I DID IT!

Cottesloe beach had an aura of un-reality with the pre-dawn light and floodlights - making the registration, waiting and starting process feel just a little weird.  My zen feelings had completely gone by the time I was near the start, getting my mum to rub anti-chafe cream on me while I struggled to put my suit on in time, getting more and more nervy all the time.

Even on the start line it just didn't quite feel like all these people wearing white caps were actually going to swim to Rottnest that day.  But at 5.45am we did just that.  The sun was rising behind us and it seemed like the conditions were, in fact, perfect.

The first 10km were fantastic!  I was buzzing, I was really positive, I felt great.  Every drink stop everyone would say ‘you’re doing great, you’re swimming strongly’ and I would tell them I was feeling great.  The food /drinks were working out really well, not too much, not too little - just enough!

We passed the 10km mark with a big cheer, and from working out the drink stops I realised I had done it in 2hr 40min, which was exactly where I wanted to be.  I didn’t feel like I’d gone out too hard, and I was feeling great.  My crew were telling me there were between 15 and 30 boats ahead of us at that time – a great place to be.  We were quite a way south of the rest of the fleet, working on the basis of what we thought was some good advice. But we would pay for that later!

Then it started to get tough.  My shoulders started hurting and I was asking for panadol.  Soon my left shoulder was really hurting. It was starting to worry me... not that I thought I would have to pull out, but just worrying that it would slow me down quite a bit.

I went through a really tough stage at about the 12/13km mark – my shoulders were REALLY sore, I was tiring, and it just all felt really, really hard.  I stopped for a wee at one point and when I started again I found a new resolve and a new energy.  This was the pattern for the rest of the race... really hard patches and then better patches, and then repeat!  

From about the 15km mark everything got quite horrible.  I think the crew were finding it hard to make out what the different buoys were, or how far we’d come, and I was getting different messages.  At one point Tim said “15km” and I was all “but I thought we passed that ages ago?” That really messed with my head.

The feeding plan went out the window and I just swam for as long as I could and then stopped when I needed to.  I was mainly interested in Coke at that point.  My shoulder was killing me, and I was hoping for the panadol and anti-inflammatories to kick in!  I started to whinge a bit when I stopped - saying ‘this is getting really hard’ or ‘my shoulder is really hurting’.

I knew Phillip Rock was 3km away from the 15km mark and that particular 3km went so incredibly slowly!  I was constantly asking for updates on the time, on how far to Phillip Rock.  For at least an hour it seemed like our progress was minimal. At one point Tim said ‘its only 1.3km away’ but then it still seemed to take about an hour to get there....  I was getting very frustrated, very down, and really really really hating Phillip Rock.

I asked Tim the time at one point and he told me 11.30am... which meant I’d been in the water for 5hrs 45min, with still over 3kms to go.... and out flew my plans for a sub-6 hour swim, and even a 7-hour swim was looking possible.  I said to Tim ‘wow I’ve slowed down SO much haven’t I?’  And Tim said ‘no we think the current is running opposite to what we thought’.  So instead of getting assisted by the current, I was swimming right into a really strong North-South current!  No wonder I was getting nowhere.  And damn that advice to go south!

From that point on, I just put down my head and didn’t stop again.  Tim said he wanted to tell me that he got the time wrong, and it was actually 11am.... but that I didn’t stop again for him to be able to tell me!  I remembered stories from people who hit strong currents, who every time they stopped would get swept back and I didn’t want that to happen.  I was still thinking that it was a fast year, with good conditions, and that everyone else would be doing great times.  I knew my hoped for time had gone out the window and I just wanted to claw back a little pride!

We finally passed the hated Phillip Rock, and we were fighting the current so much that we only just scraped in to the north of it.

From Phillip Rock it was just a slog.... I did overtake one solo swimmer, who I later found out was a guy I’ve come in with on many an ocean swim!   So it turns out my time wasn’t so woeful after all.  I know that to non-swimmers all this obsession about times would seem a little bizarre, but I've been spending a LOT of time with other swimmers and we're all obsessing about it together.

What kept me going for much of this last 5km was knowing all the people that were there waiting for me at the finish.  I was just aching for the feeling of standing up.  I didn’t even realise but the minute I stood up I think I had the biggest smile on my face!

And then what a reception!  Gaye, Gen, Kate, Traci, Annie, Gub, Mally, Maya, Kit, Den, and then Tim and Ron and Michael had managed to get from the boat/kayak to be there at the finish line in time!   They were all making so much noise, and Traci had a banner, they were fantastic!  I was a bit stunned, and hazy... but made it in 6hrs 20min, the 13th woman and 41st solo across the line.

All I remember saying to everyone was ‘Oh. My. God.’ and ‘what was I thinking’?

Saw some swimming buddies right there at the finish, and then just after me, Simon came in.  He and I trained together, were evenly matched in the pool, and he’d often beat me by a little in ocean races.  So I instantly felt better about my time (but realised he must have also had a hard swim)!  He and I both said ‘Wow that was really tough wasn’t it?’  Turns out he had some real dramas with cramping in the first half of the race. So many variables in a swim like this.

For about two hours I felt pretty woozy and hazy – but my beach support team had me sorted out with some great recovery food (chocolate milk, watermelon and sesame snaps!!??) and soon I was feeling great.  Apart from sore shoulders, I've felt great ever since.

The story of the day was my friend of 30 years Katrina (who first put this whole idea into my mind about 18 months ago) who had to slog it out for 10 hours in a really, really, really tough swim.  She was vomiting a lot, hurting a lot and swept far south.  But she made it - amazingly.  I don’t know how she kept going for so long but she did it!  It turns out 10 to 20 of the 200 solo swimmers didn’t make it – so despite the conditions looking good at the beginning, it was still a really hard swim. Maybe it is just always a hard swim.  Swimming 20km certainly seeemed exponentially harder than swimming 10km!