Topic: Open Water Meltdown
Conf: Racing – Pool or Open Water
From: Lorne Sundby
Date: Monday, June 19, 2006 02:05 PM

I've raced in open water once, and practiced three times, but have learned that isn't necessarily enough experience. In a 1000m lake swim yesterday (part of a sprint tri) I got caught in a churn of
a lot of swimmers in the middle of the crowd and lost all composure – a complete panic attack, with the requisite hyperventilating, breaststroking, backstroking. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't get my comfort back. As soon as my face hit the water, my heart rate shot up and I was bobbing in the drink again.

I did do a warmup – to get used to the 17C water which felt cold even with my wet suit. I dunked myself enough times to get rid of that feeling where your breath goes away and all your body orifices, including your throat, close tight. I swam maybe 20 strokes. Seemed to be feeling OK. But then I lost it all in the washing machine five minutes later.

I did finish – it was 2 laps of a 500m route, and I was seriously considering quitting the race after one lap (and quitting triathlons, and quitting swimming, and just going back to running ultras which is what I did before) – but I was 150th of 175 athletes after the swim, just one–armed swimmers and the 100-year old triathlete still in the water when I got out.

(To top off the day, I had a flat on the bike loop – I'll put this one in my logs as "learning experience.")

Any advice and wisdom? I have a 1900m swim in five weeks as part of a Half Iron. I've done 1900m continuously in a pool a dozen times (~40 minutes) but now that my confidence has been dented, I've started a major worry wart over this one.

From: Brian Vande Krol
Date: Monday, June 19, 2006 04:50 PM

I'm reminded of a TV commercial a few years back where a guy was doing an OW swim and there were people in boats on either side of him whacking him with paddles. The punchline was that he was training for a triathlon.

My first OW was similar to yours. I went about 100 yards and sat on a dock for a minute, then finished the swim after another guy sitting with me got back in. I still couldn't put my face in the water, and finished on my back. Each subsequent swim was easier.

Find a place where you can practice open water swimming with some friends, and be rude to each other. Start in a pack and swim as tightly as possible. It's not necessary to actually hurt each other, just run into each other and observe how you don't drown. Ask a friend to crawl over the top of you to pass.

If that's not feasible, do the same sort of thing in a pool.

If that's also not feasible, try Visualization. Now that you have been in an OW race situation, you can visualize what it's like. Recall the exact circumstances and see yourself swimming relaxed, confident, and handling the physical contact. See yourself swimming your own race, practicing your own TI stroke, not worried about what is going on around you.

See yourself starting to struggle and getting an elevated heart rate, and then see yourself proactively changing that situation for the better by relaxing, calming down, sensing an element of your stroke that needs attention and focusing on that, and see that your heart rate is coming down.

Visualize in this manner for 5-10 minutes a day, every day. Do it in a quiet place, free of distractions. Add as much texture as you can to the visualization: See the sky and the crowd at the start, hear the starter's signals, feel the wet and cold.

Studies have shown that proper visualization can easily replace actual physical experience in terms of conditioning the body to respond.

One last thought. Do a lot more warm-up. Practice TI drills – some skating, some of your favorite switches, then do at least 200 meters of whole stroke, ending with a brief spurt of brisk speed and a cool down.

Doing activity that approximates your pool practice will make the foreign environment seem more familiar and comfortable, as well as suggest some focal points for your race.

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