Performance enhancing drugs

For a gear-freak, there's not really much to swimming.

Speedos and a pair of goggles are the only mandatory items (and the speedos are optional if you go to the right beach, of course). Optional accessories include, umm, swimming caps. And that's about it.

Which is not to say that you can't accumulate a lot of gear: every time you enter an ocean swim race, you get a new cap. When you've been doing it a while, you wind up with a quite few of them.

This is less than half of Robbo "The Salmon" Salamon's collection. Thanks, Robbo!

It's always been a bit of a dilemma what to do with all the old caps. I chucked all of mine out during a spring cleaning frenzy one year. But true aficionados keep them.

What else can you use to help you along?

Wetsuits, flippers, snorkels? All excluded by ocean swimming race rules, I'm afraid.

No, it's really just you, the water, the conditions and the little whiny voices in your head.

How about performance enhancing drugs? It's been a pretty big year for them.

No, of course.

Unless you count this. Which I do. A lot.

(Much more exciting than watching the kettle boil)

Double ristretto, thanks.

Race day will start with a solid breakfast, but in an endurance event you need to keep eating during the event to keep yourself going. Technically, that's to avoid glycogen depletion, also known as hitting the wall. A huge amount of science goes into sports nutrition, and there are all sorts of formulae for how much and what you should consume, but what I've found works best for me is eating something high-carb every 45-60 mins. Something like a banana, a honey sandwich, or an energy gel.

Energy gels work better than they taste. These Hammer gels are a new brand I'm trying, which seem to taste better than the old ones.



Both Rocket Ron and Agile Alina will attest to how much of a boost these little guys give you. You have to keep forcing yourself to eat them as you go along, but they do work.

So that means that every 45 minutes or so during the swim, Fred "The Floating Kiosk" Linker will paddle up next to me and it'll be Hammer Time.

By the way, is it just me or are Psy's pants in his new Gentleman clip recycled from MC Hammer's poo-catchers from the 90s classic?

And you thought he was totally original...

Big thanks again to everyone for their words of encouragement, interest in the swim (and I now appear to be a major media personality), and of course donations to Glaucoma Australia. Contributions are now at almost $6,000 which is absolutely wonderful. Thank you again.

With just on 3 weeks to go, I think it's time for a dip...