I was the same way on my first open water swims, as were many of my friends, so you are not alone. This is from the anxiety which almost or does turn into hyper-ventilating and will soon go away once you take a second or minute to calm yourself and gather your thoughts. You are right, the distance is not long and you have trained for it, but on race day you will get this same feeling and to have people touching you while you are trying to get through this is tough at first. The more races you do that feeling will go away and you will be looking forward to swimming over the top of people. Try to focus on the people there cheering everyone on or another object, do not let the splashing in front of you keep your attention, might even try to close your eyes (I cant do that, but other people have given me that advice). You should train the same way you will do your race, so wear your swim cap, you dont want to feel uncomfortable the day of the race.

Good luck on your first! I could bet you will just love it and will be checking the calendar for the next race as soon as you get home!

TriDaddy!

Besides race anxiety - very cold water does make it difficult to breath properly. People will sometimes wear multiple swim caps to try and keep some warmth in - or use a neoprene one if the water is quite cold. Otherwise spend some time getting acclimated - but you don't want to swim/warmup in cold water too early - otherwise after the warmup you end up doing a lot of standing on the beach shivering while waiting for your wave start and that can be rough. And cold water tolerance is a pretty personal thing.

Don't worry too much, but a swim cap is definitely a must! It will make a big difference. Wearing two caps is better. I usually do in water below 60 (swimming in Ontario Lake, it's not that rare), otherwise I can't get in the groove, the cold can be very distracting.

I agree about keeping the warmup to a minimum. You have to warmup, but there's a maximum amount of time you will be able to endure that cold, depending on your body...It would be bad to start the race already freezing.

I'm sure the work you've done with your breathing is going to pay off. By wearing swim caps, you'll keep some heat in, and it should be easier for you to breathe.

Good luck!

I did my first open water swim on Sunday during a Try-a-Tri (other than splashing around in the lake as a kid!).

What a big difference... when I first got in I had a hard time getting my breath, the water was colder than a pool (although probably warm by lake standards). It's exactly as how you described, could only take shorter breaths.

Not being able to touch the bottom was a little weird, got over that quick enough. The goggles were too lose with the swim cap, had to tighten them, no big deal there...

But what really threw me off was not being able to see! I know it sounds silly, but seeing my arms was something that helped my brain figure out what was going on, pacing, etc... in the murky water I couldn't see.

I managed to keep doing the front crawl for the full 400m, but no bilateral breathing and didn't get my form working well. It was a struggle... my final time was over 13:00... so clearly I need to practice lake swimming to get the hang of it!

Have my first tri coming up on Sunday and I (wisely) got in my first open water swim in this past saturday. It took a while to get used to breathing out into the cold water and even longer to relax myself enough to hold some form. While it was a short swim just to get the feel, I will be far less nervous come Sunday morning. I'm really glad I didn't wait until race morning to do the first swim.