Drowning your open water demons

There are a lot of threads on here about the open water swim, many of which deal with overcoming fear. I have to admit that I was more or less freaked out about the swim at my first 5 races, Buffalo Spring included.  Fear has some physiologic effects that are both hard to overcome and not conducive to swimming. It's hard to swim when your body wants to breathe 40 times a minute. Mentally you can be afraid and still make yourself do the thing you fear. Courage has everything to do with being afraid and going anyway, not being fearless. With regard to the swim, I've managed to make some progress. I am by no means an swimming expert or even a novice swim coach. And honestly I know I have to go out and have another decent swim at my next race to convince myself I'm getting better. But I can tell you what results I've had personally to date, and what I did to get to a point where I can swim on race day (at least once!). Maybe it will help.

Race	Distance	Pace per 100	Wetsuit	Comments
Tejas	800 yards	2:23	No	2005, 1st Tri. Mix of free, drills
TriAmerica	800 yards	2:58	No	2005, 2nd Tri. Mix of free, drils
Cactus	550 yards	2:55	YES	Hyperventilated, 90% side-stroke
San Jac	1640 yards	2:51	No	Hugged buoys, survived
BSLT IM 70.3	2112 yards	1:36!!	YES

1) I took lessons. I did a TI workshop and I had four different  people give me lessons. I learned something from each of them.

2) I focused a lot on form. I did drills for months... and months. I did so many drills that I can't stand the thought of drills now, though I know I still need to do them. I make deals with myself and when I am swimming my long sets I throw in the occasional drill to break things up.

3) After the lessons, after the form work, I swam a lot. No brainer. But I made myself swim more than I wanted to swim. There were a few days when I got in the pool, swam 200 yards and went home. But there were more days when I didn't want to swim and once I got in the water I had a great workout.

4) I trained in my wetsuit  occasionally, in the pool and in open water. I swam in open water with and without it. I put little stock in working on sighting and race tactics because I knew if I couldn't just SWIM in open water none of that would matter. Once I got comfortable swimming (finally), then I did some work on sighting and it came to me easier than I expected (and I can still improve a lot). My worst swim ever was at Cactus and I blamed my wetsuit at first because I had so much trouble breathing. After some self-evaluation (and pool swims in the wetsuit) I realized the wetsuit was not the problem...

5) This is controversial, but I cannot deny that it helped me tremendously. I started using a SwiMP3 player and listened to music while I swam. I know a lot of people whom I respect disagree with the use of music in training. Mental training and all that. I know one thing. On race day from the time the gun goes off until I cross the finish line... I'm mentally locked in to every stroke, every repetition... all of the rhythms of the race. My mind is there. So I don't see music in training as a crutch for me. One IMMEDIATE effect of the SwiMP3 was a major increase in my swim volume. I liked being in the water with my favorite tunes. I have no problem focusing on form. In fact I think it helps me because I'm not thinking about how freakin' bored I am! There is no denying that it has helped me. Make up your own mind on that one. Don't let me convince you to get one and don't let anyone convince you it's bad.

6) I suppose I believed that I would eventually get it. I had enough supportive people telling me that and I trusted them so despite my skepticism and naturally self-critical outlook, on some level I believed it would happen. Pool swimming was a struggle for me. Day in and day out I went to the pool and I sucked. I got discouraged. I kept with the drills. One day, after about a week out of the pool, I went to swim and I felt like I'd been swimming for years. It literally was like someone flipped a switch and I could just swim. The same thing happened last weekend. After a thought provoking with my BT buddy Dennis at the start of the BSLT IM 70.3, I decided it was time to just get in there and swim (read our race peorts... pretty funny). I felt like I was a veteran swimmer. I drafted, I passed people, I rounded buoys... I was in a pack of people and I was totally comfortable the entire swim.

Ultimately it boils down to seeing that it's an acquired skill and like anything else it can be learned with the right approach. My approach seems to be working for me, and hopefully some elements of what I'm doing can be helpful for other people in the same boat (sorry....). Stay out of the boat. Swim!