Alison Hey

Event - Palm Beach to Whale Beach - 28 Jan 2024

This was the 50th year this ocean swimming race has been held. In the first couple of years, the few who took part persuaded scuba divers to swim underneath them, checking for sharks. Not so these days, almost 2,000 ocean swimmers converged on Palm Beach for the 10 am race start, supported by life savers on paddle boards, rescue boats, drones and life guards with binoculars on the cliffs.  The race started off super easy, gentle surf at Palm that lulled me into a false sense of security. Only 300m or so into the swim the conditions changed radically as we cornered the first headland, now we were swimming into the large swell and fierce current dragging us north when we were heading south. It took grit and will power to just keep swimming through, not daring to stop because you would be dragged backwards. Finally hard won Whale Beach was in sight, but it was still tough to round the final 3 buoys before we could turn right and head into the beach. Total swimming time was about 1 hour 50 mins and the distance was 2.82 km. 

I've registered - The Big Swim - Palm Beach to Whale Beach

Gathered my courage this morning and registered for the big swim, I always wait until quite close to the day to register - in case bad weather forecasts give me an excuse to falter. But all looks pretty good for Sunday, so no excuses! Yes I do have nervous moments, but I am mentally just breaking the swim down to smaller chunks, between the buoys, and on pacing myself. Planning to swim alongside a couple of pod friends so that helps!

Event - Warriewood to Mona Vale swim - 21 January 2024

Had a wonderful swim today, such a great buzz and experience with so many familiar faces 'en route'. I meant to buddy with Melinda but I 'lost' her early on courtesy of some tricky surf and ended up swimming with with some other folk as I went around the course, you never feel alone as there's always someone to swim alongside and give a wave to along the way. No major obstacles, some bumpy bits and a shocking cold current of water at one point, the only sea life I saw was some orange jellies, but I am kind of used to them now!  Feeling thankful for great friendships forged in salt water.

Final beach training session Saturday 20 Jan 2024

Last Saturday session at MV Beach today (sad face) but what an amazing run we have had with weather mostly good and we managed to swim more often from the actual MV beach - rather than the Basin. Don't be fooled by the Basin swims though - the currents can be brutal and waves super dumpy. Today we did lots of rounds and rounds off the main beach - practicing getting through some big surf sets. Luckily although they looked daunting, they didn't have a massive amount of power in them. Still it certainly got the heart rate up. Thanks lovely coaches - Nicki, Sam, Lucy and the water safety guys and gals from the surf club. We all learnt so much from you guys.

Holiday swimming and the final push - 2 weeks to go!

Whilst not being super consistent with my blog, I have been more consistent with my training. Less than 2 weeks to go until the Palm to Whale swim. It was lovely to join the group for a few informal Bold and Beautiful swims over Christmas, plus some good pool sessions thrown in for good measure. Here's a photo of one of the creatures (Blue Bottle) we don't like to see in the ocean. This photo was taken by one of our swimming pod but luckily it was not my encounter, nasty stings from these. But there were plenty of the more benign big orange jellies last week, I had to keep my wits about me to slalom around them. Thank you all for your support.

Christmas Eve Eve

A lovely informal swim with some of the MV pod. A cloudy day, not so hot but the water was fine. Once again swimming around the rocks at Manly/Shelly meant some great sea life was so close, big and small fish, multi coloured and mottled. I loved seeing the Wobbegong Shark motionless (sleeping?) on the weedy bottom. So cool.

Last beach training before Christmas - 16 Dec 2023

Another perfect day at Mona Vale - with such gentle conditions. Almost perfect water visibility and calm seas, such a good swim. Bright green sea grass and thousands of silvery fish, so lovely to watch them darting under us. Mince pies and Christmas cakes are still selling well for my fundraising. Here's an underwater shot, courtesy of Xina, who takes the best pictures as we swim.

Week Five - Hot Hot Hot! - 9 December 2023

Definitely a day to 'slip slop slap' and being immersed in salt water definitely helped us survive the blast furnace of heat today- it was 41 degrees.

Pool Swim at Lane Cove - 6 December 2023

Wednesday night is usually our training night, but I couldn't make the group session (Christmas silly season) so I went along to Lane Cove pool, which is a long time favourite of mine.  Swimming on a summer night at 8 pm has its advantages with fewer competing swimmers in a lane. Swam about 1.5 k and timed myself over the 1 k distance to get a benchmark - I am faster than last year, which is good to know!

Lots of baking, tiny bit of swimming.. all for a good cause.

What with thunderstorms disrupting our training in the pool last Wednesday and me getting busy in the kitchen making Christmas cakes and Mince Pies ready for sale at a stall on clothing sale day (last Sunday), there has been a teeny gap in my training - but not to worry, I plan to make it up with a few extra sessions in the pool. 

Week Two - More seaweed than water, Yikes!

A beautiful morning, the waves were fine.. but the seaweed was an issue,  a thick mass of floating vegetation that hugged your legs and made getting out and in through the first 20 m or so from the beach an experience akin to swimming in thick vegetable soup. I saw  lovely school of medium sized fish and others photographed a ray on the sandy bottom. It was a good work out and a nice level of fatigue afterwards, so you know you have been challenged.

Collaroy Swim - Sunday 12 November 2023

Inspired by the exhilaration of swimming with the pod on Saturday, and lured by the descriptions of seeing sea life off the shores of Collaroy Beach, a few of us signed up for this event. Only 800m (they said) - sure! It was very hard getting beyond the surf, but finally I did get under that final wave, exhausted, and still with 750m to go. As usual the game plan was "just keep swimming". My watch recorded 0.96 but if felt like more... seaweed and a few jelly fish and water visibility was poor. So much for the sea life! Maybe next time.

Week One Beach Training, Sat 11 November 2023

Back in the water with the Mona Vale gang.  The water was a very pleasant 20 degrees, which is warmer than I remember the first few swims of a season being... (I am trying not to worry about global warming) What a fabulous and exhilarating start to the summer season it was. There were some decent surf waves to dive under and a quick dash around the water safety guys/gals to loop back into the beach, keeping an eagle eye for the surf behind me. What a pro. Around and around and even when we got to the optional last loop, I was keen to just go around one more time, which I did.  Followed by coffees under a shady tree, I actually cannot think of many more enjoyable ways to spend a sunny Saturday morning.  

I'm supporting cancer research and prevention with Can Too Foundation. 

1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. This means that potentially someone we love may have to battle cancer, and that's a statistic that needs to change. 

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