Hi Everyone,

I’m so thrilled to see so many of our swimmers hitting their aquatic milestones in time for summer. Nothing makes my heart sing more than seeing our swimmers progress. Take a look at those who’ve just joined our 25m and 100m Clubs in this newsletter.

If you want to really accelerate your swimming you will find practising makes the world of difference. I don’t mean just after class, but on a different day. The more you touch the water the better your swimming will become and the faster you will progress. If you’re nervous going to a pool on your own let me know and I will do my best to find you a swim buddy, someone who is at the same level.

A huge congratulations to our instructor and coach, Diana, on completing her third Ironman 70.3. She is just as passionate about triathlons as she is about ocean swimming. If you’re dream is to enter a triathlon or an Ironman, make sure you have a chat with her. She’s a fountain of knowledge! 

If you were sitting on the fence about joining our Bath 2 Beach 16 week program, it’s not too late to register. Please email me directly and I can answer any questions you might have and provide you will the details. It’s guaranteed to not only build your confidence in ocean swimming and get you swim fit, but also, it’s a lot of fun.

It’s so lovely to see the sun shining today and a break in the rain. I want to congratulate those who have kept coming to classes, lessons and SwimFit in the recent wet weeks. You are stars! For those swimmers who have just joined us, we run our classes, private lessons and squads in the sun and in the rain. After all, you’re wet anyway! 

Finally if you’re looking to book into classes, or book private lessons please do so soon, as we’re nearly at capacity. It seems everyone wants to learn to swim or correct their stroke in time for summer, which is fabulous! 

I look forward to seeing you on pool deck!

As always, yours in swimming, 

Kari Baynes
Director 

Photo: Carving through the water at Victoria Park Pool on a sunny evening. PC: Diana Galosi

25m Club

As you know we love to celebrate our swimmers as they progress through their swimming journey, and we wanted to take the time to shout out some of the legends who have been smashing it in the pool lately! 

Let’s give a warm welcome to some new members of the 25m Club:

Congratulations everyone, what a wonderful achievement! We can’t wait to see hit the 50m mark!

Photo: Pictures of the new members to the 25m club: (Top L to bottom R) Dev, Heidi, Jane and Swati. PC: Kari Baynes

100m Club

The last few months have also seen a few swimmers make it all the way to the 100m Club, and we couldn’t be more excited for those people. Send a huge congratulations to these awesome swimmers:

Well done legends! This is a huge achievement, and we know for many of you the amount of work that’s gone into getting there. Kate has been swimming with us since she was a Beginner 1 level swimmer, all the way back in 2020- and look at her cruising through SwimFit now! Congratulations again to all of you. 

Photo: Pictures of the awesome new members of the 100m club: (Top L to bottom R) Kate, Amber, Hannah, Bahgi. PC: Kari Baynes

Bronze Medallion Courses

Have you ever wanted to complete your Bronze Medallion certification? Now’s your chance! Bondi Surf Club runs several bronze medallion courses each year, with the next one starting on October 15th this year and the following course set to start in January 2023. We’d love to see our swimmers keep progressing and learning new skills, so let us know if you decide to take part in one of these upcoming courses! The following information was sent through for us to share with you all, from the Bondi Surf Club.
 

About the course and the community
The bronze medallion course is an eight week course, consisting of two sessions a week, one theory based evening session (2h) and one practical weekend session (3h). During the course participants learn everything from surf awareness, first aid, team resuscitation, communications and radios, rescue techniques and spinal management, and you’ll be coming away at the end of the course with a nationally recognised qualification enabling them to patrol at any beach in Australia. 

Not only is the course a brilliant way to gain confidence in the surf environment and learn new skills, you will make amazing new friends and become part of an amazing community.

The bronze medallion is just the tip of the iceberg, opening up numerous different pathways to further awards such as the IRB or Advanced Resuscitation, to becoming involved in Education and training others, even on to competing in a host of different events.

Whilst it forms large part of being a member of the Bondi Surf Lifesaving club, patrolling is just part of it, with social events from Christmas Parties and end of Season awards, to weekly social drinks each Sunday, as well as regular weekly club training where you can run/swim/paddle before work and grab a coffee before work, and more.

 Instructor Diana’s Ironman 70.3

On Sunday September 25th, our instructor Diana Galosi completed her third Ironman 70.3! We asked her to share a little bit about the event and her experiences with training and the event itself, and here’s what she had to say.

“This race was my third Ironman 70.3, with my last full Ironman completed on December 4th in 2016. The Ironman 70.3 is a different race [to a full Ironman], not as brutal yet challenging enough- especially when you haven’t trained like I used to! However, my base fitness let me believe that I could take on this race even with three weeks of training. I knew I could handle the swim [of] 1.9km (40 min) and I knew I could cycle on my tri bike for 90km (this time took me 10 minutes longer than last time), to a total of 3 hours 20 minutes. The funny bit is I haven’t ridden my tri bike outdoors since 2016 in my last full Ironman… but it was like ‘riding a bike’!

I took my time in transition as it was a cool morning, so I took m time in putting on my base layer Lycra, arm warmers and gilet. I loved the bike ride, the road was great with not too many potholes and a stunning blue sky surrounded by the Blue Mountains. The run was rather challenging, especially the first 6km, but again I took my time in the transition to make sure I’d be comfortable with the half marathon. Since I hadn’t practiced a brick session at all (a bike ride followed immediately by a run) I kinda thought I could jus give it a go and see what happened. Because I only did training runs of 10km lengths, after 6km I started to feel the blood circulating and felt stronger bit by bit. I used all the available aid stations to ensure my hydration was up, and kept my body temperature cooled with ice handed out. 

The best thing about my race was my husband, daughter and friends cheering for me, and I got lots of hugs from my daughter along the way (which probably cost me 6min of my running time, but it was the best run I did with the most enjoyment!). The run took me 2h and 20 minutes, about 21 minutes longer than my previous races, however it was the best run I had in a while. 

Since I had no expectations and I had nothing prove I could really enjoy this race. Going through postpartum, knowing how it feels to do a race of this calibre before giving birth to my child, having pretty much no time to train (or not like I used to before) I can say I’m happy I did it. And I am happy to say to all women out there, especially mums, if you have given birth and had a labour of 47 hours, an Ironman is nothing to compare! 

I loved it and was smiling all the way – I was back at my happy place.”

We want to offer a huge congratulations to Diana, and a thank you for sharing your story with us! Has she inspired you to give an Ironman a go?

Photo: Photos of Diana throughout the race, receiving hugs from her daughter all the way. Plus a cameo of DSS swimmer Nick Noble alongside Diana in the swim! PC: Diana Galosi

Some parts of the above story from Diana have been edited minimally. 

Inspiration Corner

Swimming from Alcatraz to San Francisco 48 Times

Meet the sisters who regularly swim between San Francisco and Alcatraz, in defiance of the people who say it can’t be done. Mitali Khanzodé (16) became the youngest person to complete this swim, only to have her record later beaten by her younger sister Anaya (12). Together, they have completed this swim 86 times, an incredible feat from some incredible young swimmers. It’s so exciting to see people breaking barriers with their swimming, young and old alike!