As Marcus Ryan walked out of his last HSC exam the Calrossy school captain's focus turned to a major event of a different kind.
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On Monday the Tamworth teenager swapped the schoolbooks for his cap and goggles for the 2022 NSW Open Water Championships.
Over a year since he had last raced in the open water, the Tamworth City swimmer shrugged off that, and a limited preparation, to swim his way to a nationals qualifying time for the 18-years boys 5km.
In his first race since last year's state titles, Ryan finished in an hour and three minutes - a minute under the required time.
The 18-year-old said he was "quite pleased" with how he went with his HSC studies taking priority in recent months.
"Normally in a week I'd be doing up to up to eight sessions a week but when the HSC was on I was probably doing around five," he said.
Mixing his training between the pool and the gym, it was really just about maintaining his fitness more so than improving.
"A pretty big priority for me at the time was sleep so I'd make sure I was getting those eight to nine hours per night and that fueled me for the next day. So I'd have training in the morning, then school or an exam and then study for the rest of the afternoon or day," he said.
His hard work paid off - on both fronts.
"I was pretty happy with my ATAR. I was certainly not expecting what I did get, but I was very pleased with it," Ryan said.
He is planning to make the move to Sydney next year and study a bachelor of commerce at Macquarie University. He will also train with the swim squad there.
Starting that adventure around mid-February, it will be an exciting couple of months with the nationals being held from January 25-28, in Busselton.
"I'm super excited, it should be good," Ryan said.
Especially after qualifying to compete at this year's nationals only to have to withdraw after picking up COVID just before.
He said missing out did put that bit of extra fire in the belly to make it this year.
"One hundred per cent," he said.
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"I really wanted to go to Perth."
Ryan said he felt "pretty good" throughout the race at Penrith, although he did have to battle through his shoulders and upper body tightening up the last couple of laps (the 5km was four laps of the 1.25km course).
"I found that in the first lap around the buoys it took me a bit to actually adjust and get myself into that rhythm, but once I did I was able to ease myself into it and hold a steady pace throughout the race," he said.
Unlike in the pool where you do have different things to gauge your pace off, in open water you are relying really on feel and rhythm.
"In training, we do a lot of rhythm and efficiency with our stroke," Ryan explained.
"Once once you do it so many times you kind of have this feel for it when you're in the water with no clock. So when you're in that open water, you have a rhythm and you have a feel for the beat of the stroke, if it's on pace you'll feel it, it it's not then you either have to slow it down or speed it up."
In 2021 he placed 11th in the 16-19 years boys 5km. He had then only been open water swimming for a couple of months with the state championships from which he qualified his first competitive open water swim.
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