My triathlon training has become such a part of my life that I forget to comment on it these days. I even stopped my nerdy spreadsheet of time/distance/HR/calories, it just didn't seem all that important compared to actually doing the work.
With the race less than three weeks away, I'm changing my habits to prepare. Last week I did my first open water swim at Madison Beach in Seattle. It was a paid class with a professional triathlon instructor. Two dozen novice triathletes met up early Saturday morning and had some face time with some serious athletes.
As a side note--it's called "sunscreen" and it does an amazing job of preventing your skin from looking like wrinkly leather stretched over bone. Seriously, people, vitamin D is good and all, but there is such a thing as skin cancer!
Anyway, I managed to squeeze into my wetsuit and we waded out into the lake. A few swims up and down the shore to get us used to the water, swimming in groups, and some pointers on our technique (our group's instructor praised my kick! said she'd draft behind me anytime) and we were off to the group swim. Out into the deep water, all together, to see what we were made of.
I had a nice start, shot out ahead, then a boat-wake hit me and I inhaled some water. That's when the amygdala took over and all my training flew out the window. Suddenly I couldn't breathe right, the adrenaline surge erased all my thinking. Fortunately, those wetsuits make you float and I was able to turn over and breathe a bit and get my frontal lobes to do their thing: I'm not going to drown, they said, I know how to swim, I know how to breathe, and I can finish this.
The instructor, seeing me panic, offered that I could head back to shore. Well there was NO way I was going to give up now! I told her I'd be OK, side stroked a bit then got back into my rhythm.
I had one more panic/need to side-stroke before the end and still managed to finish in the top quarter of the group!
I met up with my trainer and some of her friends today (July 4) to do another open-water. Today was less panicky (though those first few minutes, when the cold lake water hits your face, are still unnerving) and I managed to do almost a mile (I'll have to do only 1/2 mile for my triathlon).
After our first trip across the lake, one of the other participants said she didn't want to do a second lap, not because it was physically hard, but because it was emotionally hard. I reminded her that was exactly why we needed to do it again. She grimaced, but agreed, and we went out for one more lap.
Tomorrow: my first "brick" where I bike for 12 miles, then immediately change to running shoes and run for 3.2. Now the *real* pain begins!
