King or Joker?

Tomorrow I'm doing the Kings of the Coast open water swim.

I haven't entered even though it's been on my program for months - I even nominated it as one of my goals for this year.

So why am I fronting up for a late entry rather than being preentered and prepared like normal? Good question.

To be honest, I figured out the answer few weeks ago when talking to a friend.

My friend lives in Sydney and does ocean swims more regularly than I do. She encouraged me to do the Dicky Beach ocean swim with her last year and in this latest conversation I encouraged her to have a crack at a 2k swim in April. She usually opts for the 1k distance, and I told her I thought she could do it if she swam regularly and added just a little extra to her distance each time.

We talked about my plans to do the 3.8k Kings of the Coast and before I knew it, I admitted that I was actually pretty terrified.

I still am.

After all, if I have a bad swim tomorrow, there isn't really a lot of time to rectify it before Ironman Melbourne in two weeks. This is a fairly real fear - my swimming has been going OK, but not great.

On the other hand, it's one of the rare opportunities I get to do an open water swim in controlled conditions. Weather permitting, I might even be able to swim in the wetsuit. I expect it'll be too warm for that though.

I may not have entered, but I am committed.

Wish me luck.


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