Mullaloo 5km Open Water Swim....

This morning saw another beautiful summers day at Mullaloo Beach, Perth. Ready to face another five kilometer swim with many other people from around Perth. Distances on offer today were 500m, 1.25km, 2.5km 5km and 10km. As I have already done my qualifying 10km swim I made the decision to stay doing the 5km for the Open Water Swim Series. Though today will be backing it up with a recovery swim at our local pool, the cold water will help the muscles to recover. I have a 5km swim tomorrow on the cards with my paddler as a training session before doing Rottnest Swim.

So water temperature was a very pleasant 22 degrees C, very few stingers and a slight chop to the water when turning to head north. The difference with today's swim was the circuit was set in a clockwise direction when normally we swim in an anti-clockwise direction.

A couple of technical issues, goggles fogged up so a till sea water to wash out and we were on our way, oh and the feeling that my timing chip-band felt like it was going to fall off, so again and quick roll onto my back and check, found it in firm contact with the edges of velcro and back we swim again.

Now normally I wouldn't put up photos of my underarm, but as I didn't have any good war wounds from stingers today, the chaffing was as good as it gets, and believe me chaffing can be just as or if not more painful than stingers. So even though there were stingers in the water, but not as many as there has been at other locations, I tried something a little different today. A layer of Stingoses cream (soothes stings and insect bites) then a layer of sun cream over the top, though I did forget the vasoline which would have helped with reducing the chaffing issue, but again another lesson learnt.

With another 5km swim organised for tomorrow morning with my Rotto Swim paddler the vasoline will definitely come in handy and also the stingose. This will give me a total also of approximately 12km done for 2 days of training.

With eight weeks of good solid training left its a matter of keeping the kilometers turning over, as much of it will be done in the pool, it comes down to a lot of technique training, sprint training and also breathing. I found today that I wasn't exhausted after the 5km but felt no uncomfortable feeling like I normally do when I start to fatigue and the only things I can put this down to, is good calm breathing (every 4 strokes, site every 12 strokes) and being hydrated and energy loaded to start with.

The best part of an open water swim is the food after. Gluten free egg and bacon roll, followed by 2 scoops of choc-mint and white chocolate ice cream.

Now that my recovery swim is done, and now munching on caramel popcorn and chilling out, what else could a girl want.

Have a great day everyone....

Hayley xx