Some mad ocean swimmers never stop. They plan their lives around swims and travel the globe in pursuit of the perfect open-water experience.
Not moi. I am content to have a winter sojourn in the desert, away from the beach and thoughts of having to battle it out in the surf with hundreds of buoyant ageing blokes with a Johnny Weissmuller complex. And then there's the women competitors, many of whom look like they were born with friggin' fins and gills.
Don't get me wrong. I love ocean swims and this season is going to be BIG, I'm sure. But I'm not the fastest fish in the school, so the swims are sometimes a challenge.
This season I hope to do some PBs, but I don't plan to swim in a five-metre swell in a furious electric storm as I did at Mollymook on the NSW south coast in April. That swim has haunted me all winter. I still don't know how I managed to do it. I know why I did it - bloody competitive nature - my brother-in-law did it so I did too.
This season my major goal is to finish the Whale to Palmy beach swim in a decent time (not limp home in the final 50). Other minor goals are to have more fun and stay on course during a swim.
The season kicks off this weekend with a swim at Forrester's Beach up the NSW coast, and I'm sure all the diehards will be there.
In the meantime, I'll stay in the pool and let the big boys overtake me.
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