Bad experience with first OWS

Been there had that several times. How do you get over it??? Good question. To make a long story short. I looked into this quite a bit several months ago. What is the difference between practice OWS in a lake and Race day OWS in a lake?  My answer.....more adrenaline and more nerves. What I did and so far it has worked for me was no stimulants before the race. No Coffee; Red Bull; 5 hour energy drink etc. I also didn't drink all that much of my electrolyte drink, just water. Then I put myself in a mind set that what ever negative things people talked about at the race start was there problem. "Oh I don't like the swim" " Can't wait till this parts over" etc Don't let other people's negative thoughts get in your head.

Now with that being said you must do a swim warm up before the race. Get in get wet put water in your wet suit. Swim 200 yards. Put your head down and swim, nice and easy. count your strokes clear your head. Check where the markers are and just look for them. Don't worry about who passes  you or who you might pass. Tunnel vision my friend. If somebody bumps into  you be Strong, don't stop and say I'm sorry. It's your water too.

In addition make sure you exhale. That is very very important. That is most likely why you hyperventilated. If you need to yell into the water when you exhale. I kind of do a growl or grunt sound to remind myself that I am exhaling. I also let the people in my wave go out about 25 to 50 yards before I started. I followed behind them found my line to the first buoy and went in. My goal was to finish the swim feeling good and I did. The next race I felt confident enough to start up front with my wave group but that was only because of what I did the previous wave. Good luck I hope some of this helps you out. Keep at it.

I did my first Olympic and OWS race early in July.  My test swim in the same lake a week before the races was a disaster - I just couldn't force myself to keep up a steady freestyle and had to breast stroke at least half of the course.  Of course I had heard that many people get freaked out by their first OWS but I didn't expect that it would happen to me.

Fortunately I seemed to get the worst of the freaking-out out of my system during the practice swim and I was okay with the OWS on race day.

Thanks for all of the advice I completed my first tri on Saturday without any trouble.   The swim was going good until the last 50 yards when the next wave caught up to me.   Luckily i didn't panic and completed the swim portion without any problems.