Okay, so this newbie swimmer took the plunge--literally--this weekend in doing his first Open Water training sessions. For the benefit of other newbies, here's my report.

First, the obligatory, "I was terrified of the Open Water"-swimming stuff. So...before this weekend I was terrified of the Open Water swim, and this was only slightly offset by reading the online experiences of other newbie's who basically stated they had overcome it by spending max possible time training in the Open Water.

A little more background, prior to this weekend, I've started swim training for the first time in my life around mid-June, working up to 3000-3500m per week, in a 25m pool at my club.

So, I took full advantage of this weekend up at the lake to do my first Open Water training sessions.

On Sat.--my brick day--I started off, perhaps not wisely, with a 1.5hour MTB ride through some pretty hard hills. Then, after some rest and lunch I took the the lake. Lake conditions were: water is 78F near shore, and colder by about 5-degrees 30-feet from shore. Light swells from wind, punctuated by occasional bigger chop from boat wakes. Visibility was very poor, 2-3 feet max in this high-algae content lake. First, I just swam, 15-20 strokes out, then back in, getting accustomed to seeing only my arms in the water, and not even bothering with sighting. After about 15-20 minutes of this, I dried off, and donned my wetsuit (a Q/R Hydrofull). Wow, the buoyancy was even more than I expected of this awfully thin material--having worn 3-5mm surfsuits as a teen.

I then spent another 20 minutes or so, just swimming (careful of my technique) out-and-in from shore. I think the intial "fun" of it filled me with some adrenaline and I just swam without any problems.

So, I chalked Sat.'s short 40 min. session up as a success.

Sun., after breakfast, I went at it again, with wetsuit. I first took a waverunner, and with 2 GPS devices (Garmin handhelf & Timex Bodylink) and mapped out the distance between two markers (a neighbor's buoy and another neighbors floating dock). This "course" was parallel to the shoreline, and measured out to 110-meters.

So, I warmed up with about 2 minutes swim, and then went about attempting 7 laps (to roughly equate the 750m swim of a Sprint). As I rounded the buoy "start line" I tried getting into an easy rhythm--but it just wouldn't come. So, for the first 2 laps I had a hard time even just turning over and floating on my back to rest. My chest felt "constricted" in the suit, noises of boats running by bothered me, my heart kept racing, etc. It was ANXIETY plain and simple--something I hadn't experienced the day before...weird. But, I just kept telling myself, don't panic, R-E-L-A-X...this is supposed to be ENJOYABLE. Eventually, after about lap 3, I got into an easy rhythm and was able to float and rest (relaxed!) when necessary. I found just seeing my arms in the water, and counting strokes to be not so bad, and sighting to be an interesting challenge. I often found I overshot my markers, by overestimating the number strokes it required to get there!

It took me a horribly long 31 minutes to complete the 770m swim (actually longer if you count swimming out-and-in to the buoys, and how many times I overshot them), but I was proud of just doing it. More importantly, I had overcome an important mental barrier!

Had family stuff to do the rest of the day, so I wasn't able to get in another swim before heading home. But, I was psyched just to have gotten a first training session under my belt.

Now, I can't imagine anyone going straight from pool to Open Water on race day! I know some have no choice, but to me that would just be an insane challenge.

Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for letting me share my experience. And, if you're a newbie, know that you to can do it!