Alarm set for 245 am. Straight up, into the bathroom, where I’d laid out my wetsuit and completed the first task of the day: lubing up.
A wetsuit is not comfortable or flexible. Swimming for short periods of time is okay, but, for longer, I need to lube my neck and arms to stop friction burns. I don’t want to be finishing the swim cold from the sea and burning from my wetsuit rubbing my neck.
I also grab a quick bite to eat – a flapjack – and meet Iain TwinBikeRun to drive to the start. We’re only 10 minutes away, which is good, but when we get to Sheildag there is a queue to park. The organisers do a great job of organising of directing traffic and directing cars into spaces so it’s not too long before we’re directed to a spot near Sheildag pier.
“Do you have everything?” Iain asks as we walk to transition.
“Yes,” I say.
But I don’t. I don’t have my swim cap. I need to run back to the car. D’oh.
It was damp when we got up but dry here in Sheildag. The sun is starting to rise and the town is starting to show its colour. One of the cafes is open and there’s a small queue outside: no athletes though, all supporters. No one wants a bacon butty before swimming two miles.
Transition is set up at the north end of Sheildag. Racks placed in the middle of the street and access only for athletes and supporters with their pink tshirts. I’m also wearing a big dry robe. And, like many people who wear them, I’m wearing it too keep warm, rather than dry and I’ve not been swimming. I guess it’s okay though, I am about to swim.
We collect a GPS tracker and a ‘dobber’ from a small hall at the end of transistion. Again, we queue, but only until we realise that the queue is for the toilet in the hall, not registration. Double d’oh.
The tracker, a small orange box, is left at transition. It will only be used for the bike and the run.
“It doesn’t work in water,” explained the organisers.
The tracker allows for people to track where we are on the online map. It would be good if it also had a button to add comments as otherwise supporters may get the wrong impression.
“Oh, he’s going fast, he must be doing well”
But with a comment you can add: “The pain! The pain! The pain!”
The dobber is used to confirm when you enter and leave transitions. The organisers suggested having it around my wrist, but I change that to make it around my ankle. Later, one of the organisers says:
“I’ve never seen anyone use their ankle before.”
I don’t know why not. Having around my wrist is annoying when swimming as I like my wrist to be clear and it’s annoying when running and cycle as the dobber wobbles. On my ankle, I don’t feel it all.
The buses to the start line are above transition at the north entrance to Sheildag. I say goodbye to Iain and find an empty seat. I think of sitting at the back like cool kids do, but, with a wetsuit on, there is no one cool on this bus. We all look like a rubber fetishists day trip to Margate.
“Where’s the gimp?”
He’s on the bus.
A German man sits next to me. I know he was German because when he spoke, his accent was obvious. Also he said “I’m from Germany”.
“Congratulations,” I said. Germany having whipped Scotland 5 – 1 last night in the Euros.
“Thanks,” he said, “I wasn’t sure whether to hide the fact I’m German today because of the result.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “we never expected to win.”
The bus journey takes around 30 minutes to the start. It makes it feel like the start is miles away but the coastline bends back and forth more than a slinky so while it may be feel long, in terms of straight line distance, we’ve only travelled two miles.
At the briefing yesterday we were warned to watch our feet. The field is filled with sheep poo from the flock that we’ve shunted aside to make way for a flaming Celtman sigil, Highland drummers and 200 triathletes. I’m wearing my swim socks so don’t care what I stand on, but, if you have bare feet, then probably best to bring some shoes or sandals with you.
You can bring a bag to the start line, I brought a bottle of water, and there’s a Land Rover to leave the bag so it can be brought back to the start for your supporter to collect.
I found a toilet. Well, I say a toilet, I copied the sheep and had a wee in the field next to a tree before everyone was called over to the sigil for the lighting of the sigil and a photo of everyone standing in front of the flames. I could feel the heat from it but, with all my gear, I was starting to feel too warm. I hoped that I wouldn’t feel the counter effect of that when going into the water: the water would feel even colder compared to how warm I felt now.
I didn’t feel nervous. I was keen to get started. All I could think was to breathe deeply so as to adjust to any cold water shock.
We were called to the start and, as I walked to the shore, I met two other people from Glasgow Triathlon Club. One admitted that they hadn’t brought their swim vest with them. I thought of offering mine because I was so warm, but I knew that would be a foolish move two minutes before diving into 10 degree water. Instead I said as we stepped into the water “It feels much warmer today,” which it did. Unlike yesterday’s swim, it didn’t feel like I was slapped in the face as soon as I put my head below water.
The start of the race is on a rocky shore, so again, if you have boots, it’s okay, but I imagine it would be uncomfortable to walk on with bare feet. The start is also filled with seaweed and kelp and you have to wade out 20 metres to clear the worst of it. Once clear, I was able to dunk my head to try and few short strokes to get used to the temperature.
I looked around to see how everyone was lining up. A short line was forming between two canoes. I waited for those who wanted to go to the front to swim past before joining the end of a line. I was quite happy to not be among the washing machine of the first swimmers and to hang back in cleaner water.
There was little time to think. From the shout to entering the water to getting to the ‘start line’ was around five minutes. I had no more settled than:
“Go!”
A shout. And we were off.
Head down. Right arm. Left arm. Breathe. Repeat.
The first part of the course is a swim from the shore to the left side of an island several hundred metres away. You then turned right and into deeper water to cross the sea to reach the left hand side of Sheildag island.
“For aiming,” said the organisers, “aim for the white house on the shore that you can see just to the left of the second island.”
I stayed in that house last year. A fantastic location but with strange decoration. The living room had what can only be described as a ‘shrine’ to Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros, who died over 10 years ago.
This was a rental. A home available week in, week out through the year. Why did it have a Seve shrine? Photos of the golfer and a frame that lit up to form one of the lamps in the living room. Who was hiring this house for it’s golf heritage? There’s not even a course near here. Or anyone Spanish.
So, when we reached the island and started to turn, I couldn’t help thinking of Seve as I spotted the house and started swimming back to Shieldag.
Unfortunately, for most of my swim, I was getting a small amount of water into my left hand goggle. Not enough to be annoying but just enough to make me close my eye as I swam. This meant, as I breate to my left, every time I breathed and look out, I was looking with my right eye and couldn’t get a good view of the land. I was swimming with an eyepatch.
I would stop occasionally to clear the water and to push the googles back onto my face. It never worked but it gave me a chance to look around and to take my bearings. Still facing Seve, still going in the right direction.
But to help ensure I was heading in the right direction; I would also try and find some feet to follow. Just like a bike, following someone has a slipstream effect, which makes swimming easier. And it has the benefit of not having to check direction, as long as you follow someone who knows where they are going.
To get the benefit of slipstreaming (slip-sea-ing in open water?), you have to swim quite close behind them. So close that if you time it wrong you tickle their toes with your hand. I would follow people for as long as I thought I was still in accidental touching territory and not seen as an underwater foot fetishist. Once slipstreaming turned into a kink, I tried to find another pair of feet to follow.
One of the challenges of swimming is that it’s difficult to know how far you have swum and how long you’ve been swimming. I usually wear a watch when swimming but, in practice, I found wearing a watch and gloves placed more pressure on my wrist. When I had my practice swim yesterday I swum without the watch and it was a big improvement. Today, I’m also swimming without a watch which means that not only do I not know the time or distance, the swim also never happened. I can’t record it, so I can’t add it to Strava and if an athlete swims in the ocean without recording it on Strava, did it really happen?
(Yes, yes it did).
The Celtman swim is famous for jellyfish. According to reports, they start to gather around the first and second islands with previous years seeing walls of jellyfish floating in the water. Last year, at the Solo, there were thousands of jellyfish. At first it’s scary to see the jelly fish suddenly appear before your face like a facehugger from the Alien films or custard pie thrown by a clown. But as you swim thorough them, they become eary to ignore. You can bump them out of the way as you swim with a nudge of the hand or a flick of the wrist. And, with a balaclava and goggles you have little exposed skin for them to cause any problems.
However, this year, I only saw a handful of jellyfish as we crossed the deepest part of the loch. Thankfully there were none around the island.
As I turned at the final island, and passed its westernmost point, I could see the end, the middle pier of Shieldag. I could see swimmers stumbling out of the water, I could see the flames of the lit oil drums and I could hear the drums. I knew though from last year and from checking the distances again that while I could see the end, it is further than it looks to get there. The currant also become stronger and the water colder. There was a noticeable chill. Whether the cold and the current were in my head or real I don’t know. I may just have been tiring. But it felt harder to swim forward and it felt colder in both my hands and body, which may me think the cold was real and not just cooling body temperature.
Towards the end, I kicked my feet and tried to get some life back into them. Remember how important it was to try and get the blood pumping again before trying to stand.
As I neared the shore, the drums became louder and the flashes of red and orange of the flames became more frequent. I wonder if this is what the devil thinks whenever he is summoned by a cult.
“Behold, hear the drum! Feel the flames!”
And then the devil pops out in a Zone 3 Thermal Wetsuit and says “Thank God, my knackers haven’t been stung by a jellyfish!”
A hand reaches out and pulls me up as I reach shore. There are volunteers at the edge who help me stand and I feel relief at finishing and happiness that I enjoyed rather than endured the swim.
Iain TwinBikeRun is here too and he helps me along to transition. I pull off my goggles, balaclava and gloves as I walk. I don’t feel cold and am grateful that I made the choice to wear everything. I’d much rather by bulky and warm than having to try and heat up.
“How was it,” he asks.
“Swimming done!”
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 