Open Water Swimming

Today was a beautiful fall day in Melbourne, bright and sunny, but with cool temps a blustery 18 knot wind off the water. I started the morning with a yoga class, my first foray into Iyengar. I was really excited to do yoga again after all this time, but wasn't prepared for the amount of prop use in this class. Not only do you use bolsters, blankets, straps, and blocks as aids to get into poses, but we also used ropes on the walls to hold ourselves in downward dog without putting pressure on our arms. An interesting class, to be sure, but not my thing. I think you should be able to practice yoga with your body and a mat. I'll have to look for other classes in the neighborhood.

A very nice woman with blue hair on the mat next to me told me about a great veggie restaurant where you "pay what the meal was worth". I wonder what people normally pay, but I had a great mug of chai and a huge lentil burger. I then made my way over to St. Kilda beach where the final day of the open water world championships, the men's' 25 K swim, was underway. To put this in perspective, 25 K is 14.5 miles swum in 10 laps in the choppy, cold, unpredictable ocean.

It's 10 laps around a 2.5 km course, and there are people on small power boats following each swimmer in case of injury. The course also features 2 feeding stations on opposite ends of the loop. This is the most amazing part, I think. A crew member will extend a long pole over the water, containing a cup with the swimmer's fuel of choice, whether power drinks, gels, or bananas. How they manage to chug the contents and get right back into the rhythm of their stroke is quite beyond me. The wind was brutal on land; I can't imagine how it impacted the swimmers.

An Australian was favored, but a Russian wound up winning.... in 5 hours, 15 minutes. I cannot fathom swimming for that long, especially in the ocean. I probably would have been seasick after the first 100 meters!! An Italian finished second, and an Egyptian third, which was a surprise to me. He had quite the fan club, including guys wearing capes and silly hats who followed him around beating a drum and chanting. I bet they're going to have quite the party tonight!!

I had thought initially that an American and the Egyptian were in a race for third...until I realized that the American was being lapped. I cannot think of anything more disheartening... realizing you have another entire 2.5 km lap to go. I wound up watching the end with a nice Irish couple I met in the cafe while getting out of the wind. They have moved to Melbourne and are in the process of renting a house and finding jobs in communications. We had fun bitching about the people in Australian hostels. It was definitely nice to find others with the same frame of mind. Happily I am moving to another hostel tomorrow, one that will hopefully be a little more my speed.

Now on to see if I can get tickets for this evening's swimming finals...