Hyde Park Harriers? It’s a long way to come from London just for a dip in the sea.

And so started my morning at the Plymouth Aquathlon. After explaining that yes, it is a long way from London to Plymouth, but it’s even further from Leeds, and no, there aren’t many beaches around Leeds to practice a sea swim, I toddled out of the registration tent and went for a quick reccie of the course. Choppy water. Hilly run. Great…

For those who stick purely to bi-pedal pursuits, there’s a whole range of multi-sport options out there. The most common is a triathlon (swim-bike-run), but there’s increasingly a range of other options – duathlons (run-bike-runs), aquathlons (swim-runs) and, rather confusingly, swim-runs (which normally involve a marathon of fell running interspersed with short bursts of swims across lochs, fjords or tarns). Today’s challenge? 1500m of sea swimming in Plymouth Harbour, followed by a 10km run.

After greasing myself up and slipping gracefully into my wetsuit, I joined my fellow athletes in the balmy 12 degree water. Rumours abounded at the start line of a junior competitor being bitten in a mass start, meaning I was starting to feel a touch out of my depth!

The swim course itself was a two loop affair, with a tricky little run up the ramp and dive back in to separate the Olympic racers from the Sprinters (750m swim, 5km run). Although I’d spent all week preparing for the race by surfing on massive 1ft Cornish waves, the choppy conditions at the start caught me out, along with the pull of the tide. With these conditions, it’s advised to alter your pull stroke – lift the arms higher out of the water initially, shorten the reach out in-front and compensate by a slightly higher cadence. This way, your arms aren’t getting knocked back by the waves.

Emerging from the swim unbitten and in 6th place in 23:38 mins, I wisely elected for to sacrifice time for comfort and whack some socks on in transition (following on from a couple of nasty blisters at the Leeds Triathlon a few months back). Within the first few kilometers, I’d caught and passed all but one of my competitors – although I didn’t know it at the time. The course itself was a tricky two lap affair, including a 600 feet of climbing and some cracking views across to Plymouth Hoe.

Tom Pollard