the water and filming. It will be interesting to see their footage when the hooter goes for the start. I was a good 80-100m back from the start when the starting hooter went and there were lots of other people still around me. Apparently quite a number of people were still on the jetty.
That is my next gripe at the organisers. Fair enough in previous years the water temperature might have made it unpleasant for those who got out to the start early and had to wait so they might have had to strike a balance between holding them and waiting for stragglers. But this year the water wasn't cold, so there was no real need for them to go while so many people were still way short of the start line. Especially when the ones who were late were the ones who had been following the rules and listening carefully to the briefing.
Anyway, so the swim starts and I have no-one to draft, but also the water is really choppy. The swell in the loch was pretty big and more than once I brought my stroke over only to find it was still under water as the swell washed over. The big waves were also making sighting really difficult. Even trying to adjust my stroke so I could sight as I crested waves wasn't really helping. I was having to just look for groups of yellow hats and splashes ahead of me and hope they were going roughly in the right direction on each leg.
Gripe at organisers number 3: A total of 3 medium-sized buoys and 4 or 5 support kayakers for a 1900m single lap swim is far from enough. On a choppy day with waves that size I would call it borderline dangerous. It was enough to make one of my team-mates quit and get out before she even made it to the start line. By comparison, for a 1600m swim at Knockburn, where it can't get that choppy, and where I can always put my feet down, I would get 12 big buoys, 5 small buoys and half a dozen kayakers.
In terms of my actual swim, it was pretty good. I was smooth and relaxed. The big waves were the worst I have been in but I managed to cope with them a lot better than expected. For the first stretch I couldn't see the buoy, but there were a good mass of the people that had been on the start line all heading in the same direction so that gave me a big enough target to aim for. Once I got to about 100m from the buoy I could see it between waves and realised I was a bit off line but not too bad. I got a good line into it and came out of it in a small pack. I thought about just sitting in with them but they were going much too slow, and within 20m out of the buoy they had all decided to go in massively different directions.
The metal pin in my collar bone wasn't enjoying the cold. It doesn't normally bother me but it did here. It was annoying me more than anything else but was possibly starting to affect my back as well.
The second leg was into the waves so was as much up and down as forward. Again the sighting was difficult but following vaguely parallel to the bank made it a little easier. timing sighting glances to match the crests of the waves meant I could at least se some groups and get a good idea of the right direction, in between sighting into walls of water.
The next turn is tighter than 90 degrees and the swell and lack of sighting was exaggerating that further. As I approached the turn the other swimmers were passing within a couple of meters heading in the opposite direction. There was the usual concertina of bodies at the turn and everyone headed off back towards the jetty. However, some tried to allow for the swell and went a long way right, and some just aimed roughly in the direction of the start and went a long way left. I couldn't see anything recognisable so I tried to split the difference. I was still going fairly easily until about half way back when I could see the chalets behind the jetty. I found a group that looked to have their sighting about right and pushed a little to get in with them. I still wasn't working hard, I felt I could easily go past the group and push on, but in the back of my mind I had 5 hours more to deal with so I stayed sensible and just kept ticking over on my way in.
The exit from the swim is pretty well supported and was about the best bit of the day. Huge crowd all cheering as we wandered up to transition. It as a walk rather than the normal race through transition as the surface is pretty rough. I spotted one of my team mates at the side cheering having pulled out already. I didn't spot the cameras, which I am promised have some great shots of me already looking fed up with my day.
I wasn't really fed up by that point. I felt ok, I knew I hadn't done too much, probably paced it about right, just a bit disappointed at "missing" the start. I think there was the best part of a minute just missing the start, and another couple of minutes if I could have got into a group.
The official swim course is definitely short of the 1,900m that it is meant to be. I was taking it easy, I wasn't getting any drafting help. I was way offline in some parts so I swam much further than the measured course, and yet I was still out of the water in 33:32.
There is some video footage on youtube. You can see it here. I really cant stress how much it makes the waves look smaller than they were.
Review part 2 is here.
There were a few cameramen in dry suits floating in the water and filming. It will be interesting to see their footage when the hooter goes for the start. I was a good 80-100m back from the start when the starting hooter went and there were lots of other people still around me. Apparently quite a number of people were still on the jetty.
That is my next gripe at the organisers. Fair enough in previous years the water temperature might have made it unpleasant for those who got out to the start early and had to wait so they might have had to strike a balance between holding them and waiting for stragglers. But this year the water wasn't cold, so there was no real need for them to go while so many people were still way short of the start line. Especially when the ones who were late were the ones who had been following the rules and listening carefully to the briefing.
Anyway, so the swim starts and I have no-one to draft, but also the water is really choppy. The swell in the loch was pretty big and more than once I brought my stroke over only to find it was still under water as the swell washed over. The big waves were also making sighting really difficult. Even trying to adjust my stroke so I could sight as I crested waves wasn't really helping. I was having to just look for groups of yellow hats and splashes ahead of me and hope they were going roughly in the right direction on each leg.
Gripe at organisers number 3: A total of 3 medium-sized buoys and 4 or 5 support kayakers for a 1900m single lap swim is far from enough. On a choppy day with waves that size I would call it borderline dangerous. It was enough to make one of my team-mates quit and get out before she even made it to the start line. By comparison, for a 1600m swim at Knockburn, where it can't get that choppy, and where I can always put my feet down, I would get 12 big buoys, 5 small buoys and half a dozen kayakers.
In terms of my actual swim, it was pretty good. I was smooth and relaxed. The big waves were the worst I have been in but I managed to cope with them a lot better than expected. For the first stretch I couldn't see the buoy, but there were a good mass of the people that had been on the start line all heading in the same direction so that gave me a big enough target to aim for. Once I got to about 100m from the buoy I could see it between waves and realised I was a bit off line but not too bad. I got a good line into it and came out of it in a small pack. I thought about just sitting in with them but they were going much too slow, and within 20m out of the buoy they had all decided to go in massively different directions.
The metal pin in my collar bone wasn't enjoying the cold. It doesn't normally bother me but it did here. It was annoying me more than anything else but was possibly starting to affect my back as well.
The second leg was into the waves so was as much up and down as forward. Again the sighting was difficult but following vaguely parallel to the bank made it a little easier. timing sighting glances to match the crests of the waves meant I could at least se some groups and get a good idea of the right direction, in between sighting into walls of water.
The next turn is tighter than 90 degrees and the swell and lack of sighting was exaggerating that further. As I approached the turn the other swimmers were passing within a couple of meters heading in the opposite direction. There was the usual concertina of bodies at the turn and everyone headed off back towards the jetty. However, some tried to allow for the swell and went a long way right, and some just aimed roughly in the direction of the start and went a long way left. I couldn't see anything recognisable so I tried to split the difference. I was still going fairly easily until about half way back when I could see the chalets behind the jetty. I found a group that looked to have their sighting about right and pushed a little to get in with them. I still wasn't working hard, I felt I could easily go past the group and push on, but in the back of my mind I had 5 hours more to deal with so I stayed sensible and just kept ticking over on my way in.
The exit from the swim is pretty well supported and was about the best bit of the day. Huge crowd all cheering as we wandered up to transition. It as a walk rather than the normal race through transition as the surface is pretty rough. I spotted one of my team mates at the side cheering having pulled out already. I didn't spot the cameras, which I am promised have some great shots of me already looking fed up with my day.
I wasn't really fed up by that point. I felt ok, I knew I hadn't done too much, probably paced it about right, just a bit disappointed at "missing" the start. I think there was the best part of a minute just missing the start, and another couple of minutes if I could have got into a group.
The official swim course is definitely short of the 1,900m that it is meant to be. I was taking it easy, I wasn't getting any drafting help. I was way offline in some parts so I swam much further than the measured course, and yet I was still out of the water in 33:32.
There is some video footage on youtube. You can see it here. I really cant stress how much it makes the waves look smaller than they were.
Review part 2 is here.
No comments:
Post a Comment