I did it! That 2000m swim. That's 2 whole kilometres you know!

(So I did buy myself a t-shirt!)

I came in something like 257 out of 293. Please note that it was a mixed field! Mixed in gender, and mixed in approach. Some treat it as a race, many just go in it for the challenge.

The times will be put up on their website sometime, so I'll check it for interest's sake. Just to see how much slower I am than the fast people. (And how much quicker I was than the slowest ones!)

Surprisingly fitness wasn't a problem! As with the year I did the 600m swim, I didn't have any physical problems with doing the distance. The hardest part today was that my goggles fogged up, and so I found it really hard to spot the buoy when I lifted my head up to have a look! I reckon I wasted a bit of time having to stop a few times to peer ahead, plus it also stuffed my rhythm. (Lifting my head like that also allowed the swell to affect me and a couple of times it made me feel a bit dizzy - but once I started swimming properly again it was fine.) I also quite possibly covered more distance than I needed to - weaving around trying to take the right line. In fact I know went out too wide on the last buoy, and so I then seemed to take a longer path to shore much further out from the jetty than I needed to. Dammit!

Ok, my legs were a bit wobbly when I finished, but that didn't last too long. Bit of watermelon, and a banana, and I was feeling pretty normal. (So maybe next year I could go a bit harder!)

I hung around for a while waiting for the presentation because they were doing lucky draws along with the prizes for places. You could only claim one of those prizes if you stayed... so I figured I'd be pretty spewing if my name got pulled out for the holiday to Fiji and I wasn't there to claim it.

Naturally I didn't win it - but a friend did win one of the smaller accommodation prizes.

Highlight of the day was the undisguised double-take by someone I knew (another mum I know who is a bit sporty - with the figure to match) when she found out I was there for the 2km swim rather than the 600m. I guess I don't really look the part. Or the type. Funniest thing was that another mum noticed and bagged her for it!

Disappointment of the day was being there without family to give me a high five or two when I finished (Marc was still travelling back from a touch tournament, and the girls weren't interested in getting up early). It was a shame that neither of the girls gave it a go. Zoe is still too young, but Alison would be more than capable of doing the 600 (and a few of her friends were there.) The 14 yr old would possibly not be capable of doing it because she stopped doing swimming squad a few years ago now, and pleads no interest in swimming anymore. Pretty sad to throw it all away, and to have your unathletic 45 year old mother be a better swimmer, but that's her choice. She has had the grounding in it, so you never know down the track.)

I had asked Alison if she'd go in it with me, but she declined on the grounds of not liking swimming 'out there' where she can't see the bottom. When I got home and told her that three or four of her friends who went in it were asking why she didn't come (she is a better swimmer than each of them!) she started with "If I'd known they were going in it..." till she got short shrift for not having the guts to do her own thing and make her own decisions.

Maybe next year she'll give it a go. And I have a whole year to prep Zoe for the 250m charity swim!

OK, so I admit it. I was just a teeny bit weary this afternoon. And I may have had a bit of a lie down...

(local newspaper article )

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