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Swimming for our Seas

  • That's a wrap!

      22 February 2022
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    Success! 35km in the bag in 5 hours and 30 minutes! Sunday's epic swim was a stunner, with beautiful weather making for a much more enjoyable experience than last time. The low river was a bit hairy with tons more rapids and quite a few logs, rocks and obstacles upping the ante and forcing defensive swimming and awareness the whole river. I had a great opportunity to swim downstream after the first lake with two Dunedin masters swimmers, Richard Jongens and Steve Prescott, who ended up shooting out on the last lake 4 minutes ahead. With 8 kilometers to go, I managed to come back into second and finish 2 minutes off of Steve, who had an amazing performance with his 67 year old grit and determination. I can't state how grateful I am to my paddler and support crew, as well as the event organizers and all of the online support. Thanks you all of you, we were able to raise over $2000 for great causes! Cheers to you all, and keep up the epic stuff! https://www.strava.com/activities/6709023906

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  • One down one to go!!

      19 February 2022
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    It was a great fast river swim down the first half of the waiui River today after the rain. A low river made for some epicly large rapids and boulders pop out of nowhere, but all of the swimmers seemed to have a great time. Came into the finish in first with a time of 1hour 11 minutes and a 3 minute lead. So grateful for the supporters here and online for the help and encouragement! Just have to do that 5 more times and I'll be set to go

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  • Touchdown Te anau!

      19 February 2022
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    Today's the first of two days swimming! Drove in to Te Anau last night just before a deluge of rain. It's looking a bit grey with the sun peaking out, but overall should be a great day to swim 12km in the river. A brief rekkie showed low river levels but more news and excitement to come as the swim kicks off this afternoon!

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  • 1 Week to Go!!!

      14 February 2022
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    Its the final countdown! It's been 6 days since the last update, and I've had the opportunity to get 5 training swims in. 6k, 1.2km open water race, 6k, 2.5k recovery, and 4km. I'm feeling great and my swimming senses are tingling. Happy to start a taper to decrease intensity this week and build up the rest leading into the event!

    Thank you everyone who has supported so far! It means a lot that we can come together to help out these charities and it has really driven me to prepare seriously. I'm super excited as the event is getting closer and cannot wait. 6 sleeps!

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  • T-Minus Two Weeks!

      8 February 2022
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    What another beautiful week of training and getting to enjoy the ocean! Its been amazing to feel the training turn into a bit of fitness all while enjoying beautiful conditions in the pool and ocean (see yesterday morning's stunning open water swim view at Aramoana). It's slowly starting to all come together where the recovery is slowly making hard training not so bad. Three 2-hour surfs, one freediving session, three swimming sessions, two water polo training sessions, and two lifting strength sessions have definitely increased my overall work capacity. For the next two weeks, only swimming is on the books, with very promising results already popping up in the pool sessions I've most recently had.

    I cannot wait to transform water time into swimming efficiency, and see the logistics of training and planning come into action! Two weeks!

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  • T-minus 18 days: Booster jab

      31 January 2022
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    After getting that big booster jab last Thursday morning, I've continued along with training as if nothing happened, but the recovery debt seemed to have built up a little. I was wiped out by the end of the weekend. I had two nice swims at St Clair for 4.2km each time, then went surfing and freediving on Saturday for 4 hours. Sunday and Tuesday were two nice days of strength training lifting while Monday was a day of 2 hours of water polo training.

    And boy was I wiped out by the end of it all. So tired that I've been able to sneak in some naps each day in the afternoon. But now I feel much more on track and happy to be back to enjoying the ocean, pool and nature. Cant wait to see how some open water swims go in the next couple weeks before the big event!

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  • 24 Days. Training level: Code Red

      27 January 2022
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    Monday through Thursday Update: Wow wow wow, and ow ow ow. That big training volume from last week has definitely caught up and I'm floating my way through this week in order to recover. New Zealand has gone into Level Red for our traffic light COVID response system, but luckily that doesn't put up any barriers to get training done. So grateful to still be able to capitalize on the great pools here!

    Monday was a nice bit of water polo training and Tuesday a well earned rest day to do absolutely nothing other than stretch and recover. As Wednesday rolled around this week I was feeling almost back to normal, and my energy levels allowed for a 4km pool swim (notably with 10 x 200m for the main set averaging 2:25 nice and steadily). Then I had a long and grueling strength training session in the evening followed by some long and restorative sleep. Thursday (Today) ended up being a windy but beautiful day to enjoy the outdoor pool for 4.2km of sprints, pace and distance swimming all bundled up in one! What better way to stretch out and massage out a sore shoulder from the booster jab than doing a bit of floating in the water, right? Even if it doesn't work, you can't beat the beautiful sea, sky and sun that Dunedin's outdoor pool offers. Off again to rest, recover and get into the thick of training and conservation. Cheers!

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  • Four week countdown!

      24 January 2022
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    A couple more days of exercise to round out a heavy training week. Last week was a bunch of swimming Monday, Tuesday and surfing Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Sunday I did some strenuous high repetition weight training courtesy of Otago Weightlifting Club, which included some killer sets of squats Thursday (see aftermath photo) for general body strength.

    Saturday and Sunday I still managed to go swim at the pool for 3k and 3.5k. Boy oh boy was Saturday's swim a rough recovery day. My back, shoulders and arms were so sore, and required a bit of stretching, rolling, and massaging to help loosen up. Feeling better at the start of a new week, and hopefully going to have moderate training load as I let all the training stimulus sink in.

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  • 30 Days to Go: Some hard work

      21 January 2022
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    The last 4 days have been a huge training block. 2 training swims for 9kms, 2 strength training sessions, and 3 surfing sessions (including surfing for 7.5 hours on the 19th of January to maximize a cyclone swell. Yikes that's a lot of paddling!).

    Clearly you can see just how energetic I am after all this. Even with my boundless energy, I'm taking a rest day today, which will let my back adapt to the volume of swimming i've just subjected it to. But what it really means is I have way too much time right now to make gigantic plans for some more great training next week!

    Shoot for the stars and hopefully my body will be able to follow through. Just keep swimming!

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  • 35 Days to go!!

      18 January 2022
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    Hi everyone, its just around 35 days do swim about 35kms!!

    Training and outreach the first week has been going great! I've been logging my training distances to see what it will take for this adventure. Since Jan 1st, I am sitting at 32.9km of swimming distance over 10 sessions. I've also been able to go out and enjoy the surf for 8 sessions in the new year. 18 water sessions in 17 days! Not bad, and I cant wait to keep up the work in the water to give my best effort.

    Highlight of the training thus far has been going out in the ocean and interacting with the sea lions. Its their breeding season, and this year Dunedin seems to have a larger population, which is wonderful news. Sharing the surf, beach and waves with these guys is an awesome experience, and the gorgeous summer weather and sunrises keep reminding me of why the ocean is so precious. Share the word to keep our oceans beautiful!

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