It's been a long day (well, longer for Tony), but it's time to pack up and say good night!
Showing posts with label volunteers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label volunteers. Show all posts
Friday, March 27, 2009
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!
700 m to go!
Dave Lyons in the foreground, Tony in the back left, being paced by Andrea on the right.
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!
The crowds gather (I)
This is the crowd around the lap counters at the north end of the 25-m lane pool.
32 km! 20 miles! 3/4 of the way!
(Tony with "his" towel.)
Tony hit 32 km at 12:12 (5:13 p.m. PDT). Pretty amazing to be swimming for over 12 hours. I had the BlackBerry video camera going, but when Rhonda asked if he wanted to know how far he'd gone, he said No. He doesn't want to know how far he's gone until he's done.
He now has "only" 12.2 km to go. Rhonda is thinking he can do 2 km/h, so that'll have him finish about 10:30 p.m., about 26 minutes later than his plan.
I'll admit he's looking a bit dispirited to me, or perhaps a bit angry. But he's pushing on. An interesting point his brother Dave made was that he'll soon be in Ironman territory. At 17:30 total time he'll have spent far longer swimming than he's ever done anything endurance-wise.
He's still being escorted by the Hyack teenagers.
5 p.m. PDT
(Tony's friend Barb & SO Rhonda)
Tony was at 31.4 km at 5 p.m. That puts him 400 m ahead of plan; I now predict that he'll open up a gap now. He's swimming slightly more than 2500 m/h, and if he can get his digestive issues under control he'll be, er, swimming. :-s
What's going on
Tony took a 13- or 14-minute break after 30 km, trying to get things going in washroom, but he's still hitting slightly over 9 minutes for every 500, so that puts him pretty much on track or slightly ahead of sched.
I was asked about his rash - it does look bad, but hasn't looked worse in a few hours. He's covering both it and his left cheek with BodyGlide frequently.
Finally, I was asked about why I was here. Well, it's because Tony has been awfully helpful and gracious to me in my Ironman quest, and two or three months ago he was in a bit of a low spot about this marathon swim & I decided my best "donation" (as well as a money donation I had made) would be to come out from Toronto and help. So I flew out yesterday, I'm staying in a local hotel, and I'll fly back late tomorrow morning. (I'm already close to my Toronto bed time; I won't be as tired as Tony, but I'll be beat tomorrow!) Thanks for asking!
Tony's coming up to 30.5 km. I can't express how exciting this is.
The 11 a.m. crew
Atmosphere
It's late morning in New Westminster. The Canada Games Pool is very busy, very noisy. The 50-m pool has been divided by a bulkhead. The southern end is divided into lanes for adult swimming. Most of the swimmers are quite adult - I feel young. :-)
One lane is Tony & his volunteer swimmers.
The northern 25 m is being used for easy water aerobics, being led by a loud, energetic young woman.
The east end is occupied by a large Nautilus training area. The far southern area has a kind of mezzanine with treadmills. They're all full (don't these people have jobs???), and they're looking out over the pool(s).
There's loud rock music.
Altogether, a 5-ring circus.
For one brief shining moment
10 a.m. Pacific Time
Tony's done 14.5 km. Taking his usual 500-m break. Now about 500 m short of his plan - but there's some thought in the volunteer zone that some laps may have been missed.
12.3 km at 9 a.m. local time
The pic is of the brothers Lyons, Dave in the lead.
Tony taking a break at 10.5 km ...
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