The New Fear

I grew up going to swimming lessons during my summers as a kid. I became a good swimmer. Combine that with sailing almost every day, I had little fear of the water.  I still don't really.  So, this past summer I decided to enter open-water triathlons for the first time where the swim portion is in a lake or the ocean, instead of a pool.  I figured...no problem.  After all, I could swim these distances in the pool with little difficulty so what difference would it make if it was in open-water?  So, I went to train for the first time at a local lake with my wife and told her I'd meet her on the other side.  Off she went in her car and I dove in and started to swim.  I swam about a third of the way across the lake and I stopped and looked back at the shore.  I had swum a long way from where I entered and it didn't look like I was making any headway towards the other side.  Had I misjudged the distance I was swimming?  Why did I decide to swim across the lake, instead just staying along the shoreline maybe a 100 meters out?  Anyway, moot point as I was committed to swimming the entire way, so I pushed on forward.  And then it happened.  I saw bottom out in the middle of the lake.  I have no idea why, but it freaked me out.  I think it was because I had no idea how shallow it was in front of me.  I began to hyperventilate.  Picture this for a sec, I was in the middle of a lake, no one around and I was panicking.  I wasn't prepared for what was happening. 

I had read somewhere in some triathlon magazine or something that when swimmers lose their bearings or panic they should swim on their backs.  And so, humbling as it was, I did just that.  I swam to the nearest shoreline in case the panic attack got worse.  I then walked around the lake to meet my wife.  It was a lesson I soon won't forget.  I never quite got over that first swim for the rest of the summer despite doing open-water swims weekly.  I had a new plan.  I'd swim parallel to the shoreline just in case or I'd do laps out to a buoy and back to shore. 

So, fast forward to this past September and my first Olympic triathlon, the Lobsterman in Freeport, Maine.  It's an open ocean swim for 1 mile with 800 other athletes.  At the start I was treading water and I had no idea how I was going to get through this swim.  I wasn't panicked, but I was worried about whether my anxiety would return at some point.  My fear was that I'd have to be pulled out of the water by a support boat.  The gun goes off and I struggle to find a comfort zone in the water.  I was getting kicked, slapped and swam over by 100's of other swimmers.  I battled my unexpected open-water wrestling match to the first buoy, 400m down.  Then it occurred to me.  I was surrounded by more swimmers than a health department would ever allow in a swimming pool at one time.  I wasn't alone, I was swimming with 800 other people and it give me great comfort.  I figured out why I  panicked earlier in the summer - I was training alone.  Now, here in this race, I wasn't swimming alone anymore.

That epiphany was a remarkable moment for me, one that I would not have ever had if it wasn't for triathlons.  I had acquired a new fear I never had before and I overcame that fear on my own...or at least with 800 athletes.