The swim's been improving dramatically. Just when I think that the fear is there, it makes room for bold choices as well. It's like fight or flight, stripped away from impulse. I've been delivered rocky roads and rough water, then I reminded how Jessica told me to ride it out. She pointed to the duck on the water as the waves came in and the duck just rested with the waves that pushed it up and down. My bike rides over bumps and scrapes on the roads and I think about welcoming the changes as part of the ride. As I swim in high tide, I think of it as part of the natural order of this water.
The natural order came at me--out of the weeds--as I ran through the Arboretum. There's a part of the 10K loop where you're fully exposed to sun and the wall of vegetation are the only thing that stand between you and Lake Wingra. Out of that stretch of green growth, a turtle stuck its front half out at me. I yelled the Lord's name and ran around him. As I circle around him while he hissed at me, I gave three to four feet of space between us. I'm not sure if there was a fear that he would leap at me, but I gave him the space to jump just in case he wanted to lurch at me.
One Open Water Swim Class challenged me to take my wet suit off. Swimming with the wet suit is a bit like swimming with a floatation device. It keeps you more buoyant as well as warm. It was after I took it off and swam in the water with just a pair of shorts when the fear came back to me. The feeling had the same taste and noise from all those fearful years. The open water and its depth still threatened my existence. I was going to drown and die.
When my breathing slowed for a moment, so did my legs. Then my arms slowed down. I swam out to the buoys, came back. I stood up and let my heartrate go down again. I got back into the water and swam out to the buoy again.
Jessica was swimming along with us and she saw this. I wondered what she thought when she saw this fear come back to me and I worried that she would worry. And thought she would worry about how I was worried.
Instead, she told me how far I've come and what a great job it was.
In honesty, I have beginning to feel the idea of a wetsuit is a crutch. It keeps me warm and helps me stay afloat. As I've been training, my riding has come to welcome the bumps and scrapes on the roads and I think about welcoming the changes as part of the ride. As I swim without a wetsuit, it's part of being the natural order. Even when it jumps out of the weeds and hisses at me. I keep moving on where I wanted to go.
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