Its Yuk! - Its Mentally Tough Training

Increased open water swim training is now well underway.

As well as the usual pool training and a Sunday ocean swim at North Cottesloe, two other open water training swims are now on my calendar.

After 4 hours of pool training on Saturday mornings, the group consisting of three adults (training for English Channel goals) and 12 teenage pupils from Churchlands Senior High School who are training for two English Channel teams, travel to the Swan River for extra training. This venue is not very pleasant, the water is a murky brown and we swim through hundreds upon hundreds of man-a-wars (Brown jellies) of all different sizes. I have never been stung by these horrible, slimy marine things but if you happen to swim head-on with a big one, its like banging your head against a piece of floating wood.

Its yuk!! but its mentally tough training!! and tough preparation needed for our English Channel goals - whether its a solo, two way solo swim or team of six swimmers. We will all get tough by swimming in all different kinds of conditions! But man-a-wars!?!

Training area on a calm, cloudy day - the Swan River, Perth

Wednesday morning training sessions are held at Hillary's Boat Harbour where, at the moment, a four hour swim is done to get accustomed to night and cold water swimming conditions. We commence at 5:30am, but its not quite dark as a few harbour jetty lights glitter on the water giving some magical shininess for us to see and swim through. The water here at the moment is reasonably warm, but heading into our winter it will lower to about 16 degrees. Brrrr. This is English Channel temperature - if you're lucky.

In the harbour there are a few stingers (jelly fish) and its just a matter of getting used to being stung (or kissed) every so often, move on and just keep swimming. Besides the occasional 'shag' and seagulls, there are silver fish of different sizes swimming or jumping out of the water. This morning I happened to pass a floating kiddies blue beach bucket!

Swimming these mornings I can view the sun rise, it peeps through and eventually rises over the pine trees that scatter around the eastern side of the harbour. It's always brilliant, and I am always in awe with the beauty that this time of day brings ...

As time ticks by during our training, other casual swimmers and families arrive for a swim or paddle. Nice to have extra company. Then you can smell the aroma of coffee, bacon and eggs being prepared by the many cafes around the harbour. Not fair - when you still have 2-3 hours swimming to complete.

Hillary's Mariner Boat Harbour

If there is time and energy to fit in an extra ocean swim during the week, then swimming from Scarboro Surf Life Saving Club north to Trigg Island SLSC and return is great and is approximately two kilometres each way. This is usually a rough swim with swells, rips and currents to swim through and plenty of board surfers dot the waves as well!! No stingers. What? Where have they gone!?

View from Trigg Beach to Scarborough Beach

One of my favourite venues is Sorrento Beach, just out of and south of Hillary's Mariner. From the Mariner wall to just past the third groyne is approx. 1km. This beach is handy as travel time is only 5-10min. away from home.

Sorrento Beach

Next - You guessed it.....more training of course.

Just Keep Swimming - A Breathtaking Experience