Fear

Part of training for a triathlon of any distance is swimming, so Erik put several swims a week in my schedule.  While I love the water and have no issue doing laps in either enclosed or open water, I HATE putting my face in the water.  My last sprint tri started off with 400m of a face-above-water breaststroke.  And although it suited me just fine, it didn’t do much for my time.

I went to the pool Wednesday evening with the determination to do some laps with my face in the water.  I didn’t think this should be too hard, as I remember diving for weighted sticks and having ‘tea parties’ underwater as a kid all the time.  Yet when it came time to put on the goggles and actually stick my face in the H2O, it was terrifying.  After about 20 minutes of pep talking me, Erik finally got firm and I made it through 6 laps of panic.  I’ll be looking for a new pair of goggles-perhaps the water seeping in was adding to my distress-but I think a lot of it was in also in my head.

I’ve found that fear creeps in when you least expect it.  While doing a Crossfit workout with the kettlebell, I suddenly worried about smashing my knee again.  Even though I logically knew it was a user-error that caused the first accident and I was not going to make the mistake again.  The other day I was lifting weight over my  head while working on push presses, and I could see the bar falling on my skull and my brains ooozing all over the floor.   One night while running, it was almost too dark to see the cement and I could practically feel my ankle twisting under me.

I think that the mental fear of running is half the battle.  I use to think that 3 miles would be the longest I’d ever run, simply because I was afraid of the pain. Now I force myself to push past it and keep going-the exhilaration of adding miles to my long runs is worth it.  I need to work on applying that mental shove to my other fears, namely putting my face in the water.

What do you fear?  How do you conquer your fears?

Today’s miles: 4.12

Pace: 12:02

Total weekly miles: 10.94

Total miles since getting back on the bandwagon: 23

Crosstraining: 32 laps in the pool