At One With The Ocean

The weeks are ticking by and we now seem to be in Summer! I can’t believe how quickly time passes these days. I signed up for the Half Ironman Triathlon last September, and thought I had so much time... Now there is only two months to go.

My training has been feeling better these last few weeks. The arrival of some warmer weather and brighter mornings has helped.  Also seeing improvements in all three disciplines has given me a confidence boost.

I do have a slight feeling that I’m teetering on the edge of injury. I seem to keep getting little niggles, but hopefully if I listen to my body and rest when I need to, I can keep those at bay.

The arrival of the warmer weather has also seen the start of sea swimming again. I really miss this discipline through the winter months. It is great for training... Battling against current and tide and often big waves! It is also a good social get together...

Meeting up on the beach first thing in the morning when you feel like you are the only ones up and about, or on a weekend afternoon, when the beach is full of families and day trippers, who are watching the ‘crazy people’ going into the sea to swim.

I quite like being one of the crazy people. 

These swims are often followed by coffee in the local hotel, or breakfast on those mornings that we don’t have to rush off to work... Usually with lots of excited chatter about the swim, and any near misses with boats or fishing lines.

We also meet up every month for full moon swims. We meet at night to swim with a full moon… If it makes an appearance! When we get a clear, still night, it is an amazing experience.

I have only begun swimming properly in the last five years, or so. As a child, I learnt to swim but didn’t really swim properly. When my knee was bad a few years ago, I started swimming more regularly in the pool and managed to teach myself to breath properly and swim with a slightly better technique. My swimming really improved when I started swimming with some of the coaches from Eastbourne Swimming Club, who encouraged me, and let me join in their training sets.

I will never be as quick as they are, but I can hold my own in their sets now, and am always grateful for all their help and encouragement. I never thought that a few years later I would be swimming 2 to 3 km in the sea on a regular basis.

There is something very peaceful about being in the water, whether it is the sea, a river or the pool. You have to have respect, especially for the sea as it can really throw you around and shift and change all the time. But ultimately, you need to work with the water rather than fight against it. Since I realised that it has made things so much easier.

I have always been drawn to water. As a child growing up I was always interested in surfing and windsurfing and images of the sea. I would buy magazines and spend hours looking at the spectacular images of waves and the sea, and the men and women who could do that with such ease and confidence. But I never had the confidence to try it myself.

Thankfully, as I have got older I have now had the opportunity to try all those things, and now my only problem is there are so many things I want to do, and I just don’t have the time to do everything!

I have entered my first swimming event this month, which is a 3k swim around a reservoir. It is being used as a training swim really, and a chance to travel up with friends who I am doing the Half Ironman with. The swim for that is 1.9km, so it will be a good gauge, to see where I am in very similar conditions to race day. I know I can cover the distance, but it will be a good way to practice sighting for buoys, and swimming with a big group of people. And it should be fun!

I wanted to end this article with something I wrote before I started sea swimming. It expresses some thoughts and emotions about the process, and shows I was thinking about it even before I did it!

If anyone has ever thought about trying isea swimming, I would highly recommend getting in contact with your local group, and popping along. For triathlon training it is invaluable, but I also believe that what you get from it, will enhance day to day life too...

‘She moves towards the sea, apprehensive.

The sheer size of the ocean and what it represents scared her. It had an ability to be calming, yet fierce. To be the source of life, but just as easily take it away.

To step into its depths completely would mean surrendering to its power. The thought caused anxiety to sweep through her body.

The waves lap over her toes, a gentle caress that entices her. She wants to let go of the fear, feel it leave her body with the retreating tide.

Overhead two seagulls call, she is grateful for the distraction. Their effortless movement as they dip and glide through the air, gently coming down to rest on the gentle swell of waves. They are oblivious of her and her anticipation.

‘If they can do it so can I’, she thinks, and with a deep breath dives forward to let the waves swallow her.

She is momentarily breathless from the cold. But as she moves beneath the waves her body adapts to its chill, and she finds it a relief from the relenting sun on the beach.

She surfaces, not far from where she entered, but still an epic journey. She had done it. She turned and looked out towards the horizon, an endless world of possibility. ‘Anything is possible’ she thought, as she dived again into the silence of the waves.’