Another Australia Day and another aquathon for me and my hubby, Anthony. Any one of my friends could tell you that I am not a strong swimmer, especially in open waters. So before the aquathon I am always a bundle of nerves. I say "always", but this was only my 2nd individual aquathon.... I usually compete in a team with someone else swimming for me!
In early January, I had thought that I was only doing the run but when my swimmer let me know he'd be away, I decided to just "suck it up" and do the whole thing on my own. So, I had 3 weeks to get ready. Needless to say, I didn't get much swim training in beforehand and right before the race I was very nervous.
Our friends
Sarah and Daniel (+3 kiddies) came and met us at the start and that really helped settle my nerves, despite Daniel's repeated comments about the sharks LOL. I was more nervous about drowning than about sharks - surely the sharks would eat the competitors in the earlier races..... hehe!
We made our way to the start - Anthony's race started 2 minutes before mine. I found some girls in my race and chatting to people before an event always calms my nerves. The gun went and Anthony's race had started - a sea of pink (yes pink!) swimming caps. I felt a sudden calmness come over me and from then, I just relaxed and took it easy in the swim.
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| The men starting with their lovely pink caps... |
It felt like I had been in the water for hours. I was hit and kicked, swallowed water.... but I finally made it out, grateful I didn't drown (and wasn't the victim of a shark attack lol). But OMG, my legs felt like a dead weight!
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| Me after the swim - looking very tired lol |
Then the run began. Talk about a struggle! I passed (and high-fived) Anthony running back a few hundred metres before I got to the half way point but couldn't catch him on the way back, although I tried hard! I made it back in 14:29mins which I was happy with considering the fatigue I felt coming out of the water.
Here's Anthony finishing - he did a big sprint to beat the two guys either side of him!
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| Anthony's big finish - I love that he is smiling :) |
And me finishing - my big sprint effort was keeping up with the kid who overtook me on the bike track lol
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| Can you tell I am in pain from the grimace on my face? |
Pretty happy with the results but there is always room for improvement! Next year I want to improve my time by at least a minute... Results for this year:
Gotta be happy with 37th in swim, 11th in run and 17th overall out of 81 in my age group :)))
Afterwards, we took the kids on a few of the rides at the fair they have every year but it wasn't long until the heat got to Mason and we had to take him home for a day sleep. We spent the evening with friends, Sar and Dan's for a bbq.
Hope you had a good Australia Day! How did you celebrate?
