Steve, with two of his favourite girls Katie and Charlotte before the River swim
On our usual Sunday run this
morning, I found it quite a hard effort
and was surprised that it was hardly slower that we have been doing of late. That
was pleasing after my first week doing any sort of sensible, proper training
week and finishing the week with the fun event at the Lido
on Friday evening, then a bike session on Saturday morning and Club swim on
Saturday evening. I didn’t however have
any problem completing the drive to the tea shop in Arundel for tea and cakes and
chatter afterwards but declined politely when Steve asked if I wanted to join
him in doing the swim in the River Arun in the afternoon.
Our friend the lovely long distance swimmer Sarah Cotton First lady vet today.
There was a choice of a 3000
mtr swim and a 1500 mtr swim which was what Steve chose to do to round the week
off. Since the River Arun is the second fastest tidal river in the country, the
idea is for the event to be held during the slack period of the incoming tide
before it turns to race out again. This
is a quite naughty river and the slack period can be 30-40 minutes or totally
non existent or later, or earlier than predictions. Personally I think the
River possesses a childishly behaved twisted sense of humour and I for one do
not trust this wicked stretch of water for a moment, though I love and respect
it dearly. The start had to be delayed for a little while since a large vessel
was leaving the harbour and the full high tide is the only time when that is
possible.
Even so, after the ship had
passed out to sea, Steve found on checking his Garmin that his swim up river to
the turn buoy took 9 minutes 10 seconds and even at the fabled slack tide took
20 full minutes exactly to return over the same course. This means that it was
still on its way IN. Steve was 1st over 60 yrs + in 29.50.
I was watching from the
riverbank promenade and could see how hard people were finding it to swim
against the current on the return. Some swimmers who had entered the 3000 metre
event stopped at the half way point.
Prizes were presented by well known swimmer Mike Latham who so recently swam the channel in a gruelling 21 hours 2 minutes.
It’s a great local event and
was very well supported with an enthusiastic crowd.
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