Open Water Panic

Hi all,

I just completed my first Olympic distance tri this weekend, and while it was generally a good experience, the swim was just awful. About 10 minutes into it (an out-and-back lake swim) I had a panic attack of sorts - I couldn't breathe, was wheezing and hyperventilating, and was convinced I wasn't going to make it. I mean, I plain freaked out. At one point I even started trying to undo my wetsuit at the neck, because I felt like it was strangling me. I got through it, but I had to stop about every 4 strokes to tread water and breathe and give myself a pep talk. Once I turned the far bouy and was pointed toward the shore, however, my training kicked in and I swam right back in, no problem. But the whole ordeal took me 41 minutes - whereas my 1500m in the pool is generally more like 33-34 minutes.

Now, I am still relatively new to this type of swimming, and at this time last year I couldn't swim more than 50 yards freestyle (I breast-stroked my way through sprint tri's). But I've trained and had a little bit (1 hour) of coaching, and regularly swam 1500 and even 2000 meters freestyle in the pool, no stopping, no problems. And I've completed 4 sprints, although my swimming was often slow and never pretty, and I always had my moments of fear in the open water. But never like this. Now I'm afraid that the next time I attempt an open water swim it will be worse, because I'll remember the last time.

I had also never worn a wetsuit before, and only practiced in this (rented) one for a couple of lengths of the pool the day before the race. So the tight wetsuit around my neck was NOT helping.

But my question is - has anyone else struggled through these problems with open-water swims? How do you prepare for race day, and most importantly, how do you overcome those moments of panic once you're alone in the middle of an unfamiliar lake? I'm so traumatized, I feel like I'm going to need therapy before the next tri season!

Oh my goodness yes, I struggled big time in my first OWS. Major freak out. had only been in open water once before, and during my warmup felt no current, then when I got out further, current = freak out. To get over it, I turned over on my back and back stroked almost half the distance as that is my most comfortable stroke.

After that, I made sure to have lots of time in the pool (That was what I focused on to the expense of the other two). I swam with friends in close proximity to get used to that tight feeling. The next OWS I had was in a River. I had heard numerous horror stories about it, from both triathletes and boaters, and almost didn't do it. Well, once I got out there I saw that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had been fearing. I just went out there, focused on long, smooth strokes, and on my technique. I took extra time to sight (breast stroked every 4-5 strokes to get a good look), and guess what, I improved my time dramatically.

I have race threads on these you might want to read (Wet Dog and Rocketman) and a thread in the tri forum about OWS looking for help.

If you have any more OWS w/ wetsuits, I would take more time getting used to them. Also, if possible, get some OWS experience outside of race conditions. I'm sure some of the other girls will have some more ideas

Oh, and congrats on the olympic distance!!!

First, congrats on completing your first oly distance tri!!! You must feel very proud of yourself!!!

Second, yes, OWS and me didn't get along real well at first. Pool swimming and OWS are two different breeds, aren't they? The trick for me was doing umpteenth swims in open water this summer. My first few freaked me out a little, but now that I've done so many practice swims, races don't freak me at all. It is difficult getting used to so many people in close proximity, but I like btchance's suggestion of having friends in the pool with her to overcome that anxiety. Good one- I wish I'd thought of that!
My advice would be just to do as many OWS as possible to alleviate your fears. When I'm out there I just focus on breathing, and imagine myself being a floating manatee- rolling from side to side gracefully in the water (ridiculous, yes, but who can stress out when you're pretending to be a gliding manatee?).
Oh, and I'm sure the wetsuit didn't help! I STILL get strangled by mine occasionally. If you can practice in one more, that's great, but if not- try this: pull it up as much as possible so there's extra room at your shoulders (it'll pull down on your shoulders as you swim), and leave a couple fingers room at the neck. Hopefully next time you will breeze through your swim!!!

I'm kind of the other way around. I freak in swimming pools, but I'm fine in real water, especially with a wetsuit on.

Another freaker-outer here! I grew up swimming in the ocean and lakes, but now I get so freaked out being in the open water. I don't know why it is, but I am! The one thing I found that helped was that I count my strokes when I get freaked out. Usually I'm only breathing every 2 strokes when I get to that point, so in my head I say, "One, two, breathe....One, two, breathe..." I just repeat that until I get my rhythm back. I think it also helps to just keep getting out there in the open water as often as possible to make yourself feel more comfortable. You'll get there!

Fear not....you are truly not alone. As others have said, practice, practice, practice. Get out in the OW as often as you can. My first tri was a disaster.

As a kid I was hydrophobic to the point that I didn't learn to swim until late teens and "swim" was a poor term for the flailing I did. While I may have had miserable strokes if my head was in the water, I had (and still have) an awesome side stroke :). On my first tri the cold water (pools were always warm) and the seaweed (arggghh...it is out to get me) and the other bodies (I'll drown! I just know it!) put me into a horrendous panic. I switched to side stroke and didn't calm down until near the end.

After that I vowed to get into OW as often as I could. Inland lakes early in the year and Lake Michigan when it warmed enough to tolerate. The freaking out does go away. And, when you finish that first OWS with a mass start...the feeling of accomplishment is greater than finishing the tri itself!

Hi.

Congratulations on your first olympic distance! I completed my first oly. distance this year as well and i get giddy thinking about it. My true freak out in OWS happend during that race since there was A LOT of seaweed in the shallower part of the lake (beginning and end of the swim). It felt like little hands grasping at me from under water and I felt my breath catch. In that situation i tried to use the seaweed as sort of an indicator to how fast i was going since i could see myelf passing them. Also, i brought my stroke closer so i was systematically pushing the weeds away from my face.

I've had other races where the water has freaked me out (and I am a swimmer so you are def. NOT ALONE). In the cases where my breathing becomes shallow, i actually flip over and do back stroke for a little while until my breathing goes back to normal.

Also, i noticed one thing when swimming around other folks...well, not even swimming around other folks, when everyone is swimming on top of you it seems, it helps to ease up on the legs until you get away from the masses. It helped me just know that I wouldn't inadvertenly kick anyone in the face and also it allowed me to get through the flailing bodies pretty gently.

Lastly my comments about swimming in the open water in general...I'm a little bit OCD like Monk on USA. Sometimes my mind wants to get all grossed out that i'm swimming in a lake/water i can't see thru. It helps to actually peg people out to pass so your focus is more on the race than on the open water, which is the only thing that helps me out..otherwise I don't think i could do triathlons!

Hope you have a great day!!!! CONGRATULATIONS again on your first olympic distance.

What the others have said - practice and particularly practice with the wetsuit on. I've had to buy a new wetsuit because the couple of extra pounds I've put on made my old one just a bit tight and claustrophobic feeling around the neck (although strictly speaking it is proably a good fit - they are supposed to be tight).

Also can you analyse a bit more what was freaking you out? After a couple of really awful OWS (bad enough to put me off doing tris with OWS for a couple of years) I have worked out that my problem is not the current or the people around me but the murky water - not being able to see the bottom (my OWS are in the sea). Now I just have to figure out how to get over that.

Hi everyone -
Thanks for all the posts, they really do make me feel better!

That's an interesting question, Kiwi Girl, and I'll have to think about it. The unfamiliar wetsuit was probably part of it - I think I may buy a used one at the end of the season so I can have plenty of practice before next time. It was not a very crowded start, as races go - maybe only 30 or 40 novices. But it was a misty morning and so the far bouy (turn-around) was barely visible, perhaps not at all from the start - so it felt like I was never going to get there! That was the big difference from all the sprints I've done; with the sprint distance, you can see the whole course and it looks manageable.

I knew I should have practiced in the open water this summer, and was too lazy. My coach also admonished me to practice in the pool by closing my eyes when they were underwater, to simulate the opaque lake water- and I did this *a little* but, you know . . . it's just no fun! But now I know that will be my most important training for next year!

But, if you notice, I'm already talking about next time - so I guess I am not permanently traumatized!

Thanks again y'all.

Congrats!
I have the same trepidations about the OWS. As a child I almost drowned in some riptides and had to pulled out by a lfieguard. I consider myself a decent lap swimmer but stepping back into the ocean was another animal altogether.
So... to help me ease into next year's triathlons, my BF suggested I go watch him start off in this year's L.A. Tri (I usually just wait at the finish). No problem, he said. I can watch everyone take off and see how easy it's done.
Well, it was cold and miserable and the waves looked like this:

At the start of each age group, the crowd en masse ran towards the surf like a tide of lemmings, half of them getting flattened or sent tumbling back onto shore. (My friend Henrik actaully took those shots). After watching this, I think I will try out some lake-swims first. Eeesh!

Yipes bluetree that looks like the solana beach or imperial beach I did a few months ago!!! :eek:

Now to answer the question... YES!! I freak out! And I used to SURF!! Do a search on the triathlon forum from my IMAZ experience and you will see some true OW freaking out! I was beside myself. It was scary. The weird thing for me is that it just happens every once in awhile???
But the other weird thing as that I always get through it. Just know that it will happen, and you WILL get through it!

And congrats on your race!
Be iron!!
Denise :)

Holy carp, Bluetree!!!!! :eek: :eek: That might send me with my wetsuit tucked under my hind legs running back to my car. I've never ocean OWS, and the thought of the salt alone icks me out (because I always swallow water), not to mention tackling waves like that! Yikes!
Good thing the nearest ocean is 9 hours away. I'll stick to icky green lake swims, thank you very much!

Oh, and great job on the oly!

It might not be a bad idea to have a little bit more coaching too. Obviously it will improve your swimming and your confidence in your abilities, but it also gives you more knowledge of technique stuff you can focus on instead of the thoughts you don't want to be thinking. Maybe it will be less effective in a panic/fear situation, but I find that focus very handy for getting the "this is hard/I'm tired/why am I doing this?" thoughts out of the way.

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Originally Posted by Bluetree

Congrats!
I have the same trepidations about the OWS. As a child I almost drowned in some riptides and had to pulled out by a lfieguard. I consider myself a decent lap swimmer but stepping back into the ocean was another animal altogether.
So... to help me ease into next year's triathlons, my BF suggested I go watch him start off in this year's L.A. Tri (I usually just wait at the finish). No problem, he said. I can watch everyone take off and see how easy it's done.
Well, it was cold and miserable and the waves looked like this:

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Ummmmm, yeah.... I don't think any amt of money would cause me to go in that mess. I have no tri experience so I am just interloping here, but I do not enjoy ocean swimming at all. Maybe it's because I grew up in the midwest and my only childhood memories of the ocean are me getting knocked over by it. Anyway I could hardly imagine an ocean swim as part of a tri. A bay, maybe, but ocean like that?? :eek:

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Originally Posted by Tri Girl

Holy carp, Bluetree!!!!! :eek: :eek: That might send me with my wetsuit tucked under my hind legs running back to my car. I've never ocean OWS, and the thought of the salt alone icks me out (because I always swallow water), not to mention tackling waves like that! Yikes!
Good thing the nearest ocean is 9 hours away. I'll stick to icky green lake swims, thank you very much

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I asked four buddies how they dealt with those waves.
Two of them waited a few minutes and were able to get past the break between sets (as surfers, they were familiar with swell patterns.)
The other two were after Top 5 placings and dived right in. One of them, a USAT coach, explained that when the waves are that choppy, it pretty much churns all the way to the bottom, making simple dive-thrus harder. He dived straight through to the bottom, to the point where his chest touched the ground and he actually grabbed onto the sandy bottom and pulled his way the through.
All of them, no matter how seasoned, said that the waves were so choppy past the breakwater that they couldn't help but swallow seawater. Yuk.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread... but getting back to the original post, EBD brings up a good point. I think I will have to start training in a wetsuit to get comfortable. I didn't even think of it as an issue until I started reading this.

It is race jitters. I do fine in OWS not in competition but the minute I hear the gun, my heart rate is through the roof and I cannot swim to save my life. In the Half Ironman I did in August, I turned over and backstroked the entire 1.2 - allowing myself to breathe the whole way.

Believe it or not, I had a PB in swimming that day. I think it is more about race confidence than your swim skills. Stage fright almost. The cure is repetition. I read a great quote somewhere that said, "You trained a long, hard time not to end up a wall flower in your triathlon - so put the doubts aside and do it."

Bella, how do you sight when backstroking? I cannot backstroke in a straight line to save my life.

I first try to make sure my stroke is equally powerful on both sides - so that one isn't dominate and cause me to drift to the left or right. In the Steelhead, it was a point to point and the lighthouse tower was at my feet. Every several strokes, I lifted my head up slightly to see I was in line with the lighthouse and that there were other swimmers behind me or around me. Even freestyle swimming requires sighting and popping one's head up every now and then - so this is the same. It is pretty unconventional for a race, but it saved my skins that day.

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Originally Posted by KnottedYet

I'm kind of the other way around. I freak in swimming pools, but I'm fine in real water, especially with a wetsuit on.

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I'm in the same boat. I grew up right next to a lake, swam off our sailboat in open water no prob, capsized and righted dinghy boats in rough seas without batting an eye.

I absolutely panic in pools. The goggles impair my vision, I'm anxious that people will run over me, that I will swim into the wall. The humidity tricks my asthma. I feel completely trapped. To top it off I've always got lifeguards hanging over my shoulder thinking I'm drowning when the asthma hits.

Congrats on your first Oly. That's my plan for next year and my only hold back is the swim! I did my first sprint 2 yrs ago and had a terrible swim experience. :eek: It took the entire winter of coached masters' swimming to get over. Coach told me his was glad his original college major was psych! The in-water panic attacks came back in the spring when I got back into OW. I trained with a great and very supportive group and learned to love OW. The best tip I got was to sing while I swim! It's a great distraction. I even did an OWS in a pond last Sunday, north of Boston and it was in the 50s. That is how much I love OW right now!

Getting back in the pool now, the attacks are back! Tuesday night, I freaked but calmed myself and finished the work-out. But last night, the panic hit in my Masters session. I totally freaked and got out of the pool! I had to wait an hour for hubby to finish! Coach offered to do a one-on-one today! I am so anxious!

Sorry, I have no advice but I feel your pain!