Deep Breath, Jump In

Tomorrow I'm finally going to do my first olympic distance triathlon. It'll be almost two years to the day since the last time I attempted one but ended up getting hauled out of the water less than 100 metres into the swim. It remains the only time I've ever not finished a race and the psychological impact of that failure has been hard to both recognise and recover from. But two years on I finally think I'm ready to put those demons to rest.

When I first decided to do a triathlon, over four years ago, the swimming was the one thing I wasn't worried about - I couldn't run at all, was mediocre on the bike, but I considered myself a pretty decent swimmer. But by the end of my first triathlon season in 2015 I considered the swim my weakest discipline. So what changed? Well, nothing really - I had a strong breast stroke which served me pretty well in all circumstances but "proper" triathlon swimming is front crawl. My front crawl was virtually non-existent and I took all the derogatory comments I heard about people swimming breast stroke to heart - if I wanted to be a triathlete, I needed to swim front crawl. In hindsight, this seems bizarre but the idea that I could not possibly do triathlons swimming front crawl utterly lodged itself in my brain.

So I joined a triathlon club, primarily to get some swim coaching, and worked really hard on my front crawl and started open water swimming. 2016 saw my first open water swimming event and my first sprint distance triathlon where I did the whole swim front crawl. So far so good you might think. However I really wasn't enjoying my swimming at all - front crawl was hard and I struggled to ever feel comfortable in the water, and the open water swimming was terrifying and lonely. The triathlon club I joined was also very cliquey, a world away from my running club who were endlessly supportive as I tried to improve, and I just felt like the only person in the world who couldn't swim "properly". As you can imagine, that made it really hard to motivate myself to swim outside of races or formal training sessions so whilst I'd made some improvements I was also pretty stuck. Despite that, in 2017 I decided it was time to try a longer distance triathlon than the sprint races I'd been doing so far - the only problem was that I was also training for a marathon that year so I needed to find an event later on in the season. So I signed up for a triathlon at Bala in North Wales in September 2017.

Training for Bala went ok but I continued to struggle with my swimming - including having several complete freakouts in open water sessions - but I could just about swim 1500 metres front crawl in the pool. Swimming was still my weakest discipline but I felt that if I could just get through the swim then I'd be ok. Then we got to Bala on race day and it was storm conditions - torrential rain, high winds, the works (or Wales in September as many people call it...). Lots of considerably more experienced triathletes (including one of my triathlon club swim coaches) didn't even both to start the race but I was there, I'd trained hard, and I couldn't possibly back out now could I? Then the swim started and my nerves turned to terror as the waves crashed over my head and I couldn't find a rhythm to breathe properly. So I stopped and signalled the safety boat to come and fish me out. The swim marshals were very sympathetic, even offering me the opportunity to do the bike and run legs of the race, but a less sympathetic marshal in transition stopped me from continuing in case I "got in the way of faster competitors" so less than ten minutes after getting in the water my race was over. I ended up crying my eyes out in a changing room, trying to find something dry and warm to wear in my soaked bag, and feeling like an utter failure.

So you can see why it's taken me two years to get round to trying an olympic triathlon again. It took me a long time to even get back in the pool after Bala - I think the first swimming I did after that was the following March! I had half an idea of trying again last year, and even bought a new wetsuit in preparation, but I just couldn't bear the thought of failing so catastrophically yet again. However I did swim a bit - the glorious summer weather in 2018 made it hard to resist the idea of a cooling dip in a lake! Andy and I found some new and more friendly open water swimming venues and I even did another open water sprint triathlon, albeit swimming breast stroke and taking my time. I concentrated on enjoying myself rather than doing the "right" stroke or trying to be a "real triathlete" and it helped my confidence a lot.

This year, in between moving house, moving jobs, and spending a lot of time on my bike, I've actually done quite a bit more swimming. In March, to try and motivate me to get in the pool a bit more (or y'know, at all) I signed up to a 5km virtual swimming challenge with Swim the Distance which meant I got a lovely shiny medal for my efforts that month. Whilst I've not quite managed to swim every week - which was an over-optimistic target admittedly - I have swum around 17km so far this year which is more than I swam in 2016 and 2017 combined. I've also finally started to feel comfortable with my front crawl and getting in the pool is becoming something I enjoy again rather than something I dread. On my birthday last Saturday, I dragged Andy over to Shepperton Open Water Swimming so we could get some open water practice in prior to the race next week. Shepperton is a dedicated swimming lake just off the Thames near Weybridge - it's very popular but really friendly and well organised. It's honestly one of the best open water experiences I've ever had - they make you do a swim trial at the start of your session to check you're happy in the water and there are several loops of varying distances. For the first time ever I felt comfortable, in my wetsuit, in the water, and swimming front crawl. It felt like a miracle!

I'm wary of hubris but I couldn't feel more different about tomorrow's race to how I did two years ago. I'm confident that I can swim the distance comfortably (oh and then do the bike/run legs!) but I also feel that I've overcome some of my swimming demons. It's been hard to put aside some of those voices in my head that insist I'm doing things wrong and that I'm not good enough to do this but I'm trying to learn from my London Marathon and Ride London experiences - namely, that anything is possible if you just keep going...

What I've Been...

Reading:
Firstly, a couple of swimming-related books:
Leap In by Alexandra Heminsley - I may have recommended this before but I read it last year and had a complete lightbulb moment. The book combines the story of Heminsley's quest to become an open water swimming with her struggles with infertility. Reading it was the first time that I realised that I wasn't the only person who found swimming difficult, that it was ok to struggle, and that I could get better if I worked at it.

The Lido Guide by Janet Wilkinson and Emma Pusill - this does what it says on the tin - it's a guide to all the UK's outdoor pools. It's a beautiful and lovingly researched book and I'm looking forward to some Lido road trips!

And a non-swimming related book for good measure:
Can We All Be Feminists edited by June Eric-Udorie - a collection of essays about the importance of intersectionality in feminism. This book honestly blew me away and I feel the need to re-read it several times just so I can take in everything it has to say. The essays cover race, gender identity, disability, religion, sexuality, and immigration - all are essential reading.

Listening to:
Don't Tell the Babysitter Mum's Dead - hosted by LA-based writer and podcaster Brittany Ashley this is a podcast about parental loss, grief and pop-culture depictions of grief. Ashley, who lost her mother as a young child, interviews other people who have lost their mothers. It's not precisely easy listening as you can imagine but it's very moving and Ashley's personal experience with grief makes her interviewing technique excellent. It's taken me ages to listen to the whole first series because it's not something you want to binge but there is also now a second series out. The link here is to Spotify but it's also available on Apple Podcasts/other podcast apps...

Lover by Taylor Swift
I really love a bit of Taylor Swift - she writes beautiful, heartfelt pop and I've loved every one of her albums since Red. Lover is (as Lis says in her review) more heartfelt and less snarky than previous outings and it makes for a more enjoyable album - I for one do not care about beef with Kanye West... I don't think the world needs more Taylor Swift commentary but I have listened to the album *a lot* since it came out and enjoyed it!

Doing:
I rode a hundred miles at Ride London - something else I didn't think I could do - and wrote a very long blog post about it!

I also turned 34 last weekend which I celebrated with a lovely barbeque with lots of fantastic friends <3

Tune in next time to see if your intrepid correspondent did manage to swim 1500 metres without having a panic attack... Thanks for reading! Cx