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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Anyway I’ve been receiving very ‘helpful’ tips from family and friends and I’d like to share some of them with you – my mom suggested I wear a brightly coloured shower cap so that people can see when and where I go under as I drown, this of course was after her suggestion of arm bands hidden in my wetsuit because of course they can’t see those…

My friend Vanessa offered to erect a stepladder on the shore of the dam to watch me through her binocs with a whistle at the ready to alert the safety personnel when my tired, limp body sinks below the surface…

Pollyotters and life-jackets were other options of course both redundant because the rules say “No flotation devices”.  I am in the process of trying to persuade my partner to hire/borrow/steal a rowing-boat so that he can follow me and make sure my worries of impending death by drowning do not come true…

The race only starts at 15:00 tomorrow afternoon so I’d appreciate a little prayer around that time as I make my way into the water with everyone else.

Looks about my size...

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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!!

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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??

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