On Sunday 19 January 2020, I participated in my first aquathlon. An aquathlon is a competitive race that involves both open water swimming and running in succession. Not only had I never done these two things together, I also have very limited experience with open water swimming. It was Brett Bowman, my economics teacher and frequent triathlete, who was also competing and suggested it. As I am still considered a minor I was not able to do the full one, instead the junior sprint (half the actual distance);The distances were 750 meters of swim followed by a 5 kilometre run.
To prepare for the race, I mostly went to the gym to run and attended swimming sessions at school. I trained about 4-5 weeks prior, not super constantly if I’m being honest with myself. But still, going into the race I was feeling good and fairly confident in my ability to finish the race in an acceptable time. Doing some quick calculations based on my individual swimming and running times, I set a goal of sub 40 minutes to complete the race. I was very excited.
The race was mostly a blur, but I remember taking it super easy on the swim in preparation for the run. It was a very calm day with minimal currents and wind, making the swim very easy. The run was surprisingly hard, despite it being completely flat, as I had no-one really to pace or gauge how fast I was going. But in the end I finished and surprised myself with a time of 31 minutes and 4 seconds. It was this time that got me 3rd place in my gender/age group (results). I was pretty happy with that as the 2 people who beat me were SEA games qualifiers. All in all it was a great start as I transition towards more things like this to come.
Learning outcomes and reflection questions topics included:
- Big picture (Goals, Action and Learning)
- LO 1 AWARENESS (Increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth)
- LO 2 CHALLENGE (Undertaken new challenges)/NEW SKILLS (Developing new skills)
- LO3 INITIATIVE (Planning and initiated activities)
- LO 4 COMMITMENT (Showing perseverance, resilience and commitment in activities)
- LO 5 COLLABORATION (Working together to achieve an outcome)
- LO 6 GLOBAL VALUE (Engaging with issues of global importance)
- LO 7 ETHICS (Considering the ethical implications of actions)
