Gray Guy/Girls Tri--Masters Sprint/Olympic Mentor Group CLOSED (Page 11)

I don't know, in my book a first place is a first place.  Congrats!

Hey Steve -

Remember a couple days ago when I made some off handed comment about negative splits?  Training using negative splits will ABSOLUTELY help you avoid 'going out to hard.'  Negative splits does two things, number once, it rapidly builds your overall fitness, number two, and perhaps more importantly under the circumstances, negative splits will teach you pace.  Say for example you want to negative split your 200 intervals.  Using a time range you mentioned the other day, you may shoot for 50's of :42, :41, :40, :39.  Obviously those are very subtle differences in pace.  However, when you get to where you can repeat that consistently, you will never go out to fast again unless you CHOOSE to go out to fast.

Just my two cents.

Norma -

Congratulations on the 3rd place podium finish!

Ok, the swim.  You didn't have a wetsuit on this time and still felt the chest constriction so clearly a wetsuit is not the problem.  I guess I have a couple questions.  How much open water swim experience do you have?  What type of open water is your experience in (ocean, lake, river, etc.)?  The race this past weekend, what type of water were you in (ocean, lake, etc.)?  I ask because when you get out of a nice clear swimming pool and into a natural body of water, all the rules suddenly change.  Depending upon the type of open water, the rules may change dramatically.  Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  I am a reasonably strong swimmer.  Back in the summer of 1979 I was entered in my third 3-mile Seal Beach Rough Water Swim.  Went from the beach to an oil platform 1 1/2 miles out and back.  At the time our swim team was doing three a day workouts and I was logging roughly 12-15,000 meters/day.  So that little three mile swim was really not much more than a warm-up.  Except it was in the ocean, and as they say, "surf was up."  There were 10 foot waves breaking on the beach (Seal Beach normally has 2-3 foot on a HEAVY surf day).  More than the surf, the wind was blowing over 30 MPH and there was a 6-8 foot swell out past the surf line.

It was a group start, if memory serves there were 300-400 of us, and as we went through the surf line on the way out, I took a mouthful of nasty salty, sandy water.  You wanna talk about chest constriction?  Just that fast, I was in a full blown panic attack.  I couldn't stop because I would have been run over by 300 people.  I finally started doing butterfly because it got me through the waves better and I could breath every stroke.  I finally got myself settled down and towards the back of the pack.  I was out of sorts the entire morning.  Finally I got to the oil platform and one of the lifeguards that accompanied us on a paddle-board came over and ended my day.  I took a boat back to shore (along with nearly 2/3 of the entire starting field).

My point is, ALL the rules had changed and I was in the middle of something that I was not prepared for.

I suspect that your chest constriction is from a bit of anxiety about open water.  Let's face it, in open water you generally can't see the bottom.  If you CAN see the bottom, then you can also see all the critters in the water with you.  There are currents, or worse.  There may be significant water movement (waves), navigating to where you are going becomes a challenge.  The list goes on and on.  Over my entire swimming career (40+ years) I have probably put in well in excess of 1,000 miles in open water races and trainings.  Yet, still to this day, I am apprehensive when I start off in open water.  The apprehension disappears fairly quickly, but the butterflies are still there when I begin.

Putting in more open water miles will likely help you to become more comfortable.  As your comfort level increases, the chest constriction should begin to go away.

Just my two cents.