Midmar Mile - 8 Mile Club
The Midmar Mile - the world's largest open water swimming event. Every year 14,000 people descend on Midmar Dam in South Africa to swim 1 mile from shore to shore. It's a great event. I did it 18 years ago and it was in fact the last proper swim I did before Swimming Britain and probably had a big influence in my endurance activities of late. When I was asked to do it this year I jumped at the opportunity. This time though I was going to do all 8 events over the two days. As an added bonus I'd have some pretty impressive swimming buddies joining in on the action too.
Here we have Keri-Anne Payne and Lexie Kelly. For this who don't know who they are, Keri-Anne is double world champion and olympic silver medalist in the open water 10km event. Lexie is a professional marathon swimmer and competes in ridiculously long events that are sometimes over 80km (50 miles) long. Yes, 50 miles in one go! Bonkers! I had never met either of them before Midmar and was looking forward to a fun weekend.
|
The beginning of each race is always a bit hectic. The girls, being proper swimmers usually pushed their way to the front so they could get ahead of the rest, which they did. I however decided to wait for the first wave and take a leisurely swim. I wasn't looking to break records. I just wanted to enjoy swimming in warm 24 degree water. It was glorious.
|
I thought by telling Keri-Anne a joke before the start would lead her into a false sense of security and she'd let off the pace and I'd beat her. . .
|
As you can see this didn't work at all and she was ahead of me within about 1 second of the start gun. Keri-Anne and Lexie dominated most of the races and Keri-Anne even came a close second in her main event, even after doing 6 events beforehand. All this on her 'rest year'. Amazing!
|
So this is how the races began. A blur of arms and legs all over the place. It's quite normal to get kicked, or kick someone.
|
Swimmers soon start to spread out. I'm near the front obviously. Not really! Mid way I think.
|
Each race has about 2000 people in it so it can get quite busy in the water.
All three of us were swimming for Rhinos and here Lexie and I are wearing our Save The Rhino brackets. Saving Rhinos is something I am very passionate about. So that was it. A great weekend spent in the sun doing some swimming for fun. |
After about 30-40 minutes I finished each race. Yes, that is really slow in case you were wondering. As I said. I was just there to have fun.
|
