The big day was here, and I had been rolling around in the sleeping bag, imagining that it was raining and cold outside. A beep on my phone woke me into reality – “Hey u, are u awake”, it was Jason, waiting outside for me. I got changed and went outside to be greeted by his warm smiling face, which reminded me of the previous night. I guess our affection could not be hidden from there on, but no one made comments or asked questions. My focus had shifted slightly and I stared out into the water wondering if what I had done the previous night was right.
After a quick breakfast, the tent was taken down and everything packed away, and we were on our way to the start. Jenny dropt us off just by the start before proceeding down the road towards the finish to hand Dylan our bags, and beginning her journey with Jason on the way home. I cannot deny the sparkle in Jason’s eyes as we said goodbye, I had no idea that we wouldn’t even have time for a good bye hug, and I guess this was a reminder of what we had developed. Walking to the start I realized that I still had my sunglasses on, and stopped to see the car disappear around the corner; too later. Thinking I can just wear them under my cap and hope my goggles don’t crush them made me realize that I had forgotten my goggles in the car. Could the day actually get much worse?
Waiting for the start was much tougher than I thought. A whole hour of getting sunburnt and looking around at the girls who will no doubt mercilessly drown me the second we get into the water. Eventually I saw movement and slowly slowly we made it to the start line, and I looked across to the other side – It looked much further than I had possibly imagined. The start wasn’t bad, and I tried to stick to the right, doing freestyle. After getting kicked a lot and swallowing a lot of water I decided that maybe I need to stick to breast stoke. This didn’t seem to work out for me, as the waves were very choppy from all the people and boats around us, and I ended up choking on even more water. Thoughts of giving up started to enter into my head, I really was battling and I hadn’t even reached 400m yet. Each person that passed me made me feel weaker and I was thinking of at least getting to half way before getting a ride back with one of the lifeguards, but I didn’t go all the way down there just to give up because I wasn’t doing as well as I would have liked. The distance between the first and second buoy seemed like double the distance, and the feeling of just making it to the half way point was like a relief, but I knew I had a tough battle still ahead, I just need to keep going. My strokes steadied, and I developed a style of keeping my head to the left so that I did not swallow more water. The last 400m felt like a real race, I actually started to pass people and gain real momentum, even though it felt like I was going nowhere. The relief that I felt as I was able to walk to cross the line was too great, and the smile drowned out the tiredness- It was finally over, after 47 minutes, after all the conflicting thoughts of giving up and carrying on, it was over!
I managed to find Jess and Dylan, but had to wait a while before Dylan decided to show us where the car was (he didn’t bring my stuff down). The car was a long walk on the tar, and I could feel my feet burning, but could do nothing except continue walking – I did try walk on the grass at one point, but ended up getting thorns in my feet. A while later I was dressed in my shorts and bikini top, ready to finally buy some fudge, and find Ian. I was only dressed like that for a short time, but somehow managed to get a slight burn still, while packing up the tent and walking to the car. On the road again, this time with a really hot guy next to me, that only seemed interested in sleeping. The ride felt long, and I was tired but didn’t seem to be able to sleep. By 7 I was finally home, and by mayb 8:30 I was asleep. My mom did comment on the slowness of my time, however, later she admitted that she never believed that I would actually do Midmar after I told them in November, so she was proud of me. The question remains, do I want to do it next year? Do I want to take on the challenge again?
Only time will tell.
On a side note, I would like to pay my respects to Nick Mellet, whose body they found 500m from the start. It would’ve been his first Midmar. RIP
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