Southend Great Pier Swim - July 21 2013

Ben Jacques, Helen Wildin and me.

For the third year running, I have entered the Great Pier Swim at Southend.  Chalkwell Redcaps train at the Crowstone in Chalkwell and this year we had a new route for the Great Swim.

Instead of starting at the Sealife Centre and swimming towards Thorpe Bay, we will be starting at the Crowstone in Chalkwell and swimming towards Southend and straight under the longest pier in the world to the finishing line.

I have swum this route along with my fellow Redcaps, many times before.  The Redcap challenge back in 2012 comes immediately to mind when we covered the distance 6 times over on one tide.

As usual,I dragged mum out at this ungodly hour to come and watch and Mark, living and working at The Borough Hotel was also able to pop along and greet me at the finish post.

Being encouraged in ready for the race

A particularly windy day, (but not anywhere near as bad as last year), we gathered patiently awaiting the usual safety briefing.

Myself, Jane and Helen decided to pop in for a quick warm up to acclimatise first, which was a blessing, as the water was still a tad chilly so taking the opportunity to lower the body temperature lessens the shock when the time comes.

We also had the floating start this year whereas in previous years, we have run in from the beach.  I assume this was partly because the beach is somewhat stony at Chalkwell and very painful to run in.  As usual the racers are not allowed to wear a wetsuit and they go off first, followed by several waves of wet-suited challengers.

Jane Bell, Me, Helen Wildin, having a warm up

I have had a particularly bad time since the end of the open water season last year.  Not to mention being made jobless, not being well and hence suffering from a severe lack of training  I was really testing my fitness levels in this one.  3k is not a great distance when you are fit, but with the lack of training, I was in no way prepared for what lay ahead.

2012 had seen me competing or challenging most weekends but this year I have only entered 3 swims and this was the first.

The water was particularly choppy and my lack of fitness sure took it's toll.  It's not like me to 'wish it was over' and struggle for breath but those final metres swimming under the pier were exhausting.  I could hear the echo of my own wheezing over and over as I struggled to get some air.

They changed the award system this year too which I was pretty pissed off about.  Not because I am in any great need for another medal but purely out of principle.  If you want to swim a challenge, then that is what you are doing.  You enter challenges to challenge yourself to complete something.  If you want to race, then you are swimming to become an outright winner.  That's why we enter races, in the hope that we will prove to be the fastest and subsequently suitably rewarded for our efforts.  But this year, by popular demand, they chipped the challengers too.  Nothing wrong with that, as even challengers like to know how long they took to complete their challenge.  But to give the rewards to the challengers and not the racers, where's the logic in that?  So hence, my category, the veterans was won by a much slower swimmer than myself !! Crazy. So, I guess in hind site, had I read the rules properly, I could have kept warm in a wetsuit, taken my time, had a nice leisurely swim and walked away with first prize.  How crazy is that.  I spoke to several people who were extremely upset by this decision.  I think the organisers will be in extreme danger next year of all the racers entering the challenge category, because us real competitive people, love a trophy, don't we. Slightly contradicting my earlier statement, but true.    In particular, I spoke to an elderly gentleman who had trained really hard and was keen to win his age category, but like me, he didn't read the rules properly and his trophy went to a chap that was several minutes slower than him.  Daft if you ask me.

It's not cold honestly, we'll be fine once we've stripped off !