Swim - 3.8km - 1h15m

With the lead swimmers having crept a long way forward it meant people were far more spread out than normal, which resulted in a very docile swim start (at least for me). I was happily swimming in a nice draft when the swimmer directly in front of me stopped to see where he was going - very annoying, why wasn't he simply following everybody else. Even if you stopped to have a look it was too dark to see the buoys anyway. This incident caused me to slow down, find a gap and then pass him. I was careful to avoid contact with other swimmers because I was hoping for a stress free swim without errant arms whacking me in the head, or feet kicking me in face like what happened at Geelong. I was back enjoying another nice draft when exactly the same thing happened again. By the time I got past this 2nd annoying swimmer, the main horde had well and truly caught up and arms were flailing everywhere. At this point I gave up my aim of a fast swim and tried to find a little bit of space to the side. Getting through the swim relaxed was more important than a fast time.

I fell into nice rhythm and started to really enjoy the swim. We passed the first buoy but didn't seem to really turn. We passed the second buoy and I was feeling great, but again I didn't sense us really turning around the buoy. Maybe the turn was more of an arc around several buoys, difficult to tell in the dark. Daylight seemed to happen very suddenly and now I could see the shoreline. Then it dawned upon me, we had not turned at all, we were still heading towards the first turning buoy, the two we had passed were simply sighting buoys. We weren't nearly as far into the swim as I thought.

When I finally arrived at the turning buoy I discovered it was a completely different shape and colour, and now we were definitely turning. The next turning buoy was quite close and easy to see and once around it we headed back towards the pier which was lit up with what looked like street lamps all the way out to the end. I hadn't noticed this before, but I really hadn't paid much attention to anything to do with the swim course, a fact that was becoming very obvious now. My swimming was still going well. People were quite spread out in the water, at least 50m across, I was roughly in the middle so I guessed I must be swimming reasonably straight.

The glowing lights on the pier made it obvious we were not in full daylight yet, and it also made the pier appear closer than it was.  It almost felt as though I was swimming into a current, but I suspect this was just in my head. I was still finding decent swimmers to draft off, but they had a tendency to go offline, so I'd continue swimming straight waiting for another swimmer to come by. I figured I must have been still swimming OK, because I could feel people drafting off me, a nice tickle on the toes as their hands occasionally brushed against my feet.

About the time I reached the pier, my calf muscles gave their first hint of cramping. This was not a good sign, because getting back to the pier was only the half way mark. I eased off the kicking, but this meant losing the draft I was following. In fact the people who were drafting off me started to pass. I kicked on and off intermittently but the cramping was getting worse.  Whereas the first half of the swim I felt like I was keeping pace with those around me, now it was a constant stream of other swimmers going past. To make matters worse, I was starting to get a headache. I wear different goggles in the pool and wear them quite loose. But when I swim in open water my race goggles are more on the tight side to avoid having to stop and fix leaky goggles. This is OK for shorter swims, but now the extra pressure was causing me grief.

With 500m to go I experienced a massive cramp spasm in my calf forcing me to stop for about 10 seconds while I tried to stretch out my leg. At this point I didn't think I'd be able to finish the swim, but slowly the cramp subsided a little and I gingerly went back to swimming. I not only stopped kicking completely, I also stopped trying to keep my toes pointed and continued swimming with my feet pointed down like small anchors. My headaches were getting worse and I could barely feel my face - I was well past enjoying the swim.

I would usually swim as far into shore as I can, and then porpoise the rest of the way through the shallows. Not this time. As soon as I saw fellow competitors around me walking, I stood up. The water was still almost waist deep but I needed to stretch my calf muscle out as much as I could. It was a very slow wade through the water without any urgency at all and once on the beach it was a very casual stroll through to the transition tent. As I removed my goggles I discovered my entire face had gone numb - welcome to Ironman.

A swim time of 1h15m is slower than I wanted, but better than expected considering the difficulties I encountered in the second half.  Without the cramping I think I would have come close to my target time of 1h05m.