Having ridden my bike to Moraine State Park yesterday, I was back there this morning, for two more workouts.  I was there to do an open water swim and decided, I would also do my long run in the park.

I haven’t written about swimming much recently, because I haven’t had the opportunity to swim.  The pool I use is still closed, so I am trying to take advantage of as many opportunities to swim in open water as possible.  We are fortunate that a local race director and coach, Joella Baker, puts on regular open water swim sessions throughout the summer.  She typically sets up four buoys that allow you swim in circumstances, that feel close to what you experience in a race.

I arrived at the lake this morning and the buoys were already set up. There were a number of swimmers  finishing up from the early time; I was due to swim during the second session.  I put on my wetsuit, waited a few minutes for my slot and got into the water.  The lake was quite choppy, but nothing too bad.

I haven’t written much about it before, but the biggest challenge I always face in my races, is the first 5-10 minutes of the swim.  I have a hard time getting settled into the swim and have ended up having a full on anxiety attack, at a couple of races.  These anxiety attacks, have ruined my day on each occasion. 

What happens during these attacks, is that I start to feel like I am totally out of breath.  I stop and tread water to catch my breath, start swimming again and then typically have a repeat attack.  I have been working for the past year to overcome this limiter,  and was able to successfully overcome the issue at Ironman Wisconsin last year.

So, as I entered the water this morning, I chose to treat the swim just like a race.  No warm up, just straight into the swim and head for the first buoy.  Sure enough, about two thirds of the way to the buoy, I could feel myself getting tense about my breathing.  I was close to stopping and treading water, but I didn’t.  I just kept swimming but cut back significantly on my effort level.  The key that I have discovered, is to take shallow breaths.  I have figured out that taking huge, deep breaths just makes the matter worse.  It sounds counter intuitive, but breathing deep and fast causes me to hyperventilate.

So this morning, I just slowed down a little, focused on shallow breathing and three minutes later I was over it.  The rest of the swim went great.  At one point I got totally tangled up in weeds, but that didn’t bother me one bit.

I swam three loops, which was roughly equivalent to a half Ironman swim.  I finished feeling strong, got out of the water and was perfectly set up to go to another part of the park, for my long run. 

I definitely made some more progress with my swim this morning, and that truly made my weekend.