Endurance Anxiety

I haven't posted on this blog in a while, quite honestly because I haven't been swimming much. I had zero motivation for quite a while, maybe swam once a week, and then started playing racquetball instead of going swimming. A couple times I went for a run instead of swimming. But now I have returned: I swam twice this past week, and completed my first full lap without stopping! I was about ready to keel over by the time I got to the end of that first lap, but thirty seconds to a minute later, I set off on another lap! I did three full laps, resting between each, before deciding I better quit while I was ahead.

It's definitely the endurance part that's tripping me up right now. I still have to rest often often often. The first time I tried swimming a full lap (two lengths--down to the end of the pool and back), it was bad news. I won't go into detail. A one-mile swim for a sprint triathlon is sixteen laps. In a lake, meaning.... NO STOPPING. Of course, if something happens and I am actually about to die, there are people on boats or whatever around and I would be able to take a rest. But knowing that intellectually doesn't prevent the thought from crossing my mind as I swim: I am going to die. My arms and legs will just stop moving, and I will slowly sink to the nasty gooey bottom of the lake.

I ran the Twin Cities 10-Mile race back in October. That was a completely different feel: If I really, truly, honestly cannot go on at some point in the race, well then, I stop running and I walk. But this: If I really, truly, honestly cannot swim any farther at some point in the race (or in the training, for that matter, once I start swimming in lakes, where there will be no nice people in boats making sure I'm okay), I have no way out.

A friend of mine gave me some great advice this weekend. She was a Division 1 swimmer in college. (I don't actually know what that means, but I know that she's really hardcore.) She recommended a couple of drills that have nothing to do with form but rather focus on just getting comfortable in the water and learning how your body naturally sits in the water. One of the exercises sounds really simple: Lay on your back in the water, arms together straight above your head in a streamlined "V," elbows by the ears, and just flutterkick down the length of the pool. The other drill involved the word "sculling," which I had to look up, and I'm still not entirely sure what it means without a boat; but my friend made a sort of broad gesture with both hands that I will mimic to guide me in this drill. Like I said, this is not about form, just about getting a feel for the water. Feeling anything other than sheer terror sounds good to me! I'm going to give those drills a try and report back here soon!