Balmoral Swim

Last Saturday it was a swim with a difference in a couple of ways. The first one was that we joined with the Balmoral Beach Club for their 2, 4, or 6km swim they run in memory of a great bloke Erik Mather who passed away just over 2 years ago from Melanoma at the age of 45. I knew Erik well; his sister is one of my besties. I saw firsthand what this horrible disease does to people, not just what it did to Erik but to those around him. I was very proud of all of you that turned up to support, in all 25 Vladswimmers and associates.  Overall they have raised over $13,000 which is great. If you would still like to donate here’s the link

http://melanomainstituteaustralia.gofundraise.com.au/page/ErikMather

The other reason the swim was different was that it was a race. Even though the course was short and there was a bit of buoy confusion I was more interested to see the effort put in rather than distance swum. I was very happy. Everyone gave it a good go and were out of breath when they came in. The idea was to get an idea of how your fitness is progressing on the way to your event next year. It’s sometimes hard to feel your increased fitness levels when you are in the middle of hard training and events like this are perfect for seeing the results.

It was great to see Diana Ritchie there with her daughter Katie, Jerry bought Jo-Anne his better half down to do the 4km, Des made his poor Canadian mate Sam swim 4km, and welcome to Jeff Aldenhoven for whom it was his first swim with us.

Some great results (will post once I get them) some great races – Fi, Jai and Jerry, and a=one very happy coach. I’m excited to see some of the results from our 5 and 10km swim on the 21^st.