Recently, I have noticed that my anxiety is becoming more of a performance challenge than previously thought. Most of the time, I forget it even happens, but on shorter distance races, I am feeling it more overpowering. This is what happens.
I start strong during the swim, but as soon as I get about halfway to the first buoy, I begin to have trouble breathing.
This leads to me not controlling my stroke, and I cannot regulate my breathing. I get to the point where i have to stop and float on my back to calm down and catch my breath.
After that, I try other strokes and talk to myself to calm my nerves but keep moving forward.
The anxiety was so dramatic on my previous race, I decided that I needed more races to acclimate my body to open water swim with people and to get used to the adrenaline of racing.
I immediately signed up for another race which was less than two weeks from the last. I tried to improve my running during the time between racing, but I was more concerned with my mental state than my speed and ability during the swim.
Race day is here.
I go through my usual routine, which includes:
- Wake up early
- Drink morning coffee
- Drink water
- Stretch
- Drive an hour to the race location
- Parking (is always a stressful for me)
- Set up my gear in bike in transition
- Get in my swim gear
- Meet my husband at the swim start
I start to feel nervous about this and try to talk myself out of the fear. By the time i get to the water, all I am thinking about is winning.
I jump in the water and start to swim. Everything is completely fine. I am moving at a decent pace. No one is near me. I keep pulling the water and gliding along.
I look up and see the first buoy and then it hits me.
I start to freak out, I do not know why, I just feel like I am not getting air. I keep pulling and then decide to roll over and kick to give myself a moment to reset. I take a few breaths and still feel like I am not getting air. I look up, see the kayak, which instantly made me feel better knowing that someone is close to me just in case I need assistance.
Knowing that if I need help, someone is close by, helped me reset a bit. I kept pulling the water, but never felt like I was getting enough air. I finished the .38MI swim at 16:26 2'24" pace.
Not my best, and I know I could have done better but the biggest issue is that during my anxiety attack in the water, I wanted to quit racing altogether.
I asked myself, “WHY AM I DOING THIS?” I had that same feeling on the run when the hills were just miserable, but the minute I crossed the finish line, I instantly thought to myself, “WHEN AM I DOING THIS AGAIN?”.
I don’t really know what to do about the race anxiety and the breathing issue during my swim, but in my Googling, I was not able to find any articles about it.
I found a lot about Pre-race jitters and other articles about before the race challenges, but nothing on during. Which led me to share my experience here.
I will update this once I find out more and learn to deal with this issue.
Until then, keep racing!
