Tomorrow morning, I’ll be back at the starting line of the Palm to Whale ocean swim. This time last year, I was apprehensive about the swim, as I was recovering from a car accident a week earlier, and had tonsillitis.
This year, the setbacks came at the start of the program, with me coming down with a severe illness that kept me out of the pool for nearly a month. I have done some very, very hard yards in the intervening time, and now even though I’m not as fast as I’d hoped to be by this stage, I at least know I have the endurance to finish the race… bluebottles notwithstanding.
I have also been fortunate enough to hit my fundraising target once again, thanks to many generous sponsors. One of the toughest parts of the program this year was asking people for money a second time, particularly given I was out of the water for so long, and then with the flood situation in Queensland being a more pressing concern for donations, so all the donations I received were very, very much appreciated!
Finally, as well as doing many kilometres in the pool, I’ve also tried to enter a few other ocean swims this year, which has been a lot of fun. The site banner shows me as a little dot emerging from Bondi Beach after completing the 1km (actually 1.29km) North Bondi Roughwater ocean swim at the start of January. I also swam in the Avalon and Warriewood-Mona Vale swims, braving huge surf (seriously, check out the photos; it felt like my recurring tsunami nightmare was coming true) and bluebottles respectively.
See you on the beach!
Alice and Katie with caps and timing chips, ready to race
