Rhys Mainstone is undoubtedly psyched for the upcoming PanPacs in Brisbane. The event is going to be special of the home team Aussies (although Rhys lives and trains on the west coast of Australia). We recently caught up with Rhys and asked him some of his impressions heading into the 2014 Pan Pacs Open Water Swimming event.
How’s preparations been going? The preparation before pan pacs has been great I’ve been able to have quality training and racing in Europe with the other Aussie open water swimmers we were lucky enough to have 2 weeks in Italy and 1 week in Portugal with 2 10km races 1 Italian national championships and 2nd being the world cup stop in Setubal Portugal. We headed back to our home programs to fine tune for the Pan Pacific Championships.
What do you think the race will be like? My thoughts on the race feild entered is that we are starting to see a change of pace with most of the feild going a low 15min for 1500 while being small with only 17 swimmers the pace will be exciting. With the course being 5x2km loops strategy will come into play with the swimmers trying to save energy bit keep the pace high. I certainly think that this Pan Pacific Championships field is the strongest yet and is only the start for years to come in developing this event into main stream viewing.
What do you think about the course? The course is great but personally I would like it in the ocean in front of surfers paradise as then we will need to navigate current, swell, wind and all other aspects which come with an Australian ocean swim. The course is set up for spectators which is great and can really showcase how close we swim together and at what pace we swim.
What’s the over all vibe like? I’m really excited for this event and the energy in the Aussie team is strong and we all can’t wait to race in our home crowd and most importantly friends and family as we normally have to travel so far and they can’t share our racing moments together.