So this was another event that was signed up for in the historic pre-lockdown era. It actually did run last year, but due to a last minute change of date, I had the option of defferring so here I was. The Aberdovey 13km Swim is, well, a 13km Swim in Aberdovey, but with a fun twist - starting at the mouth of the estuary of the River Dovey at mid-tide, the swim is a 13km A-B route upstream but with the flow of the tide.
I had done the Tafol Tumble 8km here with a few people from the club a few years back and had experienced the power of the tidal movement here. When I did sign up for this, the thought process was "ah sure if I'm not fit, I can just float up with the tide". However after a good season swimming this year, and changing technique to better suit distance swimming, I felt good to give it a go. Or at least that was until I decided to to completely fall off training after the PTC timetrial series, then go to Spain for two weeks (where to be fair, I did swim a mile every day), and then not train for another 2 weeks once home due to travel sniffles - so about 4 weeks not training, before the biggest swim I had ever done - great.
I got one swim in at Jan's pool the Wednesday before the weekend - the first swim of any kind in 2 weeks - to convince myself I still had some feel for the water and that was that. Off to to Aberdovey for the weekend, with friends Ange and Flo in tow, for support. With the complete wind down in training, expectations were quite low and I didn't treat the event with too much respect, going out on a 80km sight-seeing cycle the day before, followed by some fish and chips and maybe a sneaky pint.
The event organisation was very refreshingly low key - a simple course overview and race briefing video emailed on Saturday, and a Saturday evening registration with a simple message : "see you at the slipway tomorrow for a 7.10am start". It was very much one of those things that was hard to make real in my mind as a thing that was going to happen the next day.
The course overview video was really helpful and gave some useful tips for the day - where to stay close to land, where the shallow areas might be, how to navigate the race line of the meandering river section of latter part of the course. Usefully it also mentioned a railway bridge, which would mark 10km on the course as well as a few other landmarks and distance checks.
The next morning was pure autopilot mode, getting all wetsuit and everything onto me back at the chalet (my only way of guaranteeing I wouldn't leave anything important for the race in the racebag that they would take to the end of the course) and piling into the car to get to Aberdovey. It was a lovely fresh and clear morning and it became pretty clear that a lot of the start of this race would be directly into the sun - it was going to get pretty interesting for the sighting!
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| Jaysus |
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| Sunset Slipway |
With no official announcement, everyone silently and knowingly proceeded down the slipway into the water for the oncoming start time. I think only now it was starting to dawn on me that i was about to swim 13km! I decided to position myself to the front row (which to be fair was about 10 people wide). The canoeists and support boats got into place, with Mike Alexander the race organiser, floating in from of us on a SUP to count down to start, 3 minutes, 1 minutes, 10 seconds and GO... and we were off !!
Immediatley this felt like it was going to be a high pace race - there were no messers at the front! It almost felt like I was in an all out sprint with the lady beside me, and knew this wouldn't be sustainable for, well, any time at all. There would be many factors that influenced the way this went, between the line, the current and fitness levels, but try tell your body that when you've started at high tempo. Eventually after about 100 strokes I let people ease ahead [another way of saying i died off] during which time it felt like about 20 people passed me, and settled behind a group of swimmers, who actually made for good sighting - high contrast dynamic silhouettes against the low morning sun.
After running the gauntlet of the moored boats (which really demonstrated the pace the tide was pushing us at), we were now fully out in estuary, trying to keep the land within 50-100 metres to our left, sighting to the next of a series of mini headlands en route. The effort still felt a little high, so I tried to focus back to technique - big kick on each catch phase - which slowed down the cadence but gave more power. All of a sudden I started to ease past the people I was pacing with, but less percieved effort... oooh this was nice, but really had to concentrate - could I keep this up for the next however long?!
With the pacing, the sighting etc, the next 2km or felt a bit 'samey'. Though it did seem that the people ahead were a bit more to the right and hard to tell where the people behind were - started to feel a bit more on my own. Then something quite odd happened. As we passed a point known locally as the island, the water got a bit choppier and my hands starting touching sand. Very quickly the water got shallower and I was swimming in about a half a shins depth of water, with just enough space for my hand to pass beneth my chest. This was warned about in the race briefing as an area we might have to get up and run / walk for about 150m. Dammit, it's got to be done. I stood up and started half running / half walking, an odd experience with the sight of land at least 100m to my left. Then I fell over as I stepped into a slightly deeper area. I started swimming again, and found myself in the shallow water again almost immediately. I got up, ran, fell again. Feck it, I'm going to wear myself out doing this, I thought and decided to persist with my shallow water swimming. The sight over my shoulder as I swam was surreal. The walking revealed the location of the many nearby swimmers - I was not nearly as alone as I thought - this resembled a small army of neoprene clad zombies, staggering through the shallows of this vast expanse of water, occasion falling over. This sight was only behind me, no walkers in front. It was WEIRD.
I persisted with the swimming, possibly foolishly as I felt my arms tire with the adjusted technique for the shallows, but got back into more swimmable depths again. This patch of weirdness had found me some company, again I was swimming behind a little mini group. My arms were feeling it however and they slowly pulled away as I gathered myself. Someone passed me quite slowly to the left, and I tried to latch on and draft. I kind of succeded, kind of failed but seemed the keep the other guys in reach, about 25-50m away. We passed another point with a boat yard, this was the 4km turnaround point for the Tafol Tumble I had done a few years back so another useful distance. I kept on with keeping the swimmers in sight onto the next point, which I knew to be about the 6km headland. It was really hard to get a feel for speed and there were times in this vast expanse of water when it felt like I was barely moving, but I knew this not to be true. It was also very hard to guage passing of time. I made a point of not looking at my watch, I didn't know if it would have a positive or negative effect on me!
The 6km headland was a point warned on the route as an area where the current pushed you outwards away from the land on the left. So there was an effort to fight this to hug the land as much as possible. We definitely passed over some shallows again. I was okay, but the zombie army made an appearance again over my shoulder. It's amazing how you could feel there was nobody close behind, then on next breath see dozens of people staggering in close proximity in slow chase.
About a km or so after this point things got a little bit weird. The swimmers I was chasing were no longer in front of me. It took a while for me to realise they were now to my right. At first there was an element of thinking the current had pushed them out more than me, but then it was clear, they were swimming diagonally heading for the mouth of the river section. This put me in a conflicted position... where they following the right line? Was following the land on my left going to add too much distance and cancel out the speed advantage from swimming the outside of the bend? (This was a tip given in the route overview for bends in the river, but I didn't know if this logic applied for huge bends in the estuary vs the diagonal across them. I made a decision to follow the swimmers.
With the turn to the right to follow the swimmers I was fully swimming into the sun again. The swimmers became harder to sight and I slowly lost them as they most likely pulled away. This section seemed to take ages as I waited for the banks to close in and for this estauary to start feeling more like a river. I had to fully stop a few times to figure out where the hell I was going - no longer having a reassuring bank close to my left was disconcerting! It was also around this point, about the 7 or 8km mark where I realised I was absolutley FUCKED. My shoulders where fine, my energy levels good, but 4 weeks of no swim training meant that now, after god knows how much time swimming pretty strong, that my forearms were shot to bits. I had no grip of the water anymore! This last bit was going to be fun. Two swimmers slowly passed me at different points in this limboic section, both quite far to either side of me, to be sure not to affirm any confidence in my racing line. Yeesh. Low point.
Eventually the banks closed in, and I passed a wooden cabin on the right, something flagged in the route overview as the start of the river section. I couldn't think of what distance this would be, but knew the I had a long sweeping left before 'the 10km bridge' so I willed myself for that. I followed the outer bank for max speed. I didn't feel like I was thundering along, but definitely got a better sense of progress than I had done in the expanse of the estuary a couple of 100m ago. I was surprised to see someone slowly pass me on the inside of the bend, the slower line, but shorter distance. Coming out of the bend though I did seem to be shot out ahead of him, which was quite satisfying as the 10km bridge came into view. This satisfaction was short-lived though, as he slowly passed me again - I had no comeback with my shattered forearms, and they were not coming back. I just tried to focus on other things, like my kick and timing. The bridge seemed to take an age to get to, but passed through it in the blink of an eye - the first real representation of the speed of the current. It was actually kind crazy! 10km done, 3km left to go - how long was that even going to take? One thing that was good to know was that Flo and Ange where at large on the course. It's strange - it wasn't really a course for people supporting you along the way, but knowing people are waiting for you at the finish line is good motivation!
Another swimmer passed me after the bridge. Kind of unnecessarily close - first tapping my feet, then almost shoulder barging me as he passed. Come on - 13km swim and we're probably about 30th - was there really a need?! Into the next bend and I just tried to keep these guys in sight. Man, I hadn't the sensation of passing anyone since about kilometre 2. Where on earth was I in this race? Was I just going to be passed by a bunch of people in the last 2km? Headspace was not good.
We whipped around a sharp right and soon into a sweeping left. There seemed to be lots of debris in the river the last 3km, massive branches that the current was intent on rushing us into. We got onto a little bit of a straight where we started catching on a pair of swams. I was just beginning to start to worry how swans would react to nearby swimmers, when SMACK I swam right into the pointy end of a branch, full belt into my right eyebrow above my goggles. It was a bit of a shock but I kept swimming. The eye brow quickly started to throb as I passed on last leftward kink in the river and saw the yellow buoy, the finishing buoy in sight.. I was fully expecting my face to be covered in blood when I finished, it was almost distracting. This last 300m or so went pretty quickly, and I reached the buoy, finishing the swim to low key fan fare. Once I had stopped swimming the current almost surprised me, having to dart into the bank to prevent myself unwitting wandering further up the valley. 13k swim done! It was very odd - after wondering the last 6km when this was ever going to end, I had a brief thought of "was that it?"
Aberdovey 13km [click to open activity in new window]
The post swim exit was fun. A submerged step ladder, some rope and a lot of arms! I checked my watch - 1 hour 55 minutes ....Whaaaat, that was like less than a minute per 100m!! (to put this into perspective I'm generally pretty happy with anything under 1:30/100m on a 1500m swim. I caught up to Flo and Ange. They had arrived just in time for the first in an I asked I they think I did and was suprised to hear they estimated I was in the top 15 (official result 13th out of 75). Crazy, I felt like I had been passed by dozens in the first 2km only to be passed by more over the course of the rest of the race. I can only assume there some kind of bridge troll who'd had his fill before I'd crossed his path. Almost disappointingly, I had no battle scars from the branch - I was just being dramatic.
Again, I loved the low key vibe of the event. Aside the river bank, on a picnic blanket, some jellies, flapjacks and jaffa cakes, with our lovely finishers reward - a painted rock from the Aberdovey Rock Shop, a shop for which all proceeds go to a worthwhile cause, helping kids with disabilities in poor countries.
Also top tip of the hat to the female swimmers today, occupying 1st and 2nd overall, and 6 places in the top ten!
Post race, there was the usual over analysis. Does the tide do a lot of work for you? - Yes. Is swimming strong for 2 hours really strenuous & difficult? - VERY YES. I was delighted with finishing and with the position, but did have me wondering what could have been had I continued the training for another 4 weeks - hey ho, I certainly hadn't regretted having a holiday in Spain! - or if I had followed some different lines. In any case, it was a really fantastic event, and I might just have to go back next year....
