A bad decision that needs sharing

Echoing KHS, triathlon is a lot like baseball...it's 90% mental; the other half is physical.

Sounds like you have a solid game plan to deal with your demons - good for you; great attitude. Best of luck at the next one.

Given your location and the reference to a father's day race, you're likely referring to the Leamington Tomatoman; you may have DNF'd, but you have me beat because I DNS, with a really lame excuse that I've been beating myself up about for 2 weeks, so you at least beat me. 

I'm in my fifth year doing tris and I still get panic issues swimming. It is always worst early in the season. The more ows I do the better. I always try to swim in the tri location before the race. I try to swim more and do ows 3-4x a week and then all the sudden I am better.

I agree that tris are much more mental than most of us give us thought/credit too. If you read my blog it is mostly about mental stuff dealing with IM training..my mind doubts..but my body always does what I ask of it.

Mental training is huge...there is a great book on Mental Training for Triathletes tha is part of the Friel series of tri books. I'd recommend reading it for everyone.

You learned something important and be better prepared next time. For me having a mental plan how to deal with my issues helps.

I think panic is normal, especially for those of us who struggle with the swim. In my first and only OWS I started to panic. The best thing I did was flip over on my back and catch my breath. I ended up completing over have the course on my back (not a back stroke because I didn't really use my arms). I had the 4th slowest swim time of anyone. I am still wondering who the heck could have gone slower than me.

Point is I finished the tri. I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I'm just saying at that point it is very disappointing to have to give up especially since you probably trained very hard for this tri. If it ever happens again, just float on your back. Breath easy and relax. You can float on your back and kick your way to the finish line, then hammer it on the bike and the run to see how many people you can pass.

You will learn for this experience and be better for it.

The backstroke works very well when you start to panic in the water.   I did my first tri  a few weeks ago and freaked out in the water.  Luckily I was able to pull it together enough to keep moving but did most of the swim on my back.  It wasn't pretty but it worked. 

You have made a really good list of the things you need to think about and work on for the next OWS.  You have trained enough to easily finish the swim distance in a sprint tri and, like you said, you're not going to drown in a wetsuit with a bunch of kayakers around!! Now you know what to expect and how to handle panicking in the future.  You'll rock your next OWS!

I know how you are feeling. My first tri this year blew because I had a panic reaction during the swim. Nothing physically wrong, I was trained, could do the distance, knew open water, but something in the head had my heart and breathing racing so bad I could roll to my stomach. I was second to last coming out of the water and completely disappointed in myself.

I took my experience as a learning opportunity. The triggers for me were the cold water on my face... Same thing happened year before last. Now I make sure I've spent time race day in the water getting used to the feel so that I can tell myself that it is nothing. Did this my second tri in much colder water and had a good swim.

Funny (not ha-ha) how the mind can take over.

Hang in there, this can be overcome.

This is my first post. I've been lurking for a few months, and this thread really struck a chord with me. So I wanted to relate something that really worked for me in the hopes that it helps.

For years I wanted to do tris, but the thought of the OWS terrified me. Late last year I decided to finally take the plunge. I set the date for my first tri (April 2008 -- which meant no possibility for open water practice before the tri), and started to train. As the tri approached, the thought of the OWS was still terrifying, but at least I developed some level of swim fitness in the pool.

Then, I bought a wetsuit and took it for a test swim in the pool. The result was panic and trouble breathing. It felt like the wetsuit was choking me. And this was in my familiar pool, not the open water! I felt like I was in deep trouble.

But here's what I did. At each pool swim workout, I set aside 500 yards to do visualization. While swimming these yards, I would keep my eyes open, but would visualize swimming in open water wearing a wetsuit. I forced myself to vividly imagine the deep cold murky water, the distant shore, other swimmers bumping into me, and especially the compression of the wetsuit. I could tell it worked because I could feel my anxiety level rising. Then I practiced calming myself down while still swimming, focusing on exhaling forcefully so that I could catch my breath (I had read that the cant-breath feeling was due to not exhaling). I did this for several weeks at every swim workout. I could feel the anxiety fading with time.

Then came the test: my first tri AND my first ever OWS was in April 2008. I splashed into the cold water and as soon as I started swimming, the anxiety started big-time and I felt like I couldn't breath. My only thought was that there was no way I could do this. But then, all the visualization training kicked in. My exhales automatically became forceful, I caught my breath, and my focus automatically went to just being calm. After a minute or so, the panic attack was over, and I actually enjoyed the swim.

Hope this is useful for you!

I'm glad you're getting a lot of support & advice, it's so great to post something & know you're not alone!  I too have struggled with OWS since getting involved in this sport. I've had my fair share of panic attacks (I even had a mini-one this weekend..in my wetsuit) and I still get butterflies in my belly thinking of being out there...I'm much more comfortable on land!  What works best for me when I get that omgosh this is scary feeling is to just concentrate on my stroke and know that every moment I'm working, I'm getting closer to my goal - the finish...the more I dilly-dally, the longer I'll have to be out there (I use the same thought-process when my long runs start to feel like an eternity).  I also immediately flip to my back when I feel uneasiness come along, I look up at the sky, breath deeply, turn into a porpoise & just re-lax....gain my composure & then..swim like hell back to land or continue on...the bottom line is that us novices will have these little insecurities creep into our heads..and as many have said, it's a big part of the challenge of being out there!  I also second the idea of stringing along a pfd during training swims for that extra level of comfort...keep up the good work though...like Eleanor Roosevelt said, Do One Thing Every Day that Scares You...you won't believe how you will grow! 

I would like to add a couple of hints for you for next time.

(1) Thoroughly warm up before the swim. Especially if you are wearing a wetsuit. My first year doing tri's, I only panicked if I had a wetsuit on. Seems that the constriction of the suit led me to believe I couldn't breath. Swimming a few hundred yards before a race gets the wetsuit loosened up and I always feel much better.

(2) If I start to panic, I focus on counting strokes and breathing. I make a deal with myself: swim 5 strokes freestyle, swim 5 strokes breast stroke (with my head out of the water if neccessary). And when I exhale in the water, I make noise and blow hard. Somehow seems to help relax me. (Not sure what people swimming near me think...).

It probaby took me 2 years to get thorougly comfortable with OWS racing, and I still have issues now and again, but I've come a long way...

You have had a lot of good advice already - a few things keep me going  (it is my first season so I am not the most experienced)

1. I remind myself that I am wearing a wetsuit - which means I float - if things get really bad just flip onto your back and relax

2. the focus on breathing and technique totally helps - yesterday's foggy ocean swim (cohasset tri) I realized 3/4 of the way through that I was holding my breath!  so I started focusing on exhaling and humming - too bad I did not do that earlier - might not have sucked so bad on the swim!

3. I also allow myself breast stroke to calm myself if I am getting worked up -

what I will say, this was an ocean swim, and the swim seemed far shorter to me than my last tri - which was lake.

getting some OWS practice in your wetsuit definitely helps

especially when I know that I can just flip onto my back and relax