Friday, March 6, 2015

Articulating fears of the open water swim start

Posted by Rachel

A couple of days ago, Katie mentioned that she watched the IM Canada video recently posted on their website and that the open water swim start looked intimidating. I watched the same video last night and was also intimidated... I mean, WOW, that is a lot of freaking people.

Then this morning at master's swim practice, I had to share a lane (which almost never happens). I split the lane with a tall fit guy who used to swim a 43 in the 100 fr (yes, you read that right). In the lane next to my other side, there were two very fit guys also swimming fast. It was VERY turbulent and it reminded me of open water and I didn't like it. But the incident got me thinking... exactly WHAT part of open water/mass swim start bothers us? I bet it's different for everyone. Here are my 3 open water swim fears:

1.) That it'll slow me down (50% fear allocation)
I was noticing today that my times were slower than having clean smooth water and nobody around. It's frustrating to think that we do all this training with the possibility of getting to the race and just being blocked or tossed around the whole way. Hopefully this fear is irrational and only applies to the very beginning of the swim, but I just don't know!
2.) That my goggles will get knocked off (40% fear allocation)
If my goggles get knocked off, I'm screwed. Not because I really mind water in my eyes, but because I wear contacts, and if I lose my goggles those will probably come out. And if those come out, I am BLIND. I don't even know if it would be possible to finish the swim without contacts. In fact, this fear is so real that I've kept contacts in the transition area of past triathlons, because as bad as it would be to try to swim without them, biking without them would be a complete disaster.
3.) That someone will hit me so hard I'll break something (10% fear allocation)
I swam in a lot of crowded pools when I was a kid, so getting hit and swam over isn't so scary (it happens more than you think). However, I did once witness a nose breakage, and the thought that I could get kicked in the ribs or elsewhere so hard that bones break is a little terrifying.

Now that I've written this post, it sounds like the intent to was scare people. That's actually not true; (I like to think) I'm a problem solver and I initially wrote this so we could think of strategies to minimize our concerns about the open water swim start, or prove them irrational to each other. (For example.. if anyone has seen any statistics on bone breakage in the swim start, I'd be interested!)

What specifically do you worry about in the open water swim mass start?

4 comments:

  1. My fears are:

    1) Being pushed under / swam over
    2) Goggle malfunction
    3) Panicking so badly that I don't have a good swim

    For me 1 gets a lot of fear allocation but 2 and 3 are a lot more likely scenarios. I'd say my panicking response has lessened every time I do a swim start/tri but those were all small wave starts... not 3,000 people thrashing at once.

    Maybe we should adopt a flying V formation... put you in front, Matt and Travers behind you, and Chen and I behind them :) That should create a little space pocket pretty quickly!

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    1. Haha, if the flying V can work for the Mighty Ducks, it can work for us! (maybe) For #1, I like starting towards the outside and talking to the people around me to figure out their pace. This might (?) help (like lining up with the right pace group at a marathon).

      Apparently my mom read this post and she thought the most likely disaster she's read so far was the goggle one. She conceded the other things are possible but goggles are most likely. I've heard people say to put them on under the cap, but then I worry if the strap slides down it's impossible to fix it without taking off the cap. So I guess there are pros and cons to above and below the cap. We could also keep them so tight that our eyes bulge. Hmmm.

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  2. For me:

    1) Panicking and drowning
    2) Goggles
    3) Getting clocked in the face

    #1 is the reason I've been in the pool so much, but I need to get my @$$ in open water ASAP.

    For #2, I've thought about how I can keep a spare pair on my person. I'm like you and am completely blind without my contacts, so the race would be over if my goggles permanently broke. Maybe now's a good time to look into Lasik...

    I will try to avoid #3 by just staying as far away from other humans as I can... but not so far away that the lake creatures come out to play with me.

    - Chen

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    Replies
    1. I would be interested in testing methods to keep a spare pair. I'd prefer to not get Lasik just in case my goggles fall off :p

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