Somehow, struggling all the way, I’ve made it to the halfway turn of the swim.
Since it seems there are some non-triathletes reading this report, let me explain with a diagram:
(Right now, I’m at the red circle.)
From my experience in long-distance swims so far (only twice, but still—tehepero), the second half usually goes pretty smoothly. So I was feeling confident—thinking “Alright, I’ve got this!”—and cheerfully swam over to round the buoy.
But—!
After turning the buoy, a new enemy appeared.
From this halfway point, you have to swim another 50 meters further out to sea to go around a second buoy before heading back toward shore. And in this section, you have to swim straight into incoming waves.
As you can probably guess…
I wasn’t moving forward at all.
It was so bad that almost everyone around me switched to breaststroke.
It was crowded here too, so surrounded by swimmers, I couldn’t just keep freestyle going. I reluctantly switched to breaststroke—but still didn’t feel like I was moving forward. The buoy was getting closer, very slowly, so at least I wasn’t going backwards. Still, I think it was the longest 50 meters of my life.
Somehow, I made it around that second buoy and began the home stretch!
(Although there were still about 2 km to go—tehepero.)
I thought, “Time to pick up the pace!”—but that didn’t last long.
The waves had gotten even bigger.
Lake Taupo is relatively shallow for about 100 meters from shore, and then drops off steeply. Thinking back, I was probably just past that drop-off here, where the waves rise more sharply. At this point, a few times when I turned my head to breathe, a wave would roll right over me—a pretty scary feeling. I remember thinking, “Oh, come on, give me a break!” Luckily, after the turn I was breathing to the right—away from the waves—so I avoided the worst of it.
I recall that this terrible wave section wasn’t very long. Thinking about it now, there’s a reason for that: the waves pushed most of us toward the shore, so for a while we were all swimming inside the buoy line. That probably explains why it suddenly felt calmer.
I’m not sure about the rules, but since the majority of swimmers were on this inside line, I figured, “Oh well” and kept going (I did return to the course later). Apparently almost 100 people had to be rescued during the swim, so I guess the safety crew didn’t have the capacity to strictly guide everyone. As long as you rounded the last buoy on the outside, the total distance wasn’t an issue.
From here on, just like in the first half, we all slogged along steadily.
But one big problem: no one was swimming straight, so there were constant clashes. And even in the second half, many people were switching to breaststroke right in front of me. It was too risky to draft anyone. Maybe because I was so focused, I didn’t even think to check my time, which in hindsight might have been a good thing.
Still, it never felt like I was getting anywhere.
But since the swimmers around me were going about the same speed, and no one was overtaking me, I just kept going. Everyone kept stopping for breaststroke to sight, while I stuck with freestyle—not that it made me significantly faster. It started to feel pretty pointless, but I had trained for freestyle, not breaststroke. At this point it became a matter of pride, and apart from the turnaround section, I swam the whole way freestyle.
Eventually, familiar buildings along the lake shore started coming into view. With the swim almost done, I began thinking about the upcoming bike leg and checking my body for damage. Recently I’ve been practicing no-kick open-water swimming, inspired by top Japanese age-group triathlete “Haru-san” (though at about half his speed).
However, right from the start today I’d abandoned that style—waves forced me to kick a lot more just to breathe. I started to worry about leg fatigue.
And then—just as expected—snap! My leg cramped.
This is where experience pays off. I’d cramped in the later stages of a 5 km swim before, so I didn’t panic. I stopped, assessed the situation, and since it wasn’t too bad, loosened it up until I could swim again.
From there, I had to play it safe. Which made the last stretch feel even longer—almost endless. Finally, the last buoy came into sight! Once around it, just 200 meters to go. That sense of relief—every weak-swimming triathlete knows it well.
But now I started thinking about the rest of the race. The swim had taken a long time, so I wanted to make up for it with a quick transition. I decided to try a little tactic I’d never used before. I won’t reveal it here (tehepero)—but triathletes might guess.
Finally—my feet touched the ground! That relief never changes, no matter how many times I feel it. When I looked up, it seemed dim, almost like evening, and I had the strange sensation I’d been swimming all day. Later I realized it was just that my new smoke-tinted goggles were darker than my old ones. But in the moment, I thought, “Can I really get through the bike and run after this?”
At last, I made it to the swim exit. Glancing at the official clock above the gate—over two hours had passed! But since that clock was from the pro start, my actual time was about 1:45. “Ah, I’ve done it again,” I thought.
At the time, I couldn’t tell if that was disastrous or still salvageable. I’d finished in the middle of a pack, and could see plenty of people still behind me.
Looking now at the results: my official swim time was 1:44:05, pace 2:44/100 m—slower than my previous 5 km OWS. But even some athletes who finished with 5:30 bikes and 3:30 runs had swim times like 1:38, so clearly I wasn’t the only one who struggled. Given the conditions, I was just glad to have made it to land.
I thought I was just describing what happened, but looking back—it really was brutal. Friends and local athletes who were there confirmed it was one of the worst swim conditions they’d seen. Some athletes even vomited during the swim from motion sickness—something I’d never heard of before. I was personally glad they didn’t cancel the swim—it would have felt different if my first full Ironman had started with that.
At this point, I was in 915th place out of about 1,270 starters. Over 100 had already dropped out in the swim. So once again, like in the 70.3, I’d be starting the bike from far back. Could I claw my way back in the full Ironman too?
Next time—finally—the bike leg begins!
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