Running? Check

Cycling? Check

Swimming? Check

I haven’t done the full distance for any of these, but I did over half of each without getting tired, so I have some confidence. Not there yet, but I’m not worried about any of these disciplines anymore. I know I have 3 more months to go, I know roughly how hard it’s gonna be, and I think I can make it.

But that’s if the swim was going to be in a pool.

Obviously, it isn’t. It’s not even going to be in a clear lake in Austria. It’s going be in the Cascais bay near Lisbon, which means it might as well be the middle of the fucking ocean.

The last hurdle (that I planned for) was always going to be open water swimming. It terrifies me. I’ve been on the beach for more than a week now and only yesterday have I had my first swim. I hate it. It’s very scary for me at this point.

But I’m heading into this a somewhat changed man. Even though this is by far the scariest thing that I have to contend with (there’s a reason why I left it this late) I have confidence that I’ll be able to do it.

I feel like I’m able to process my emotions better. First off, I can feel the terror. It’s not that I think about it, I can feel it. That’s already huge progress. I feel like these last couple of years that I’ve been working on this have given me this ability to finally register my feelings, experience them as such, rather than the abstractions I’m used to.

Before, this would have been just a block. Why don’t you do it? Don’t know. It’s just an invisible wall. If I try to do it, I get distracted and do everything except the scary thing. I won’t be lying if I said that I didn’t feel scared. I was just never really afraid of anything. In reality, I was always afraid. But it just didn’t register.

I not only am able to feel my fear and thus take steps, I know the steps and I’ve taken them before on simpler fears.

My best course of action is no longer a thought. It’s a memory.

I’m trying to build it into a behaviour patten.

Feel scared → sit in fear → move off → repeat.

Fear is less scary that way. At least it’s familiar and I’m not afraid of being afraid.

It’s the fucking sea, where there’s scary shit like water and darkness and shit. Of course it’s scary. It’s where people drown. In addition, I’ve been brought up to fear it by people who had every right to build that in me for my own safety. Perhaps if I didn’t have that fear, I would have drowned at some point. I remember two occasions where that was a real possibility for a brief moment. This thing is no joke so fear is indeed an appropriate reaction, especially for someone who felt anxious in a well lit shallow pool, swimming in the first lane next to master swimmers. Makes sense.

I’m writing this while being afraid. It’s not nice. Sucks. Earlier this morning, I did my first deep water swim with a lifeguard that agreed to go in with me for company. We went to a buoy about 300m deep. when the water turned darker, I was starting to panic. I’m not happy to say it. My companion told me to take the goggles off. It helped but I was still anxious.

But this anxiety was familiar. I’ve been here before. More importantly, I’ve experienced this anxiety going away with a clear prescription.

No heroics. No forcing myself, no overcoming. Just frequent, short exposure with slight increases over time. Rocket science. Again, as I’m writing this (and reading it again two months later), I’m reliving those moments in the deep. It’s fine. We’re going to do it again. If today’s dose was too much, we half it. If that’s too much, we half it again. There’s no rush.

One thing gives me some solace is that I have three months. I think I can manage to get off this anxiety in that timeframe. More importantly, seeing someone swimming by my side really helped, so I think the day of the event is not going to feel as anxious because the water is going to be more lively.

To paint a picture of the anxiety, I just spent half an hour looking up naval maps and checking water depth. I think the swim course would not be as deep as the water I was treading today. But it’s hard to know. I forgot to start the session on my watch today so I have no idea about where I was swimming. In any case, I’m confident that it’s not going to be worse. Let’s see how this goes.

Small, frequent exposure, with minor increases when I’m up for it. I’ll be fine.