I’d toyed with the idea of swimming the Midmar Mile before, but had thought that it was only for the super fit or mad. After sneaking a look at the shapes and sizes of aspirant swimmers, this appears not to be the case.
One elderly swimmer turned up in his baggies for this year’s event — swum on February 7 and 8 — and there was talk of a chap in a palegreen unitard. Another was so hairy he could have got work in a circus sideshow, but then who was I to speak?
According to race director Wayne Riddin, the oldest finisher on record was 89 and this year there was an 85-year-old competitor. The youngest was a boy of five, who apparently comes from a ”swimming family” though Ridden said he personally made sure the child had a reasonable chance of completing the swim.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian from a boat on the dam near Pietermaritzburg this week, Ridden said he hoped to convince Guinness World Records of the fact that the event is indeed the biggest open-water swimming event in the world. This year — the event’s 36th — there were 15Â 922 entries, of which all but a handful were successful.
The idea is to swim a mile — 1,6km — from one bank of the dam to the other. The swimmers are divided up by age and gender, herded into pens and then released every few minutes to avoid congestion. Swimmers are also supplied with an electronic chip to strap to their leg and a pink band, such as the one you get when you go to hospital. This, I was reliably informed, was in the event that I drowned and it would save time for the doctors later.
Not ones to miss a trick, the Congress of the People were doing a brisk trade in election pamphlets as cars trickled into the area. For one reason or another, it’s largely a monocultural event, with hardly a black swimmer in sight. Or maybe I just missed them.
Arriving early, I watched one of the races and began to wonder if I really had been so wise to enter as the swimmers, their hands like a school of flying fish, ploughed their way over the vast expanse of water. It looked so far, they looked so small. Was I fit enough? Would I have to be towed in strapped to a buoy?
To be sure, I’d trained at Ellis Park, regularly swimming a mile, which works out to 32 lengths. But it’s another matter on the open water, with no shallow end to wallow in if one grows weary.
Another odd thing, to the outsider at least, is the hundreds of people wearing black rubbish bags. I saw whole families climbing out of luxury cars wearing rubbish bags and packs of binliner-clad teenagers lolling around like puppies. I think this is because they can stuff the bag in a bin and leap into the water, without having to return to the start to collect their expensive tracksuits.
The start was exhilarating. Rubbing shoulders with my group — the yellow caps — we made our way into the water and waited for the siren while a helicopter hovered overhead.
The siren sounded and we were off. It’s really different on the open water — you don’t seem to be moving at all — but little by little the starting post receded. A minute in and I was overtaken by a 12-year-old with a green cap, but I took heart from a fellow yellow-cap who was wallowing on his back, sucking in air. I positioned myself behind a man with a back like a water buffalo, and got towed along in his wake. I passed the giant yellow 400m buoy, then the 800m one, and the end was in sight. My feet touched the bottom and I trudged up the slope and joined the queue to hand over my chip and tag. Despite the fact that all finishers get a medal, I clutched mine tightly — here was the proof.