The Fear of Death by Drowning

I’m trying to not be over-dramatic about how spectacularly bad my swim was in last weekend’s triathlon.

But it’s tough.  Because my swim really was spectacularly bad.

To my credit, when we piled into the car at 6:15 last Sunday morning at the condo in Kimberley for the 20 minute drive to Wasa Lake, the air temperature read 3 degrees.

Why didn’t we bring our parkas again?

Yep, 3 degrees. And it was cloudy and damp.

Not ideal conditions for a swim in a lake in the spring in Canada.

Oddly, as we walked our bikes into the transition area, I felt calm.  I’d done a quick swim in the lake the day before.  This was necessary to prepare my brain synapses for the shock-and-awe campaign that was about to be inflicted on my body.  The prep swim wasn’t super-fun, but it was bearable and functional.  Plus, I figured, I’ve done this more than a few times now.  I know the open water swim is a bit scary and first.  But experience tells me I always end up finding my rhythm and doing just fine.

Transition

As it turned out, this time…not so much.

For the 8:00 a.m. start, I employed my usual strategy of hanging back on the shore and letting all the fasties go ahead.  Then I waded in to my waist, muttered some expletives to myself, and finally pushed off into the murky, 12-degree water.  I’ll give myself a minute of breaststroke, I thought, to find a path. Get a feel for the cold.  Fall into a rhythm.  Then I’ll start to crawl.

Long story short?  There was no rhythm.  And there was very little crawling.

Within minutes, my breathing became shallow and constricted.  My neck and chest felt like they were closing in and being crushed by the tightness of my wetsuit.  Each time I put my face in the cold water, something in me panicked.  I couldn’t – could not – get enough air.    I felt I was stuck treading water about 50 metres from shore, wheezing like a chain-smoker.

Now, I’m into perseverance.  I can generally “atta-girl” myself through most situations.  But this was a rare time that I found myself in “I really don’t think I can do this” territory.  I can’t quite reconstruct what exactly happened to me mentally out there.  But it was primal and scary.  Not pretty.

As I spiraled in new-found depths of panic, I found myself thinking of my daughters.  And what a really stupid way this would be to die.  I’m not even kidding.  Just call in the canoe, I said to myself.  Throw in the towel.  Get a tow back to shore.  There are many things more important than this.

But on I wheezed, spluttered and splashed.  Slowly and unsteadily I advanced the distance.  Around the final bend, I glued my eyes to the huge orange buoy that was the blessed finish-line on the shore.

As I stumbled out of the lake – not far from the back of the pack – there was no joy or relief.  There was just numbness (literally and figuratively).  And a touch of delirium.  There was also an inner voice screaming “get me the eff out of this chest-crushing wetsuit“.  I reached behind my back, but my frozen hands couldn’t find the wetsuit zipper cord.

“I can’t find the thing,” I started saying out loud, over and over.

I heard my husband cheering my name on the beach.

“I can’t find the thing,” I called back.  He looked a little concerned.

I walked slowly up the beach.  A smiling volunteer clapped. “Great job!!” he cheered.  As I got closer, his smile vanished.  “Are you ok?” he said.

“I can’t find the thing,”  I said.  “I can’t find the thing.”

“You’re ok,” he said as he unzipped me.  “You’re ok.”

Turns out I was ok.  Once out of that god-forsaken, frozen, as-it-turned-out-close-to-regulation-temperature-for-cancelling-the-swim-as-per-important-Triathlon-Canada-guy-rules, water I was ok.  I got on my bike and rode. Fast.  I ran the distance on the frozen-stumps-that-had-become-my-feet.  That part all was ok.  Better than ok.

So a little dramatic?!  Possibly.  But the fear of death by drowning will do that to a girl.