Sometimes, swimming can make your mind to wander a little too much…

If you’ve ever swam out in the ocean or in open water, your mind might worry a little about the shadows that seem to pass below. That dark round spot that looks to be coming your way, or that huge seaweed vine that looks like a giant octopus arm coming at you! Some people are okay with the unknown that lurks below the surface, while others struggle to enjoy the basic joy of a simple ocean swim. I am one of those people that struggle with it.

In San Diego, La Jolla Cove is a very popular swim spot where you can find triathletes swimming at all times of the year. From my perspective, the best part of the swim is right when you head out and you get to see the hundreds of brightly colored fish below you. In fact, people actually go on vacation to do this same exact thing – snorkeling! But for me, the snorkeling fun stops when I slowly pass this very cool but brief section underwater. This is when my brain starts wandering more and more with every meter farther I get from the shoreline!

I start to worry about the bigger fish out in the water. I start to worry about the sea lions, the giant sea bass, and the big blurry masses of black shadows below! Or, are my swim goggles playing tricks on me again? I start wondering about the large manta rays that cruise just below my feet and what would happen if I accidentally touched one? Would they sting me? I wonder if I’ll run into some giant prehistoric jellyfish that has escaped science for millions of years and has miraculously showed up off the coast in San Diego, and now its right in front of me!! You see, my mind wanders…

I don’t fight it anymore because it’s natural to feel unsafe when you’re swimming a mile or two out in the ocean. I’ve come to accept this and I’m 100% okay with it.

What type of swimmer are you? Well, you pretty much know right away and most likely during your first ocean swim. If your mind is instinctively warning you about all the sea creatures below and to be aware of everything around you, you’re like me! I knew it right away but I will say though, that swimming with a group is very beneficial to surviving your ocean swims. Strength in numbers! This how I got through my ocean swims in 2006 & 2007, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed myself! The only time I was comfortable was when I made it back to shore in one piece (yes, a slight exaggeration but the movie Jaws never seemed too unrealistic to me!). And yes, there have been very few shark attacks in the past but statistically they are extremely rare and we’ve all heard the saying that you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning vs getting attacked by a shark! But still, in my mind, I don’t like those odds.

So this year, instead of torturing myself any further I decided to do all of my swim training in a pool. And yeah, I had to tell all my training buddies a hundred times over that I wasn’t comfortable swimming in the ocean and they eventually accepted it (after they ran out of jokes!), but for me there wasn’t really any other option and I wasn’t going to put myself through it any longer because I know what kind of swimmer I am! I prefer the pool over the ocean every single day of the week. Besides, pool swimming makes it very easy to focus on stroke mechanics and improving technique. I can practice sighting in a pool too, rather than dealing with the demons in my head out in the ocean.

When it is race time in the ocean, I have no problem going out there with the hundreds of other triathletes and diving right in. Again, strength in numbers! I feel safer, but the voices in my head are still there and if there was any danger out there it is probably gone by the time I’m there, scared too of getting bombarded by a bunch of human fish.

But, I know whatever it was out there will be waiting for me the next time I try to get back into the ocean, and it will be stalking me like a vicious predator!! Will I see it and have time to react or will I mistake it for a glare coming off of my goggles again?! How will I know for sure?? Those darn voices in my head…