So as I’m sure you can figure out I didn’t drown although I came pretty close to it.  I had the whole day to work myself up into a bit of a froth because the event only started at 15:00 which was just enough time for the wind to pick up and create waves, complete with white horses on the Clanwilliam dam which is where we were doing the swim – and damn did the buoys we have to swim around look far away!!

At the start I stood back and allowed the faster, more professional looking people to go ahead.  About 100 metres from shore I took in a lungful of water and then went into a flat panic because I couldn’t breathe, I was being swum over by other participants, swamped by waves and I couldn’t see the support boat.  So after bobbing around trying to get my breath back and fighting back the tears I managed to calm myself and carry on heading in the direction which was nowhere near shore.  Luckily I struck up a conversation with 2 other swimmers who were just behind me who had had a similar experience – apparently most first timers “almost drown” – not so sure about that but there you go…

I came in nowhere near the front and absolutely exhausted after swimming breaststroke the whole way because I was too scared to put my face back into the water.  I managed to redeem myself by passing a few people on the bike and run legs although when I crossed the finish line I wasn’t feeling fabulous and was a bit zoned out for the rest of the evening.

Today, as I write this I’m making plans to collect a swimming schedule to follow on my own now that my swimming lessons are done.  I’m not sure if I want to compete in any more triathlons because I was seriously shaken on Saturday – which probably means that the Half Ironman will have to go on the back burner, but I’m going to keep trying with this swimming thing to get over that fear of whatever it is that seems to want to consume me when I think about open water swimming!

Preparing at the start

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• after a run I’m left with a feeling of accomplishment, with swimming all I’m left with are raccoon eyes (def:  that is where your mascara has smudged from the fog in the goggles, resulting in a black ring around the eyes) and cycling, well you can read about that here…

• it is social and you get to chat with all sorts of people while you are chugging along – swimming is without a doubt a sport for loners and unless you have bionic hearing and can keep up with the pack,  so is cycling.

• if I’m tired I can just stop, if I try that with swimming death by drowning is the only outcome…

• I saw immediate progress which is what kept me going way back in the beginning of my running career 2 years ago, I’ve been swimming for a month now and the progress I see is negligible – barely even enough to comment on AND that is with swimming lessons!!

Any contributions are welcome!!

Photo Credit

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As mentioned in my previous post about swimming, I think I made it pretty clear that it isn’t one of my talents especially after a practice swim last weekend left  me exhausted and barely able to crawl out of the pond I’d just come from – after only swimming 3o0 metres…  I’m sure you can understand why I’m battling with anxiety!

The distances are relatively short which apparently make this event “fun” and “for the whole family” – I’d hate to be the one to put a damper on things and insist on an age restriction when they pull my half-drowned body out of the water, cursing my sinking body and Nicola for making me say I’d do the Half Ironman…

The triathlon is made up of an 800 metre swim, followed by a 20km cycle and a 5km run which can be done individually or in teams.  There are other events too so check out the website to see if you (or your kids) would like to take part.

Let me know if you will be there too…

The Clanwilliam Dam

Photo Credit

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Let me try and explain.  My “swimming” career consists of

• a hand-full of lessons when I was about 8,
• hours upon hours of playing in our pool and
• paddling on my surfboard

- as you can see far from anything of value.

So to bridge the gap between swimming and not swimming I decided to sign up for some lessons.  Now, I’m not going to go into too much detail here because this is a running blog after all but the bottom line is, I sink… Yip butt first!

My body starts out reasonable flat and near the top of the water and gradually sinks from the hips to the legs so I look like a boat with a very fat person sitting in one end.  Obviously I had never really noticed this with a surfboard keeping me safely afloat but this may be an issue with a 1.9km swim in the ocean to start the Half Iron Man.

Any ideas??

Photo Credit

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The concept of cycling, balls-to-the-wall and not actually covering any ground has always seemed a bit bizarre to me, but I put this aside last night and joined Nicola for my first spinning class.  “Its only 45 minutes” said Nicola which sounded a lot better than the 90 minute class which I thought was our only option.

I felt like such a beginner when I walked in and had to be talked through the bike set-up by Nicola (it is quite technical), then I settled in not really knowing what to expect from the super ripped, all muscle guy who was our instructor.

The first 10 minutes was a bit of a warm-up which had me a little worried about how the rest of the class was going to progress considering I was already battling,  although I had at that stage made a mental note NOT to wear the shorts I was wearing to cycle in, ever – I’m not even going to go into my views on camel toe.

Before we ‘really got going’ I was picked on by the instructor because he said I looked funny on my bike and needed to change the setting – a small dent in my already fragile ego.

And then…  Well lets just say that half the time I was totally lost with increasing and decreasing the intensity, trying to work out what 70% of my max was (with nothing to compare it to) and there was something about cadence – whatever that is – that I just ignored because I was concentrating on not flinging sweat onto the person next to me or melting into a little puddle on the floor (which was already there and belonged to me) from exhaustion.

And yes, the class was only 45min – with a 10 minute warm up and a 5 minute cool down…

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