Just Another Swim Practice!

So, tomorrow morning is my Iron Girl swim practice out at Centennial Lake. Currently, I'm vacillating between excitement and fear.

Fear will not win.

I simply will not allow myself to be afraid to finish this week's training. All week I've been swimming 1000 meters straight, and then some other 100s and 50s, in preparation for Iron Girl, which is still a few weeks away. I can do 1000 meters now. I can do it in 25 minutes. I can do it with four backstroke laps. I can do it while hanging onto the side of the pool once, for about 10 seconds, halfway through. I can do this routine without ever touching the bottom of the pool, never needing to "stand up," breathing hard but not suffocating. I can do this. I've proven it.

So it is safe to say that though the location for tomorrow's swim is further away than my usual swim location, and though I will be swimming with more people than the usual 7 a.m. group at the Y, nothing will be fundamentally different about tomorrow's practice. It is, after all, a PRACTICE. It is nothing more than a practice that I have to get up for a little earlier than usual. And we get free food.

There's nothing exciting about swim practice. It is what it is -- a joyous slog through warm water.

Therefore, I will not be afraid. I have nothing to be afraid of. Tomorrow, I will swim 1000 meters straight, and then not even fool around with extra 100s and 50s. This will, in actuality, be a break for me. :) I will not keep track of the minutes ticking by. I will throw in backstrokes or breaststrokes when I get tired of freestyle. I will hang onto a kayak if I need to halfway through. I will do this routine without ever touching the bottom of the lake -- which really is no deeper than the deep end of the Leach Center pool -- never needing to "stand up," breathing hard but not suffocating. I can do this. I've proven it. And I'll prove it again tomorrow.

"But what about last time," my brain calls out softly, not wanting to offend my sensibilities. "Last time, you got a third of the way through and had problems."

Yeah, well.

This isn't last time. This is a whole triathlon season away from last time. Yeah, once I got sick in a car, too. That doesn't mean that every time I get into a car I'm gonna get sick. :) What happened in March just ... happened. If it happens again tomorrow? Then I'll deal with it and thank my lucky stars that it happened in practice. :)

This practice is so far different from what happened in Lake Hall, the only similarity is that both the March event and tomorrow's event take place in water. This is an entirely different body of water in an entirely different place in the country. I'm so much more experienced now and in such better shape. I can swim 1000 meters, for crying out loud. At the time of the Red Hills, I could swim only 400 reliably. And certainly not in freezing-cold water. Without a wetsuit. It was a recipe for disaster.

Tomorrow is a recipe for success.

So when I begin to feel nervy, I will embrace that. I will cling tight to the adrenaline that will course through my veins as I begin my swim. It's simply an exciting practice swim. On the very course I'll be competing on later this month. What's NOT to be excited about? I expect my heart rate to jump up. I expect my breath to quicken. And I expect that once I begin to swim it will settle back down and I will emerge victorious.

And that's that.

:)