This is it!

This is it. This is the big one.

This is Andre the Giant vs Hulk Hogan.

This is Darth Vader vs Luke Skywalker.



This is the Habs vs the Leafs in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

This is fantasy, actually. Yet again, the Habs have managed to bomb out in round 1 of the playoffs, despite finishing the regular season with the 2nd best record in the league. And now the Leafs have lost to the Bruins too. But you get the drift.

This is Harry vs Voldemort.

This is my sole nod to post-90's pop culture.

Race Day is here. On Sunday morning, at 9am I'll set off from the North end of Bondi Beach, aiming to climb out of the water only once I've:

• swum up the coast
• turned left at South Head
• swum into the Harbour
• steered clear of the nude bathers at Lady Bay Beach
• waved to the beautiful people at Camp Cove
• kept swimming
• and, hopefully, finally, 10.5km later, arrived at Watsons Bay.

I know I can swim the distance, but as I've said may times before, it really depends on how kind or otherwise Neptune and Poseidon decide to be on the day.

Here's Poseidon catching a wave at Lady Bay Beach

So what's the forecast? Well it's been changing all week. It started off kinda scary:

This forecast is intended for yachtsman, for whom "green" means "good" (ie lots of wind for your sails),
and "red" means "bad" (ie becalmed). For a swimmer, becalmed is preferable.

This is the 7 day forecast from Monday morning which suggested rain, 2 metre waves and winds of 20-25 knots. Yikes!!!

However, as the week has gone on, the forecast has mellowed. As I write this, the forecast is for sunshine, 1 metre waves and winds under 15 knots, with the graph retreating back to yellow for Sunday morning. Let's hope we see red before then.

So now some figures:

Training
As a hopeless trainspotter, I have used Strava to keep track of my training for this event.

Looking at this calendar year (which is really when my training in earnest has occurred), I have:

• swum 139.6 km (as Rocket Ron would be entitled to say "what happened to the other 400m?")
• run 73.8 km
• cycled 1,495 km

It does add up I guess.

Fundraising

Speaking of adding up, I am just so stoked to be able to say this, funds raised for Glaucoma Australia - your generous contributions - have hit $11,280!

The original goal was $10,000, arbitrarily based on $1,000 per kilometre which, I'll admit, was a bit of a stretch target.

I am so grateful to you all, and to everyone who has donated, and I know Glaucoma Australia is too. The funds will be used in GA's continued and tireless work to minimise visual disability from Glaucoma.

Thank you all again.

If you haven't donated and would like to, here's the link.

A big team effort
Just in case I've given the impression that this whole thing has hinged on my ability to swim the 10km, let me say that it goes far beyond this and involves a huge amount of effort on the part of many people.

I've mentioned Doug "The Captain" Campbell before in this blog. Doug is generously making his wonderful boat available to support me through the swim. You can't enter this swim without a support boat: quite simply, without Doug this would not have been possible at all.

And it takes more than one to crew the boat. I haven't yet met, but I'm already indebted to, Wendy, Vaughan, Marc, Anthony and Jo who will all be on board with Doug to ensure that, come what may, we're prepared for anything.

On race day, well before 6am, Doug and his crew will be fuelling and readying the boat for the day ahead. They'll set out from Middle Harbour by 7am to be in position at the 9am race start.

After it's all done (by about 1pm if everything goes to plan), Doug and his crew will head back to Middle Harbour, and clean and stow the boat. That's a big day, and a big effort. Thank you in advance!

Similarly, I've mentioned Fred "The Floating Kiosk" Linker before. He'll be my constant companion in the water, kayaking at swimmer's pace all the way from Bondi to Watsons Bay, keeping me on the straight & narrow. If the sea's rough, it'll be Fred, bobbing about at wave level, who feels it the most.

I've also been helped through the training by a big cast:

• Rocket Ron, Paul "The Prancing Moose" Gertler and Speedy Sean who've accompanied me on various bike and swim missions;
• my Dad for getting up horribly early every Wednesday to make sure I could get to squads and treating me to fabulous post-swim breakfasts;
• Robbo The Salmon, Kevin The Kingfish, Lyle The Hammer, John and Doug (another Doug) who made the big ocean training swims possible; and
• my colleagues at work who didn't laugh at my hopeless attempts at Pilates.

Finally, a huge thanks to "All Terrain" Alina and our kids for putting up with my early starts and training schedule.

A huge thanks to you all.

So, now all that's left to do is... swim!

See you on the other side.