It was a fascinating experience this time around for the Pier 2 Perignon swim which I booked into back in December last year.
The swim is a decent 4.2km distance from Sorrento to Portsea and having done this swim twice, I was hoping to improve on my finish time from last time around, however some things didn’t quite go to plan. I sustained an injury 2 weeks before the swim to the extent that I couldn’t walk or sit and it was quite painful.
When I went to the physio on the next day after the injury – the evaluation was that I couldn’t kick while swimming for the next week and if on the day before the swim, I was able to go through a full training session and kick – then I should be ok to go for the race.
So the entire two weeks leading up to the swim was spent in slightly nervous anticipation of how the back and legs were going to hold up if I tested them out in that last practice session.
Which brings me to the point of this blog – determination and resilience.
We go through life and are offered opportunities to grow and evolve through challenges thrown at us. Some of these challenges seem insurmountable whilst others are minor road bumps. Most of them however are really in our mind and are created (and often supported by well wishing relatives and friends).
When I first sustained the injury – I had people all around tell me, oh no – this is serious and its not something to be messed with. Others were saying that if it gets worse – then surgery could be on the horizon. So all in all – it was looking pretty bleak.
In all the time though, I kept up with the training regime – sure I went into the slow lane and used a pool buoy so I didn’t have to kick while swimming. And whilst the mental stuff was going on – I kept doing the small actions to help the body deal with injury and recovery. I also stretched most nights and saw the physio twice a week.
And finally when it came to the Friday training before the Saturday race – lo and behold – I was able to kick through the session and came up not much worse than I was feeling the day before – so that gave me the all clear to participate in the swim.
And swim I did – the image above is the beach from where we took off and the weather was absolutely spectacular – reasonably calm water, about 20 degrees and blue skies for the most part.
I completed the race in 46.19 which was quicker than my first ever swim, but slower than the second one by 2 minutes and all in all really happy with how it all turned out.
Another tick for determination and resilience – we are often greater than we think.
