All they wanted to do was create something special, the "best little swim" in the district, and had no idea how popular the event and open-water swimming would become.
Tomorrow, 500 swimmers are lining up for the 10th anniversary contest.
The then and now race directors believed they still had "the best little swim", despite responding to demand to increase distances dramatically to include 10km, 5km, 3.8km, 2.5km, 1.2km, 600m and 200m races.
Multiple age-groups and separate categories for adaptive swimmers and togs or wetsuit wearers have also been created.
This year, the new category is "The Immortals", for competitors aged 80-plus.
Four have entered although two had withdrawn earlier this week.
"We were hoping we could keep going for 10 years but we never anticipated being as popular as it is.
"We initially thought when we had the first event we might get between 25 and 100 people if we were lucky, and it has kicked off into something else," Mr Norman said.
"There was a guy that came down from Auckland that first year and said ‘this is fantastic, don’t ever make it a big event ... no more than 500 ever’.
"So over the next few years it became evident that was the right figure.
"The reason is, we don’t want to be big and we want to look after the lake," Mr Spearing said.
"The stones don’t shine any more.
"They are covered in sludge," Mr Spearing said.
"When I was a kid I would swim to the island and I felt like you could see the island underwater from miles away, looming like an iceberg.
"That doesn’t happen now," Mr Norman said.
Both men said even after 10 years, they still got incredibly nervous in the days before the event, as they chased tents, picked up equipment, held safety briefings and wrangled their loyal team of volunteers, family members, friends and sponsors.
"We always spend the Wednesday before the day calming each other down.
"I bet we’ll end up going to Kai for a coffee or a beer," Mr Norman said.
"Yeah, I am nervous. Really nervous.
"Nervous that it is actually going to come together, nervous about the weather," Mr Spearing said.
In 2015, the swim had to be abandoned at short notice because of extremely strong wind.
Even on calm days, the speed with which the northerly wind can travel down the lake makes them worry.
The lake temperature tomorrow is expected to be about 18°C.
