Coaches Paul & Emma "lubing up" for the 2013 Rottnest Channel Swim
This report is winging it's way to you from the beautiful west coast of Ireland, where we've been for the last week delivering a 4-day Swim Smooth Coach Education Course and two x 1-day Swim Smooth swimmer's Clinics. I do sincerely apologise for the delay in getting this out to you as it's been "go, go, go!" since I got here 2.5 weeks ago and will be jetting back to sunny Perth in under a week now, back on pool deck on Wednesday 27th March.
I plan to send out another report in the next couple of days of this particular trip so you can see what fun and adventures we've been having over here! Please stay tuned.
Anyway, a full listing of the Solo swimmer's results from the 2013 Rottnest Channel Swim can be seen here:
...highlighted in yellow are those swimmers who trained with the squad or underwent 1-2-1 tuition with myself directly and / or followed our 21 week training plan as outlined here for your future reference:
There were some particularly inspiring results from the squad, with many swimmers attempting the Solo for the first time - well done to all of you who got across in one piece!
Each year I like to "award" a recognition of what I see to be the most outstanding male and female performance from within the squad. This is not to take away the shine from anyone else, just that these results were particularly memorable.
MALE:
Stuart Moran finished 17th overall and 12th male in an incredible time of 5h21'10" - what makes this result so great is that earlier on within the program (following a CSS test set) I actually moved Stuart DOWN from lane 4.5 to lane 4 in order to focus on his pacing and long distance efficiency and it seemed to really pay off with a simply brilliant performance - well done Stuart!
FEMALE:
Emma Brunning (you all know her as Coach Emma) battled extreme adversity in the lead-up to the event which included an extreme anaphylactic reaction to jellyfish meaning that she could not train in the open water in the run up to the race and also a severe neck and shoulder injury sustained from a bicycle crash about 10 years ago. Emma finished 71st overall and 18th female in a cracking first-time-Solo time of 6h21'45" showing superb resilience and the ability to "nut it out" to get across to Rotto. Well done Emma - we're going to miss you on pool deck now you're back over in the UK - good luck with everything back there! We are all super proud of how far you came in those 6 months!
Finally, I personally didn't have the race result I was hoping for (aiming for a sub-5 hour finish). Unfortunately at the start of the event my boat struggled to find myself and my kayaker and as such we lost a good bit of time being stopped by the water police at the Leeuwin tall ship. It was heart breaking seeing everyone else disappear off into the distance and not being able to do anything about it. I found it took me a good few KMs to regain my rhythm and momentum that I gained at the start. However, I am proud to say I finished though with an 11 minute PB (5h11) despite this and would like to thank my team and crew for getting me across to the island and making up so much ground on those who forged ahead when we were stuck at the start. One day I'll break 5 hours! :-)
Well done also to all those of you who were involved in the various Duo & Team events...anyone thinking of stepping up to a Solo in 2014??!
Well done also to all those of you who were involved in the various Duo & Team events...anyone thinking of stepping up to a Solo in 2014??!
So now we turn our heads to the Busselton Half Ironman event in May and then from there 7 of us will be taking on the Challenge of swimming 46km around Manhatten Island in June - eek! Actually, five of the team (everyone except myself and Lisa Delaurentis) will be taking on the almighty challenge of either a Rottnest Double (Paul Downie, Andrew Hunt, Wayne Morris, Geoff Wilson) or a hopefully a world first Rottnest Triple (the pocket rocket and 4th place Rottnest swimmer, Ceinwen Williams). Sadly I'll miss out here in the UK, but best of luck to all of you for this marvellous challenge!
See you poolside a week tomorrow (Wednesday 27th March) at 5.30am.
Cheers
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please add your comments here: