Taming the Open Water Beast

Last night was the first Boulder Stroke & Stride, a weekly event including a 1500m swim followed by  a quick 5K run along water's edge at the Boulder Reservoir.  They are an excellent opportunity for people like me to recover from our affliction...  "Hi, my name is Pam, and I had a history of irrational fear of swimming in open water."  (all together now..."Hi Pam!")  :-)

The ease and speed of some swimmers is really amazing to me.  Yes, the fact that they've been doing this much of their lives is significant and I do know how far I've come since first learning to swim a few years ago.  Also common to good swimmers appears to be that they look forward to their swim training sessions with eager anticipation and maybe even  consider swimming the most fun part of a triathlon.  God bless 'em - can't say I'm THERE yet, but my attitude toward swimming IS something I can control and I'm working on it, every time I jump into the water.

I love/hate my wetsuit.  It makes me buoyant and on top of the water...a good thing.  It keeps me warmer in cold water...a good thing.  But I hate that constricted feeling of a long sleeve wetsuit and what's up with my arms getting tired?  That never happens just regular swimming "naked" (no, Mom, that just means without a wetsuit, not without clothes) over the same distance. Chances are that Ironman Louisville will not be wetsuit legal this year, so I may have a chance to do my first triathlon "sans wetsuit" there.  I am not worried about that.  (believe me?  I'm trying to)

So last night's swim was not among my best but I'll chalk it up to early season shaking out the kinks.  There's a run down the beach between the first and second loops of the 750m course.  I took my sweet time starting to swim on the second loop....took off my goggles that were fogged up and put them back on (twice).  So second loop time was 3 minutes slower but it included that goofing around time, so I'm thinking the second loop was probably about the same time as the first.

The important thing is that every time I get into that water and keep my head together, it proves to me that I can do this thing because I've conquered the part of it that was hardest for me.  I know that I can and do continue to swim faster, and I've been able to focus on that now that I have discovered how to tame the Beast.

I love how life lessons work like that.  In working through conquering fears and limitations, then you realize that you have inner strength to apply when other areas of your life present challenges.   Cool how that works.

Let's go swimming.