Loveday Writing

I decided on October 29 to enter the Australia Day Aquathon 2017 and to start training for it.

My first training session was in a saltwater pool, which is better as the swimming stretch of the Aquathon will be held in the Wollongong Harbour, therefore the pool is as close as possible to the real environment.

My first training session was purely swimming as due to my previous fun run experience, I didn’t feel the need to train for the running stretch. As it will be my first Aquathon, I will be participating in the “Try Aqua” category which is a 200m swim and 2 km walk. My first training session was purely to see how long it would take me to swim 200m in both freestyle (as most participants will most likely swim freestyle) and breaststroke (the swimming style I am the most comfortable with).

It took me 9 mins 25 seconds to swim 200m freestyle and 9 mins 19 seconds to swim 200m breaststroke. I was pretty pleased with myself that I managed it under 10 minutes considering that I hadn’t swum in over a year.

I’ve been training almost every week since then and recording my training times via a stopwatch:

 

November 5: 8 minutes, 18 seconds

November 13: 8 minutes, 53 seconds

November 27: 8 minutes, 35 seconds

December 4: 9 minutes, 31 seconds

 
On December 15, I flew home for my Christmas holiday and decided to train in the chlorine pool in Wagga Wagga.