Mermaid Mode Activated

As summer brought longer days, I desired to be outside as much as possible. Although my Irish skin disagrees, I’m solar-powered and try to maximize my time in the fresh air from sun up to sun down. I wanted to take advantage of “shore life” and carpe every nice diem.

On my sunrise walks and runs, I’d stare out at the pinkish purple gradient along the horizon and feel a calmness that you get when you’re the only one awake at 5 a.m. The gentle wake of the Atlantic Ocean and Sandy Hook Bay was so inviting, and I was tempted to just dive in to cool off one morning when it was 80 degrees before breakfast. The ocean was calling me, yet my subconscious was also holding me back.

In recent years I’ve had nightmares about drowning; specifically in dark, murky water. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why since I’ve been around lakes for most of my life and had strong podium finishes on swim team as a kid. I’m strong and can hold my breath for a length of a pool, but things can happen in the water. I’d dream that my nieces and nephew fell in the water, and I’d dive in after them. Some nightmares involved me running along the Hudson River in the early morning and finding someone mentally unwell jumping into the river, and others were about swimming out of a flooded apartment and drowning while trying to save a stranger.

I knew that just practicing the swim for my first triathlon in the pool wasn’t going to cut it when I had access to the ocean just a few miles away. I hemmed and hawed on when to attend a beginner ocean swim clinic to really see if I wanted to become a triathlete; as much as I love swimming, biking, and running, if I hated the first 1/3 of the event it didn’t make sense to enter a race. I clicked “add to cart” on the Jersey Shore Masters Swim site and locked in my spot for the hour-long instructional session in the beginning of August.

The day before the swim clinic that I signed up for was excessively hot and my body wasn’t coping very well. I had to hydrate more than expected and almost canceled my plans to do a beach and bike ride day on Sandy Hook with my niece and nephew. When we went in the water together, my mind was preoccupied by the fact that I will be in much deeper early the next morning. Needless to say, although I had a great time with my family, I didn’t sleep very well that night in anticipation.

More nightmares; enough to make me sit upright in bed in the middle of the night and stare out the window in the direction of the bay. I woke up a few minutes before my alarm and after a feeble attempt to eat breakfast, I headed out the door.

The good part about being up that early was driving along the coast with the windows down while the sun rose with such brilliant colors. It was supposed to rain heavily later that evening, so the clouds allowed the sunlight to bounce off and illuminate the sky like a Bob Ross painting. I pictured Bob Ross as a surfer and giggled to myself as I imagined his hair looking like a wet poodle.

I thought there was no way to have a bad first swim if I had this amazing sky in Long Branch. With renewed excitement, I got on the beach for the swim clinic with about 20 others.

The instructor, Coach Brian, gave a quick overview of what to expect in the water and said that the more you practice just being in open water, the more comfortable you’ll be. I liked that in theory, but at that moment, I was struggling to put on the rental wetsuit and it was driving up my anxiety. I use a “shortie” wetsuit at the lake to waterski, but for some reason this long wetsuit was not fitting me properly and felt much more snug than necessary. It was tighter than a body con dress I would have worn to the club in my 20s, so how was it going to feel once submerged in salt water?

I was one of the last people to get in after trying to get used to the cold water. At the next available wave, I ran in and immediately felt the cold wetsuit squeeze my chest like a vise. My heart fluttered uncomfortably, my breathing shallowed in the wet corset, and I felt extreme panic. Through my goggles, I was seeing white. I hoped it was just my body’s natural reaction to the cold and tried to remember how to breathe like Wim Hof. The first buoy looked so far away, and I wasn’t comfortable enough to put my head in the water yet.

I got through the rough part of the waves and tried freestyle. The current, although relatively gentle, was pushing me different directions, I was still panic-swimming, and I could smell a school of fish nearby every time I rotated my head to breathe. I occasionally felt a fish bump into me through the wetsuit. I was in a sensory overload and overwhelmed by both the external unfamiliar stimuli and my sleep-deprived mental meltdown in the middle of the ocean. Getting to that first buoy, which the website said would be about 150 yards from the beach, felt like it took a lifetime when it was likely less than 5 minutes. My inner struggle didn’t subside as I got closer to the buoy, but I masked my fear in true ADHD fashion.

There were lifeguards on surfboards and I held on while treading water as Coach talked us through some more strategies, such as sighting stationary objects on land beyond the next buoy. The wetsuit felt like it was choking me, so I loosened the top part of the zipper. After the initial shock of the cool water, it felt warm enough that I could have gone without the wetsuit. I don’t know what it feels like to have a boa constrictor squeeze me to death, but this came close.

When the group collectively started to the next buoy, I alternated between keeping my head above the water and a little bit of freestyle. My heart rate was so high that it felt like I was sprinting when I barely cut through the water. The coach said when my head is in the water, my freestyle looked great, but that I should slow down. He recommended counting strokes since I wasn’t in a race that day; the opposite of my instincts. The “monkey mind” or “chimp brain” wanted me to sprint to the buoy as if my life depended on it. I was so used to the Olympic pool distance races that I didn’t know what it felt like to take my time. It was like transitioning from the 1-mile run test in middle school to figuring out a marathon pace, only if you breathe at the wrong time you choke on water.

The few successful strokes I had from that buoy and back to shore felt good, and I liked going with the current. I’d have moments of “this is actually pretty cool” to an immediate sense of doom (more like 90% doom). I was a real life Dory from Finding Nemo; just keep swimming. I knew I was safe with all the people around and my swimming skills, but I still felt completely out of my comfort zone. How did Gertrude Ederle do this in the bay (to prepare for the English Channel) that I look out at every morning?

My legs felt wobbly when I reached the sand. Peeling off the wetsuit felt like taking off a bra 3 sizes too small, and I vowed to use my own if I ever did it again. I wasn’t the only one who thought the wetsuit felt more like a straitjacket; another woman said her rental last time gave her a panic attack. Maybe training with a wetsuit is the equivalent of a weighted vest in running so that the real swim doesn’t make you think the sea will swallow you whole.

I blasted my music with the windows down on the way home, processing what I just did. It was hard to pinpoint my exact feelings on open water swimming. It freaked me out, but when I got out of the water, I felt like I had unfinished business to take care of with the ocean. I got all worked up when I got home, and I was so grateful for my boyfriend’s embrace and support. The experience was so mentally taxing that I had to take a nap before our afternoon plans.

I don’t remember where I heard this, but if there is something you want to do that seems slightly out of reach, you should go for it. In other words, you want to be confident enough that you think you have a shot but also humble enough to know you have to work for it. I had this mindset before my first marathon, so I talked myself into officially signing up for the Jersey Girl Triathlon despite my uncomfortable experience.

Over the next two months, I attended any ocean swim practice that I could. There was always something that made the practice imperfect and tested my comfort levels. One swim didn’t have a current but was extremely choppy and I got disoriented from not being able to see the buoys between the waves. Another swim looked flat, but the current made it feel like I was in a swimming treadmill and hardly moving anywhere.

One morning seemed like perfect conditions; the water was unusually clear for the Jersey Shore. I could see the sandy bottom more than 10 feet below me before it dropped off to the abyss. I was doing great with practicing keeping my head in the water (even though I was still swimming too fast for the distance). I was between the buoys, separate from the group, and away from the lifeguards at one point in the deeper part of the water when I saw a LARGE black/gray creature swimming below me. My brain went into panic mode again, and I kept my head above the water for awhile trying not to thrash around. It could be a shark, but I didn’t want to convince it that I was an easy meal. A dolphin would have breached, but I wondered if it was a whale or a manta ray. I struggled to consistently “just keep swimming” like nothing happened, and couldn’t wait to get out of the water after 2 laps around the buoys (~1200 yards or more). Other swimmers (including two kids) said they saw manta rays, so I believe that is what I swam over. I couldn’t tell how far below me the manta ray was swimming, but it had quite the wingspan!

The last swim I went to before my race, I was convinced I’d have a great practice. I reached a flow state in my pool swims and felt confident I could translate it in the ocean. Before I got in, I could see dolphins jumping out of the waves near the lifeguard on the surfboard, and a whale watching tour was out just beyond that. The sunrise was perfect again. Nothing could freak me out now, right? Wrong.

There were lots of questionable bubbles at the surface of the water. I thought maybe they were schools of fish (which I wanted to go away so that there wouldn’t be sharks nearby). As my face was in the water and I reached ahead of me with each stroke, I felt lots of gelatinous squishy things. These salps, baby jellyfish, and potentially sea lice not only felt gooey, but it made my skin feel itchy. It was sensory overload. I didn’t want to put my face in again at all and exited the water after a lap. I was so mad at myself for not pushing through, but the sea creatures were way too distracting.

I wanted to fit in one more ocean swim the day before the race, but there was a rip current all week that canceled the practice. Even though I had yet to have a perfect flow-state swim in the ocean, I knew that the training would help me on race day. My goal was to complete the swim with my head in the water for as long as possible during the race. I had a time goal in mind, but also knew that there were other variables that could slow me down, such as the crowd of swimmers ahead of me. The swim was going to make or break my performance.

I was determined to activate what I now call “mermaid mode”. I wanted to feel invincible in the water again and not have a care in the world about anything around me. These few ocean swims were just skimming the surface of what could be a new life-long hobby. I couldn’t wait for race day!