Lake Taupo swim

Craig, Faye and I decided that it would be a good idea to get our body clocks used to race day morning so we had an early night and set the alarm for 4am (trying not to think that this is actually 1am Brisbane time!).

We got up and had a cup of coffee and sat around watching to worst television ever whiling away the time until we were due to go for a swim at 7am.  We wanted to experience the Lake at the time we would be swimming it on race day. 

Dad drove us down to the lake and we got out of the car and thought that we were going to turn into ice statues!  It was freezing.  We got into our wetsuits in stages so that we didn't freeze to death and then we procrastinated a little before dipping our toes into the water.  It actually wasn't too bad!

I was wearing Muffy's neoprene cap on my head for warmth.  We decided to swim to a buoy a little way out and then regroup.  I was really worried as I didn't have my contacts in so my eyesight was not good.  Craig said he would keep an eye on me and make sure I didn't get lost!  The water was lovely, it was very clear and deep and the temperature wasn't anywhere near as bad as I imagined.  I think the temperature was around 19degrees celcius.

Craig and I got to the buoy in one piece and we looked around and couldn't see Faye.  We wondered if perhaps she went to a different buoy so we started to swim towards a different buoy.  This is where it got a bit scary...  We were flying over to the other buoy in a strong current, we could see that nobody was at the buoy so we decided to go in to shore and see if Faye was back there.  I could see from the bottom of the lake that I was not making any progress getting back into shore, I was being swept into the outlet.  Craig was not far from me - he yelled out to me to start swimming across the sweep and then in to shore so we both did that and got there eventually, but it was a really tough swim.  I must admit that I was not expecting such a strong current in a lake. 

Faye was not at the shore and I was really worried that she had been swept into the inlet!  I called out to Dad and he helped us try and find her.  After much worrying and looking around Faye emerged from the water not long after our panic looking fresh as a daisy and all in one piece - phew!  Faye had swum to the first buoy and then kept swimming up the swim course thinking that we were up there.  She waited for a while for us before deciding to head back in.  So we were all reunited and we didn't lose anyone thank goodness!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and commencing our carbo loading!