I did have my doubts whether it was a sensible thing to do but decided to go for it! I passed through lots of flooded parts on the country roads and was beginning to question my sanity as the rain continued to pelt down!
However, surprisingly once I got to Windermere it was a completely different evening - the sky was clear and the sun was shining! It is amazing how different the weather can be in such a short distance!
I got into my wet-suit and there was 25 of us ready to go! We divided into 2 groups - the "long group" who were planing on doing a 2 mile route and the "short group" who were to do a 1 mile route! As usual I joined the short group despite every week saying "Next week I will try the long one!", I just haven't mustered the confidence to go with them yet!
Tonight my head was definitely not in the game!
I had 2 issues!
The first was when we set off swimming the sun was so low over the lake I was being blinded despite wearing tinted goggles! I couldn't see a thing and was very anxious about swimming in front of a boat! If I was being blinded by the sun, the people in the boats were probably having the same problem too and I felt extremely vulnerable! So much so that I turned pathetic and started doing breaststroke with my head out the water just so I could keep an eye on my surroundings!
Once the sun had disappeared my troubles should have been over but my over-active imagination started getting the better of me!
I am not a confident open-water swimmer and I have always been encouraged by others saying "You have a wet-suit on, you can't drown in a wet-suit!" but then unfortunately this weekend there was the triathlete Paul Gallihawk who drowned in Leybourne Lakes whilst taking part in his first triathlon - in a wet-suit!
I couldn't get this tragedy out of my head and I felt shockingly scared despite the lake being calm and not too cold! After giving myself a good talking to I managed to calm down enough to actually swim front crawl but I didn't enjoy it tonight and was relieved when I was actually out of the lake safely!
I am hoping that I can put it behind me now and not let it affect my enjoyment of Open Water Swimming!
I managed to swim a mile in 36 minutes and 52 seconds so not as bad as I had anticipated, you can view my swim here.
I need to think positive thoughts!
No comments:
Post a Comment