Mystery Current at Paihia

November 22nd marked race one of this season's State Ocean Swim Series. The day started out bright and sunny and with flat-as-a-pancake water. The swim was scheduled for early afternoon though and on a low tide so it was likely there would be at least a little breeze and the usual ocean swell or chop by then. Everyone eagerly looked forward to good times.

There was just a smattering of drizzle before the start, nothing major, and then the swimming was underway in balmy, swim-friendly conditions.

I suspect most swimmers will agree that everything went fairly smoothly until only around 400m from shore when something rather mysterious happened. Swimmers could see the finish gantry and knew that it wasn't far to go. Then what? They all started heading south instead of west. Not on purpose mind, nor was there a floating barman south of Paihia handing out free beer. In fact, it was somewhat frustrating with so few metres left to swim to find yourself heading away from the finish.

Eventually the swimmers made it in to shore though. Most found their times were 8 to 12 minutes slower than year's times. To the credit of the organisers they extended the cutoff time to allow for the extra minutes it was taking to negotiate the last section.

South City had 8 swimmers at the race and 4 made the podium so that's a 50% podium hit rate - pretty good huh? Giles came 4th and Pat came 6th so we nearly had 2 others on the podium. Avy, of course, finished in her usual 1st place.

Here are the results:
Avy Judelson          1st in age      (27th female)    1.11.12
Dave Donaldson     2nd in age     (37th male)       1.04.20
Liz Hayes                2nd in age     (39th female)    1.13.37
Deryn McGregor     2nd in age      (18th female)   1.08.03
Giles Walker           4th in age       (52 male)          1.05.43
David Walker          10th in age     (140th male)     1.16.53
Pat Castles              6th in age      (167th male)      1.20.33
Sarah Lodge           14th in age    (102nd female)  1.25.05

There were 638 finishers and ALL our swimmers were well in the top half of the field.

And now for some piccies:

Giles running for the finish

Perennial winner Avy

Silver medalists Dave and Deryn

That's enough swimming, let's sit for a bit

Gotta have some fun after the work

Now I'm not going to mention any names, or who was involved but from this text I guess it could be said that it is very important to look good while you are swimming.

 

Note to self: do hair before swimming tonight