Triathlon season is upon us and the source of my anxiety is soon to be realized. A year ago I couldn't swim. The human body with air in its lungs is buoyant, so I could float. And flail. But that was about it. I've learned to swim sufficiently, albeit slowly. I'm not planning on breaking any water speed records. I just need to get from point A, well, back to point A again.
With the weather warming up and races upcoming, the time to get open water experience has arrived. So I met Coach Dan at Canandaigua Lake to get a couple lake swims under my belt recently. I managed to wriggle into my wetsuit. Somehow, every other triathlete out there looks more impressive in a wetsuit than I do. I think I probably just looked awkward. I was anxious to swim in the wetsuit, however. Triathlon wetsuits provide added buoyancy that make it practically impossible to sink, and because they force the athlete to sit higher up in the water, the allow the athlete to swim faster. But they also provide a comforting degree of warmth in otherwise uncomfortably cold water. Swimming the buoys and back again at Kershaw will take me nearly a mile. I've got this.
I walk in the water up to me knees. Coach Dan gives me a few tips. I jump in and off I go. Only, I can't breathe. At all. I think I'm having a panic attack. The last 10 months of training flashes before my eyes. "I can't do this," I tell myself. I can barely swim 3 strokes without thinking I'm going to suffocate. How am I going to swim 1.2 miles in the Syracuse 1/2 Ironman, and 2.4 miles in Madison. I'll fake an injury, I think. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to suffer a real injury, I hope. I can't tell people that I panicked and chickened out. I've already raised more than $15,000 of other people's money.
I stand up and catch my breath. I ask Dan a question I didn't really have. I take a deep breath. I compose myself. And I go. And I go. And I go. And it's okay. Granted, my navigational sense in the open water can use some refining. As you can see from the GPS tracks below, I took a bit of a turn off course until I finally figured out that I was headed in the wrong direction.
I stopped a few times along the way to speak to Coach Dan and get his continued guidance and I made it back to shore without any more incidents.
On my way back to Canandaigua early yesterday morning, I recalled a brief conversation I had with my 8-year old daughter, Talia. She wanted to go for a swim last weekend. I told her that the pool was broken and the water was way too cold. She protested that it was hot out and she didn't care how cold the water was, to which, I responded that super cold water was dangerous for swimming and made the simple task of breathing difficult. It then occurred to me that my earlier "panic attack" may have just been the shock of the cold water taking my breath away. So I vowed to let the water into my wetsuit before I started swimming this time.
And so I did. Sure enough, the shock of the cold water sucked the breath out of my lungs. After a few seconds, the torture passed, I put my head in the water and swam my mile
Sometimes, all it takes to solve problems is discovering their true source so one knows how best to confront them. And what a boost for confidence to learn that my panic attack was no panic attack at all. It was merely a brief sting of cold suffered especially by those, like me, who are truly "fickly"!
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