HI All

Swimming is one sport that most of us were introduced to at a very early age. Some have parents that encourage their young kids to strive be able to swim against the best athletes; others like me, just attended school swimming a few times a week, being chosen for the relay team when one of the regulars was sick.

In my mid-thirty’s, I was running mega miles training for the Comrades Marathon, waking up often with stiff hamstrings and legs. I decided to see if swimming would help, so I would head down to the Les Brown swimming pool where similarly minded guys and gals were doing laps and soaking up a little lunchtime sun. It wasn’t long before I realised that swimming helped both my running and my golf, using alternative muscle groups – If I spent more time swimming, I didn’t have to allocate so much time pounding the roads. It has now become my default exercise with an early morning swim, leaving me feeling inspired and not as drained as other exercise does.

Over the past couple of years, a group of enthusiastic adults have set up the Open Water swimming association. They have gradually joined together swimmers of all ages to swim in dams that are deemed safe from Crocodiles and that are treated for Bilharzia. Last Saturday, they put together a well-organised event at the Mazowe Dam with about 50 swimmers competing. 5 people entered the 5km slog whilst 16 of us competed in the Mazowe Mile (1600m) with a few less ambitious completing just one lap of 800m.

The water was surprisingly warm (about 24deg) with underwater visibility of about 2 metres. The weather was cloudy with hardly any wind, so the water was very calm with very few choppy waves to contend with – much easier than an ocean swim. Mazowe dam is currently 36,9% full. A couple of the entrants are training for the World open water champs to be held in Singapore early in July. Young Jayden de Swardt will be there racing in the 10k – he took it relatively easy on Saturday, winning the 5k swim (1.07) before jumping back into the water to win the mile (24.12). 

Prize giving was held shortly afterwards to one felt compelled to sample a bacon and egg roll followed by a cold pint of Draught Lager bought from the Draughtman trailer – Shingi Paswarayi (0772 254 927) has kids that enter all these types of events so he regularly hauls his trailer out to all of these events enticing us older participants to quench our hard earned thirst with a draught beer. 

If you’ve been introduced to swimming at an early age, then it’s never too late to take it up again – see you in the pool soon. Mike G