A perfect day for a panic attack

The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.

-- George Costanza, The Marine Biologist, Seinfeld

I finally jumped in a lake, as I've been told to do a hundred times. It's critical preparation for a lake swim (duh) in a triathlon. You can log miles and miles in a pool; that doesn't necessarily prepare you for open water. I'm glad I did it yesterday rather than waiting for another couple of weeks, and I wish I'd done it sooner. I was seeking the answers to several questions: Will the shock of the cold water make me seize up? Is it more difficult to swim in a wetsuit? What kind of premium on effort do the waves make? I got those answers (No, the water was 24C; No, the wetsuit hardly affected my stroke, such as it is; and considerable), and the answers to questions I hadn't sought, such as: What is pure, blind, regurgitive terror like?

I dropped my keys off at my local, since I didn't want to take anything with me I couldn't afford to lose, and walked down to Cherry Beach. Stopped at Balzac's in the distillery to pick up a coffee and a biscotti. All very civilized. Maybe a half hour altogether.

A sign at the beach put the morning water temperature at 24C and the e coli count at 10, well under the swim-at-your-own-risk limit of 100. I felt a bit pretentious in a wetsuit. But there was another guy in a suit in the water; he looked like he knew what he was doing, so I figured I'd tail him for a while. The footing, BTW, was awful, a sprained ankle waiting to happen. Funny how none of my training books mentioned this. I guess "rocks are not smooth" is a given.

As I entered the water, a lifeguard -- lovely young thing, very blonde and owns her own kayak -- started paddling along. "You read my mind," I joked. She didn't laugh. She'd probably seen what was about to happen dozens of times.

I started out behind the other swimmer, parallel to the beach, in what I thought was about four and a half feet of water. I hadn't really warmed up, which I realized later was a mistake. Even in the pool, if I try to swim 100 metres as soon as I jump in the water, I fade quickly. I need a couple lengths to get used to the water, a break of about a minute or so, then I can pound out 400 or 500 or even 600 metres.

The chop was moderate -- it was a windy day -- but not insurmountable. But after a couple minutes, I got that fade. Aside from the effort, being in open water had cranked up my heart rate some, and I was breathing a little funny, like when a pretty girl talks to me. So I turned and headed back for shore.

As I turned, I reached down with my foot to check for bottom. Nothing.

This worried me some. I swam a few more strokes. Checked again. Nothing.

This panicked me. My coffee started coming back on me. I thrashed. The girl on the kayak was about 20 yards away. A croak came out of me that, at a closer range, might have been recognized as a reflexive and unwilling cry for help. The kayak had swung around. My conscious and willing capitulation: I raised an arm to the lifeguard.

And discovered I was in three feet of water.

How scared had I been? I wasn't even remotely embarrassed. I wasn't even embarrassed when I told the story later.

I wasn't pleased with my initial reaction to open water, but I did make a recovery. I went through this in the pool, though with less likelihood of drowning. What did I do at the pool? When I couldn't swim a full length, I started in the deep end, so by the time I'd run out of steam, I'd be in the shallow end. So, having made a mental note to update the e coli reading as a result of my panic attack, I walked as far out into the water as I could, then turned around and swam back to shore.It was about 25 strokes, so close to the length of a pool. I did 200 metres that way.

And it was cool. There was a flock of geese and a flock of ducks coasting through, so I had to make an effort to stay out of their way. (Get between a Canada gosling and her mother and tell me how that goes for ya.) In five feet of water, the waves were a foot, maybe a foot and a half crest to trough, and I let them bob me up and down. I watched somebody kite-surfing, tearing along at motorboat speeds. A couple stand-up paddleboarders went by. It's something I want to try this summer. Some friends and I are going to arrange a lesson. All in all, I just kinda felt like a beach bum. I liked it.

It was quite worrisome for me from a triathlon perspective, though. Swimming in 10 or 20 feet of water should technically be no different than swimming in four feet of water. This I know. How do I shut down that instinctive panic reaction and just swim? This I don't.

The obvious answer is to get to the beach as often as I can manage before the race in four weeks' time. It took me three months to go from 25 metres at a time to 400 metres at a time in the pool. I've realistically got only three weeks, and perhaps three swims in open water, till the race. I'm revising my training calendar, giving up on the iPod app. One, maybe two, days of running a week. Occasional recreational bike ride. The rest is swimming, swimming, swimming. I have to get more confident in the water.