My First Open Water Swim - Race Day

-

13 May 2018 - Kelab Tasik Putrajaya Open Water Swimming Challange

The team posing after the race

On race day, we always prepare to leave for the venue early. We always warm up together and keep things cheerful as we wait for our event nervously. We get suited up and wait for the starter to call us to the line. Moments later, the host announces the participants to the start line. The countdown begins. T minus 10 seconds the airhorn will be honked. Everyone starts to countdown. 

10, 9. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, HONKKKKKKKKKKKKK

THE RACE BEGINS

The start will always be crowded, all the participants will be packed together very close. So, when the horn sounds, I had to make my way to the front very fast. I received some kicks to my hand and splashes of water to my face when I came out to take my breath each stroke. The start is always messy and barbaric. Everyone pushing and swimming to get ahead of the other. Thus, begins the 2km swim for everyone. 

After the first 200m, the participants are spread out wide. The fast swimmers are ahead and the slow ones are behind. For me, I was the slow one left behind. I looked up and saw so many swimmers ahead of me, but this did not put me down. I have all my best and kept going. 

1km later I was exhausted. So, I reached into my trunks and took my electrolyte gel out. I took a big mouthful of the gel to keep me going. Lucky for me the gel helped. I was feeling okay and I kept swimming the route. 

Getting closer to the finishing line, I can hear people cheering and clapping. I got even more motivated and swam my way to the end. When I got out of the water, there was a 20meter run to the finishing line where the timing chip will stop recording. I ran my way and ended my swim. The volunteers gave me a medal and a bottle of water. I saw my coach was happy for me as he congratulated me for my swim. 

It looks like I was the last of my team to finish the race. All my teammates were already out of the water. They were waiting for me to arrive. As I went near them, they cheered and congratulated me for finishing the race. I was a happy kid. Then, we went on to take a shower, as we all smelled horrible from the smelly lake. 

Right after finishing the race

Finally, the race was over. Now the team and I waited for the results to be announced by the organizers. To our surprise, the team won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for the men's 2km category. My captain on the other hand won 1st for the men's 5km category. We also won for the women's 2km category. Overall it was a success, the team won a lot of medals. We were all ready to celebrate and do it all over again. 

The boys won the race, from left 1st, 3rd and 2nd.

Personally, I was happy for the team we won many medals, but I was not happy for myself as I finished 19 out of 200 swimmers that swim that day. I had my redemption waiting at the next race. 

CATCH THE NEXT POST FOR MY REDEMPTION. 

THANKS FOR READING!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Redemption: Bukit Merah OWS

-
Image
 Continuing from my previous post. I finally found a place to train. I had to do workouts at the gym to keep my muscles fit. However, my gym routine is planned to stop 4 weeks before the race, and I did this is to avoid my body being dense and tight during my swim sessions. Trust me, it helps.  For the next few weeks, I did full-body workouts 2 times a week, and the others were dedicated to the pool with 1 rest day a week. I also invested in a foam roller to help in my recovery. To me, the foam roller is an inexpensive and essential tool to everyone's workout routine. The foam roller allows you to relax your muscles and removes some lactic acid formation in your muscle. At the same time, foam rollers also help increase the range of motion and help reduce muscle pain. Sometimes, I foam roll as a warmup before my workouts.  Then, I watched my diet. The diet part of this training is fairly simple. I just avoided certain food to keep me to shape. I avoided processed sugars, iced drinks
Read more

Swimming Essentials - What you need to swim faster

-
Image
     For those who don't know I represented my university, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) for swimming. I was a swimming athlete for the past 3 years from 2017 - 2020. Now, I have graduated and no longer on the team. I can say I have "some" experience in the competitive swimming scene.    This post is to list down and explain some essential equipment to help you swim faster.  Before entering the scene, I was a casual swimmer. I just swim for the sake of exercise. When I was in the pool, I saw some people with their swim gears, but I had no idea what was it for. After being on a swim team for the past few years gave me some experience in this. I have to thank my coach and teammates for that.  Humans are not meant to swim and that is obvious. The anatomy and physiology of a human are meant for us to walk, run, hike, and many more. We are not made to breathe underwater nor are we made to swim fast like a sailfish. This means we need to train ourselves to swim faster, l
Read more

Swimming Gears for Advanced Swimmers

-
Image
You might be swimming for the past 2 to 3 months and noticed performance improvements.  You might be swimming for a few years, but struggling to get the gains.  Or you wanna be an armature pool swimmer, open water swimmer, or a triathlete but you don't have a coach.  THIS EQUIPMENT WILL BE THE BEST TO HELP YOU!! I have been using some of this equipment and noticed improvements in my swimming speed, technique, and stamina. I hope it does the same for you.  Ps: I'm not sponsored or paid by FINIS.  1. Tempo Trainer A tempo trainer is an electronic training device that transmits an audible beep to help you develop a consistent pace and tempo. For this, I am suggesting the FINIS Tempo Trainer. The FINIS tempo trainer has 2 modes that you can select to train. a. Stroke Rate Mode In this mode, you can set the stroke rate that you want to swim in. The device will then beep according to the stroke rate you intended. This is very simple because you can have consistent fast pace strokes o
Read more