Written years ago for another blog after I DNF’ed the 2006 Lady Liberty Swim

 

1. Though I am a pretty strong swimmer, I was not prepared an open water wetsuit swim. From the moment I jumped into the water, I couldn’t breath, and was hyperventilating by about halfway through. It wasn’t pretty. I’m not sure if my breathing problems were solely because of my lack of training, or if the wetsuit I got was actually too small. Either way, I should have had this figured out before I jumped in the water, but I didn’t. That won’t happen for the New York City Triathlon in July. I will fit in numerous open water swims of at least the distance I need to cover in that race. I narrow down why I had trouble breathing, and I will fix the situation. When I race in July, I will leave the water feeling strong.

2. I got awfully drunk on Friday night, kind of by accident, which was stupid and a sign that I wasn’t respecting this morning’s race. That won’t happen again. Matter of fact, I’ll be happy if I never get that drunk again.

3. I will not let the situation psych me out. This morning, the current was out of control. Of the first round of roughly a hundred swimmers, only forty finished. They waited a while before putting us in the water, and many more people finished from my heat, but I was thinking about the sight of those first round people treading water and moving backwards when I jumped in the water. That wasn’t helpful.

3. From here on out I will be taking my training much more seriously. Nothing brings you back down to earth regarding the hours you need to put in to do these kinds of events quite like riding into shore on a FDNY rescue boat.

In other jock news, I am trying to build my running base back up without getting hurt. That meant two 3.5 miles runs this week, at a roughly nine minute mile pace, plus a mile and a half swim in the pool, which obviously did me a lot of good.

*big up to BP for finishing the swim this morning. She told me to train better, I should have listened.