Another Open Water Swim at an Aquathon

Tonight I did another open water swim at an Aquathon. That makes two lake swims in less than a week and they were both at different venues.

The swim was 600m and was a triangle shape with an extra lap of the far diagonal line. This was at the far side of this lake where I have swam a few times. The lake was cold again about 12c at most.

For the first leg I was pretty much on course to the buoy and was on target for being on course for the whole route. However about half way through I started to veer off to the right but I think this may have been caused by the waves made by the water ski boat on the other side of the lake. The swim was comfortable pace and I think my sighting has improved a bit. My swim time on my watch was 13:58 from the start until I was on the lakeside.

For the transition I was trying to improve my performance as I normally a while in this. The wet suit took a but more effort to get off then at the weekend but better the most times. As it was cold I took a bit extra time putting on my charity t-shirt for the Meningitis Trust, a cap and gloves. Overall this took me 2:46 from reaching the lakeside to running away.

The run had a bit extra uneven grass, gravel and stone section from the far side of the lake to where I have normally done this race from. This made the distance about 5.4km (based on mapping web site) and was an out and back course along mostly a gravel footpath. I went off at fairly fast pace but concentrating on the uneven surface for the first few hundred meters. After this I gradually picked up the pace a bit and was able to maintain it throughout the rest of the race. I saw the leader about 500m from the turn around point, so this gave me extra incentive to carry on at the hard pace. I was on the way back before the next person was along about 200m from me. On the way back I was aware of the uneven surface for the last 200m but maintained the high pace. I was glad of the extra layers I put on as I was still wet from the swim (only dried my feet a bit) and it was a cool evening. I did the run in 23:55 according to my watch.

There was surprisingly a lot flies about for the temperature and little light but still managed to get bitten on my ankle at some point.

Overall my time from my watch was 40:38, which I was pleased with. Even better was I finished 2nd , although there was only 3 people doing the aquathon I still had to put in the hard effort.