Race report - Big Bay Swim

Shock announcement: LBTEPA secretly relieved swim course changed for safety reasons!
In a stunning develoment, sources close to our heroine reveal she was secretly very relieved that the 3.5km open water course was changed to a far more sheltered 2.5km course following predictions of high winds including 30 knot gusts. It's not that I couldn't do it, LBTEPa told close friends, it's that I have to run tomorrow and I really don't need an epic tough-it-out-a-thon just at this point.
Even so, our heroine spent the morning leading up to the event murmuring to herself I do this for fun you know, over and over again, in the vain hope it would sink in and her stomach would stop churning. An unfamiliar starting point, confounded by 100000000000 Summer Cycle participants blocking the roads, added to her nerves, as did the crowd of lean mean aquatic machines milling about talking airily of the Bloody Big Swim, Busselton, etc etc. The wind-whipped trees and whitecaps on the channel added atmosphere, but not in a good way. LBTEPA would like to point out that this photo is in no way a true representation of the grey, gritty, chilly conditions (do you like her new haircut? She's undecided. It will grow out). Swimmers teetered down the boat ramp into the warm(ish, well, not icy) murky bay and trod water as they listened to yet another safety briefing. Observers reported LBTEPA as smiling excitedly, just before having her goggles knocked off (for the first time..grrrr) by other over-enthusiastic competitors. It was difficult to find a place in the field as so many slower swimmers were ahead at the start, and so many stronger swimmers were utterly sighting-impaired, completing a significantly longer distance at a significantly faster pace than the back-'o-the-pack swimmers, yet still impeding the BOPers with their torturous wending.
The middle portion of the event was described by LBTEPA as 'an absolute cow' - swimming with chop at the start of a race is pretty normal, swimming in swell is all right because you can get a kind of rhythm going, but swimming perpendicular to chop is just stupid! Also described as 'stupid' (among other things) by LBTEPA was the utterly pointless biffo from the hardcore (i.e. wetsuit-free) old blokes in the last third of the race. As our intrepid correspondent pointed out, it's not as though they were swimming for sheep stations. Knocking my goggles off achieved....what? These bloody minded old codgers got up our heroine's nose for a while until she realised the swim would be finished soon so she'd better just bloody well enjoy the crap out of it while she still had the chance (apologies for LBTEPA's tiredness Tourette's. We will smack her hand). Blue(ish) skies, open water - a treat, and a blessing to have the opportunity. It could well have been ok to have swum the originally-planned course. However, as LBTEPA said after the race, if it had been as bad as forecast the swimmers would have been all right, but we also need to consider the life guards who provide such sterling safety support to the event. It wasn't the full-on adventurous swim we'd all looked forward to, she said, but these things happen. LBTEPA would like to thank her parents for carting her around to ocean swims throughout her teens so that this was a challenging-but-normal rather than are-you-out-of-your-mind-you-lunatic? Sunday morning activity, the ever-spunky Spousal Unit and the sadly very off-colour Noddie (the reason for LBTEPA's solo appearance this a.m.), and her supportive fans.

More anon, conquerers of the waves!
LBTEPA (now sleeping heavily) would like to assure readers that no jellyfish were harmed, or even sighted (yay!) during the making of this feature.