Part 3 - My IronMan 70.3 journey

This post is an important one for me personally. It feels like I’m talking to myself, reminding myself where I started my swim journey a few years ago. Hands down: I am absolutely terrified about the swimming part of the IronMan 70.3! Why? Because swimming in a pool or lake are completely different than swimming in the open water.

First of all, the current and waves are a force of nature! This power which you can barely see but certainly feel, reminds you that we are visitors on this planet. If you don’t show respect, mother nature will teach you respect…that’s a given.

Secondly, it’s really hard to see anything in the water because obviously the water isn’t as clear and clean compared to a pool or lake in the mountains. In my situation, I see even less because I wear glasses. Just recently I found out that there are goggles with prescription on the market which help me a lot. On top of that, sighting needs to be trained in the open water because you have literally nothing that indicates you the direction you’re heading and the waves splashing in your face make it even harder to see anything. In the pool you see the line on the ground, in a lake you always see a mountain or the outer bank. In the sea, however, you’ve got the open water. If you’re not swimming in parallel to the shore, you literally see nothing but the blue, open, endless ocean. You might think: What’s she complaining about? That sounds romantic. Well, let me tell you the incident that I experienced a few months ago which lead me to be terrified of the swim instead of feeling excitement.

It was a gorgeous early morning. I went down to the beach wearing my wetsuit, goggles and swim cap. I started with my training session and swam in parallel to the beach into the sunrise. It felt great! This view and feeling cannot be expressed in words. After a while I really needed a break so I stopped and tried to put my legs down on the ground - just as I would usually do. Since I’m on my own out there, I make sure that I’m always close to the beach where the water isn’t deep so I can stand up. This time, however, I didn’t notice that I wasn’t swimming in parallel to the beach but rather out into the sea. So you can perhaps imagine that I got a panic attack when I needed a break and realized that I can’t reach the ground with my legs anymore and that I was quite far out in the open water. I didn’t have a safety buoy with me. I’ll cut it short here: I tried to calm myself down using breathing techniques I learned in yoga, talking to myself that I’ll be fine, one stroke at a time and somehow made it back to the beach using breast stroke. My heart rate was so high, I started crying and I just felt terrified. I knew if I’d left the water after this incident, I would never go back in again. So I forced myself to swim another 100 m at least and then head back home. I was completely exhausted and out of order on that day.

Afterwards, I realized how lucky I got out there! It’s not like when you’re on a bike or you go for a run. When you need a break, you just stop, breath and everything’s fine. You can’t do that out in the deep sea. You either get your act together and calm down or you’re going to drown. Since then I always have a safety buoy with me but this terrifying feeling hasn’t gone away. Hands down: I’ve been avoiding swimming in the open water since then. I went a few more times but I didn’t enjoy it that’s for sure. I honestly had to drag myself down to the beach, calm myself down because I teared up before I was even in the water because I kept reliving this terrifying moment when I was out there in the deep sea. Also, I’ve been dealing with a painful eye infection over the past two weeks which interfered with my training. Swimming was off the table obviously and so was cycling for nearly two weeks because I could barely open my eye. So I ran and ran and ran.

So how am I going to overcome that fear? How am I going to approach the swim in the IronMan 70.3 where we’ll be swimming out into the sea and back? I honestly don’t know. All I know is that everything you ever wanted, sits on the other side of fear. So I guess I’ll just need to pull it off somehow on that day. My goal for this race has changed though: For me personally, I’ve won when I really stand at the line-up and give it go even though I’ll be terrified. And even if I don’t make the whole swim within the cut-off time, so be it. As long as I know I gave it my best shot on that day and I didn’t let my fear stop me, I’ve won! That also means more training and that I’ll be back again someday to finish it and cross the finish line.

And now, check out my posts from my first swimming lessons in 2019. I promise it’ll make you laugh.

Happy swiping, reading and laughing :)