Tag Archives: Marathon Swimming

Open Water Swimming Skills Course

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Over the last few months I have had numerous requests to host an Open Water Swimming Skills session for both Open Water Swimmers and Triathletes. I have been privelaged enough to have attended a host of Open Water clinics myself and I feel it is time for me to share a couple of the tips and secrets I have learned over the last few years.

The plan is to cover a few crucial areas of Open Water Swimming, providing tips that will hopefully save you time and energy whilst you are out there in the water.

Open Water Swimming Tips

Open Water Swimming Tips

Feel free to contact me on the details above in order to book your place.

Where: Silvermine Dam (at the top of Ou Kaapse Weg)

When: Saturday 16 March 2013

Time: 14h00 Start

 

Western Province Open Water Swimming Series #2

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Back at Ashanti, this time for the Western Province Open Water Swimming Series event 2. The schedule included my first 10km of the season followed by a 3km. With a 4 week break between WP Open Water 1 and WP Open Water 2 there was a lot of time to work on racing form and strategy. However, having had a bout of flu and an erratic training schedule for the two weeks after the last event, I was a bit anxious to see how things would go. The week leading up this event had been relatively consistent and was the first week of solid training I had managed to complete in quite a while.

The weather on Saturday was appalling, we arrived at Ashanti with the wind howling and rain pouring. The weather leading up to this event had been very warm which had left the water temperature in the mid twenties. Even though the rain was falling, it was very comfortable in the water. I had a good warm-up before race briefing and discussed my feeding strategy with my coach, Brendon.

Start

10km and 5km swim start

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WP Open Water Swimming Series 1

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The start of the Open Water swimming season is the first Western Province (WP) Open Water Swimming Series event. Most events are held at Ashanti Wine Farm in Paarl. This years series will see two events at Ashanti Wine Farm, one in Worcester and one at Theewaterskloof. The events take place once a month from November to February every year, with the January event incorporating Western Province Open Water Swimming Championships.

The first event of the day was the 5km swim. This event was set to start at 08h00 but due to low lying cloud cover, the organisers struggled to get exact GPS coordinates whilst measuring the course. The conditions were chilly with very little wind to speak of. The water temperature was sitting at around 17DegC.

I headed into the water wearing my Arena Powerskin Revo Jammer ready to set off on our five lap course, one kilometer per loop. Danie Marais and Rudolf Visser set a very fast pace from the gun, I was feeling slightly out of sorts and settled into my own comfortable rhythm holding onto a distant third place.
5km

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English Channel Record Attempt

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Will the English Channel Record be broken this weekend?

The current World Record is held by Petar Stoychev of Bulgaria, six hours and 57 minutes, which he set in 2007. This weekend, the current Fina World Marathon Grand Prix Swimming Champion from Australia, Trent Grimsey, will take on the English Channel for the first time. Trent has had a phenomenal year of Marathon swimming, competing all over the world and dominating the 10km plus races on the Fina Marathon Swimming World Cup circuit.

Trent Grimsey: Freedom Swim 2011
Photo: Nick Muzick

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