Shutting down & packing up

It's been a long day (well, longer for Tony), but it's time to pack up and say good night!

The finish

Tony finishing his marathon swim!

He's done!

After an awful four hours he actually made up all that time and finished five minutes ahead of his plan at 17:00:54.

I do have some pix I'll post later.

150 to go!!!

No pictures, no time. He's not swimming alone - Andrea is still pacing him.

400 to go

The plan is that Tony will swim the last 200 m alone. I'll try to take a pic.

550 m to go

I can barely contain myself!

700 m to go!

Dave Lyons in the foreground, Tony in the back left, being paced by Andrea on the right.

900 m to go

Ron Adams says he can smell the barn. He's smoking.

1200 m to go!

He hit 41 km in 16:33 - he did the km in 19 minutes! He's barely paused before launching on his last full kilometre. I'm now extrapolating .... 10:04 p.m.!!!

40 km!!!

(Tony, behind, being paced by Andrea in yellow cap in front.)

In 15 hours 22 minutes. I'm continuing to extrapolate a time around 10:15 p.m. - less than an hour from now!

9 p.m. PDT

Tony's still taking his 39.5-km break. He's only 500 m down from his original plan.

UPDATE: Tony's eating, and Dave is going to join him for the last 2.7 km.

The crowds gather (II)

A very bad picture of the crowd at the other end of the pool. Tony has a lot of friends.

The crowds gather (I)

This is the crowd around the lap counters at the north end of the 25-m lane pool.

39 km

Hit it in 15:44. He's been bringing in a lot of time. I'm now extrapolating a finish at 10:15 p.m.

Quick update

A very short break and he's off on km 39.

38 km

After a long break, he swam the 1 km in one go, finishing at 15:22. He's done 90% of the distance, and has 4.2 km left. I'm extrapolating a finish at 10:34 p.m. His stroke looks good (see video in previous post), he only had half a cookie between km 37 and 38. Rhonda says he's swimming on guts because he has nothing else in him.

The first length of km 38

You can see that his stroke is much better than 4 km ago.

UPDATE: In response to a question, yes, Tony is in lane 2, and he's drafting. He's been drafting most of the day.

8 p.m. PDT

Tony's taking a longish break, so he's still at 37 km. He's 1 km down on his original plan.

37 km!

In 14:48. He's moving along. There's some thought (well, Dave thinks) that Tony may swim better doing 8:xx 500s. He's also taking 15 seconds' rest between 250s.

Anyway, he's now 88% in, and has only 5.2 km to go. I'm continuing to extrapolate a finish at 10:30 p.m.

36 km

For whatever cause, Tony is now a rocket. He finished km 36 in 21 min total. His stroke count has dropped to 17. He took barely 90 seconds' break, and he's into km 37. 6.2 km to go!