We we were blessed with one of the best days I have ever experienced in Langebaan. It is the middle of May, normally associated with single digit temperatures and pouring rain in the Western Cape of South Africa, however, yesterday we had 30°C air temperatures and a fresh 13°C water temperature for the annual Around The Island Swim 2013.
I have taken a new approach to Open Water Racing this season, and have tried to avoid the extreme cold of the West Coast of Cape Town. I have found that the fitter I have become, the leaner I have gotten and the direct result of this is a lower threshold to the cold water. After a bit of persuasion from my training partner, Richard Willmore, I decided to join him at Camps Bay for this years Human Rights Day swim 2013.
Rich came to pick me up at 06h30, we headed off to Newlands pool for our regular training session. I managed to fit a very comfortable 5,5km before we packed up and headed on to Camps Bay for our “Main Set”, the 5km Human Rights Day Swim. This years event featured an 800m swim, a 1 mile swim and a 5km swim.
Over the past year or so I have been asked a few times whether or not I could provide pointers, give assistance or advice to fellow open water swimmers and enthusiasts. I had a race-free weekend lined up and wanted to try and do something a little different. With only a few days notice, I decided I would host a open water swimming skills course at Silvermine Dam on Saturday. The dam is situated up on Ou Kaapse Weg, the mountain pass between Constantia and Noordhoek, a fantastic dam to swim in. The water, albeit black in colour, is clean, fresh, warm and allows for a great 300m swim across in each direction. A great training environment for beginners all the way up to experienced open water swimmers.
Unfortunately there was a truck that overturned on the pass 30 minutes prior to the start of the session. This resulted in major traffic problems due to the road closure and forced people to turn around and head home. The few that stuck around and managed to get to the dam enjoyed a great session. The response was great and it seems that all of the participants learnt many new tricks. This will hopefully allow them to feel more confident next time they head out into the open water for a swim.
We covered some of the following areas:
Keep an eye out for the next skills course as I plan to do this again in the near future.
Ann – nice long strokes
Kerry – great technique
Open Water Sighting
Richard – High Elbow
Richard – Sighting
The 2013 South African Open Water Swimming Championships took place last weekend in Grabouw, just outside of Cape Town. The Eikenhof Dam in Grabouw is a great venue, often used for Triathlons and Xterra off-road triathlon racing.
After an initial bit of confusion, the SA Open Water Swimming Championships were brought forward by a month, the initial date was mid-April 2013. This change caused last minute adjustments to training programs and added a bit more pressure to everyone’s final preparations heading into the SA Open Water Swimming Championships. The event hosts three distances, namely the 10km, 5km and 3km swims, I was swimming the 10km and 5km races.
Day one greeted us with fantastic weather, the dam was flat and temperatures soared into the mid-thirties. The 10km race got underway at 10h00 on Saturday. This is a very competitive race and the qualifying standards are very tough. As a result of the fast qualifying times, the field of the men’s and women’s races are quite small and due to this, it was decided to combine the two races, starting the males and females off at the same time. I was ready to go, wearing my Arena Powerskin full body open water suit and Arena Cobra mirror goggles.
10km Start