Sunday, February 26, 2012

Congratulations!

Dear Swimmers

Congratulations to all of you who successfully completed the 22nd annual Rottnest Channel Swim yesterday. Conditions turned out to be much better than predicted and times generally speaking were relatively quick despite the swell earlier in the day. I aimed to get as many shots of you all either starting or finishing as possible (not easy with 48 successful soloists, and over 70 DUO & TEAM swimmers from the squad and my 1-2-1 coaching taking part!). These can be viewed here:


Full results will be published in the next couple of days at:


It has been an incredible season seeing so many of you take on such a massive goal and succeed in the finest of fashions! Well done to you all! It would be unfair to suggest who had the best race from the squad as just making it across to the island is such a huge fete in itself and many of you were out there to simply complete your first ever solo swim and pick up the number plates! There were some seriously impressive performances though and generally speaking I'd say that 90% of you seemed happy with your times, including all those of you who smashed your PBs from previous years, of which there were many! 

Just to illuminate a bit of perspective on the whole time thing though for the few of you who thought you could have / should have swum quicker, squad stalwart and now English Channel legend Paul Downie, swam 9h16m in 2009 for his first successful crossing of the Rottnest Channel. Paul suffered severe shoulder pain in the last 6km but battled on to set in motion what would then be 2.5yrs of hard work leading up to a successful assault on the English Channel in September 2011. Despite Paul's route being over twice the distance of Cottesloe to Thomson's Bay, he completed his epic English Channel swim in just 12h38m. Why raise this point? Well of the 48 soloists who successfully swam to the Rottnest Island this weekend from the Swim Smooth squad and those whom I've been coaching on a 1-2-1 basis, the longest time it took to swim the Rottnest Channel yesterday was 8h48m, i.e. 26 minutes faster than Paul's first attempt in 2009. The quickest (for your reference) was 5h15m. 

Should this suggest that all 48 of you now look to swimming the English Channel? No, probably not, but despite how you're feeling with your aching arms and tired muscles over the next few days, please try to take onboard what you have achieved this weekend and realise that very few people have done what you just have. Enjoy this feeling and who knows, maybe you might just have inspired another swim in yourself next year or for another Rotto virgin in your lane!

363 days of training to go...!

Cheers and well done again - I'm super proud to be known as your coach.

Paul



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