High Anxiety and Strong Willpower

"Goal setting is not a mind game. It is a process of developing the internal willpower to accomplish what you have set out to do." - Joan Benoit Samuelson

I need to start out by saying thank you to all those who have donated to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and have sent me encouraging words of support through blog posts, e-mails, U.S. mail, and phone calls towards my Ironman training to date. I'm teary-eyed right now just reflecting on this and cannot express how much this truly means to me. Your positive responses keep me going during this time in which I feel particularly insecure and anxious.

I was highly anxious all week about my first open water swim this weekend. It was 37F when I arrived at Lake Del Valle yesterday at 8:30am. We were to start out the day with the swim, but Coach Wayne decided that the temperature was too cold and a danger to our muscles for the workout they had scheduled for us the next six hours. There were also many fishermen out on the lake and they would have been mad at us for scaring away the fish. So for the first 45-minutes, we did bicycle drills on our trainers, followed by a 60-minute run and post-run stretching.

Around 11:30, we squeezed into our wetsuits, took a group photo and headed out down to the lake. The drill was to swim out 25 yards and back to shore four times. Each time we got back to shore, we were to do a set of crunches, planks and push-ups to warm-up our body temperature before going out again. The water temperature was 52F.

I did not enjoy the open, cold-water swimming experience at all. As much as I wanted to swim with the confidence and knowledge that I built up these past 8 weeks with the swim drills, all was lost in my anxiety each time I entered the cold, green, murky lake. I could not force myself to keep my head under the water and had difficulty controlling my breathing. I swam mostly breast stroke and slowed my breathing by flipping onto my back. After the swim, we changed into dry clothes and got back on our bikes to spin for 2 hours to warm-up our bodies.

Captain Tom was great in coaching us five newbies. He said that it would really be much easier to swim if the water wasn't so cold. It's the brain's natural reaction not to want to place face in 52F water. All the coaches thought we did great for our first open water swim and should get better the next time we go in since we'll now know what to expect.

Our next open water swim is at the end of this month in the San Francisco Bay, which is suppose to be colder than Lake Del Valle. If I want to be successful in the 2.4 mile swim next August, I will need to get in much more open water swim time in the upcoming months. If anyone lives locally and wants to swim with me in one of our local lakes once it warms up, let me know. I wouldn't want to go out by myself.

Today (Sunday), I road the 25-mile Pig/Bear/Deer loop from Pleasant Hill with lovely Rita. I cannot express how much her company today meant to me as well. She also volunteered to go open water swimming with me in the upcoming months. If anyone ever wants to go on road cycling with me, let me know that too since I'm always looking for good company. I'm not fast, but steady.