The first Sunday in February is the date for the Coles Classic at Manly Beach in Sydney’s northern suburbs. It is named after the Coles family who started the event at Bondi, before it was moved to Manly. It is now operated by one of the oldest newspapers in the country, and they like to proclaim it as the largest swim in Australia. Well it is the largest in NSW, but its… Read More
Today is April 25, which in Australia and New Zealand is ANZAC Day: the day we commemorate and remember the 100,000 Australians who have lost their lives serving our nation in war and peacekeeping operations over the last 100 years or so. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and the day was first observed in 1916. On 25 April 1915 under the orders of Winston Churchill allied forces made… Read More
This race was on again, and it was good to do it for the second year running. However, this year I decided to enter both the one km and the two km race. I had entered early to save me some money and also to have the timing chips and swim caps sent to me in the post. This saved me having to queue up a few days before the race at… Read More
I had recovered from my experience at Bronte and so I looked on the calendar on oceanswims for the next event. There was a race at Bilgola on the weekend after Bronte, but I decided against swimming that event after looking at the forecast. The following weekend had an event at Manly, a place I was familiar with due to my occasional swim with the Bold and Beautiful group. There were… Read More
Now that I had joined a squad, I quickly increased my training distances. I was now doing around thirty km in the pool per month which was about double what I had been doing previously. In addition to the increased distance, I was also getting fitter with faster laps and repetitions with the squad. I was also enjoying pushing myself in the pool and trying to understand the instructions from the coach…. Read More
I had entered the Coles Classic swim at Manly. Unlike most of the swims which were run by surf lifesaving clubs, this one was run by a media company as part of their strategy of supporting the community. This meant that you had to enter several weeks before the swim and pay higher prices. With most ocean swims I would check the swell forecast and if it was too big for… Read More