The most scariest of all my races so far !
The hottest of all days and a nice lift with the Edge family meant I could fully relax for this one. Tony, Shaun. Vicky Alex and myself all representing the Redcaps.
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| Me, Shivvers and Alex pre race |
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| And we're off ! |
Just two laps of a marked out course and my life nearly came to an end half way through the second lap. The Thames was extremely narrow at one point so the final turning buoy was in the centre of the river.
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An example of how the river narrowed at the top before curving round to the right.
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You couldnt see this buoy until you were about 25metres from it as it was situated round a corner. On approaching the corner, I could hear the sound of chains and engines getting louder and louder underwater. At the point that it became deafening, I turned the corner, lifted my head and saw this barge below, coming straight towards me width-ways. He had ignored all warnings of a race taking place and just in the nick of time, he put his breaks on and tried to turn. I had whistles being blown at me from all angles to just swim, swim, swim back the other way. As the race was nearing an end, the field had narrowed out so just my luck that I was the swimmer about to take the final turn. I watched in horror as the barge took the buoy completed out! All I could see was a huge amount of back-wash and waves churning up the water as he struggled to keep the barge under control. How lucky was I ?
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| A more peaceful picture of the barge that almost wiped me out. |
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| Medal time - Champions. |
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Winners of the day. Me, over 50 and Alex - very much under 50 !
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| Vicky, Tony, Alex, Shivvers and me, post race. |
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