I had myself convinced

Getting to the beach on Saturday morning was a lot easier than a few weeks ago. Once at the beach it was time for a washroom break, set up transition, wetsuit on, into the cold water. Short easy swim to warm up.

First set was the try-a-tri distance, 400m. Did it and felt great! Thankfully I had my breath... not the same panic from two weeks ago! Already a good start. Walk back to the start, this time, instead of following the rope marking off the shallow end, it was time for the real deal... out to the deep water... YIKES! Around the buoys, triangle course, approximately the race distance once again.

I'm not scared of water, but I also haven't done a lot of lake swimming in my life... neither of my parents were the camping type, not many family vacations, etc. Icky lake bottoms, weeds, moss and stuff like that all gross me out. Deep breath, let's do this.

I found closing my eyes when my face was in the water helped a bit... open them up to see where I was going when up for air. That worked, but I just started telling myself that it was no deeper than the pool, and that the new trend was painting the pool bottoms black. Ya, that's it! That's why it was so dark down there, no weeds, no moss, no gross stuff, it was painted.

Whatever. It worked. I swam the whole thing, didn't flip onto my back once, didn't stop, just DID IT!! I got to the shallow end, started peeling off my wetsuit, running up to transition feeling like I conquered the world! Or maybe a bit of a fear in my own world... If I could do that... wow! Once we finished our mock tri, those of us using wetsuits had to get back into the water for another swim sans the added buoyancy of a wetsuit -- in case the water temp miraculously raises above a certain temperature, we may not be able to race with them on, so better to get used to that before hitting panic mode on race day, which happened to one guy in our group already! No problem.

As I was getting out of the water, one of the more experienced clinic members said I looked awesome in the water, great stroke, fluid movement. The positive feedback (especially about my swimming, which I've sucked at so badly when I first started and have been working at lots) was so elevating after what I was already considering a successful day!

I have lots of thoughts about spectating the triathlon this morning but will save it for my next post so this one doesn't get too long. Plus, I need a nap. After only 4 hours of sleep (long story...), I'm having to do a lot of editing (read: a lot more than normal), and backspacing to make sure this post is readable... fingers crossed. :)

Oh, and the results from the pop quiz in the previous post... C, although certainly most of them answers would apply. The firemen were parked at a school along my route. ;) Jay is convinced I was destined to be with a firemen, as I tend to have a knack for finding them wherever I go. Only 70 more sleeps till the Nike Women's :D