I'm learning to breathe, I'm learning to crawl...

The hardest part of this blog for me is being honest.

Not only honest with all of you, but with myself.  I promised to share my experiences - those times I am on top of the world and the ones where I can see it crashing down around me.

Breakdown commence:

Athlete check-in was Thursday.  
We got our numbers, bags, timing chips, and the coveted athlete band (our all out access pass to everything Ironman).

NEW GAME: each person that walks by you search frantically for an athlete band then judge their level of fitness (all the time marveling over the fact they will most likely beat me!)




Friday morning - open swim.

If you know what training has been - you know I have spent at least 3, sometimes 4 days a week in the pool.  My first day swimming I could barely swim 25 yards.  I ended the length of the pool grabbing the wall and gasping.  I can't even imagine what kind of idiot the life guard thought I was.
After 8 months, I can hop into the pool and hammer out 2 miles no problem.

But, no one tells you that open water is not pool swimming.  You know there are going to be tons of people.  You know you can't touch the bottom.  You know there are no walls, lines on the floor, or that burning chlorine you have become so used to.  But no one tells you what those first two minutes in the lake will be like - green water you can't see your hands, you tread water, people pull you down, people hit you, and you cannot hear anything but that voice in your head saying, 'you're done.'

I made it to the first buoy and back.  Walked out of the water, saw my dad, and absolutely broke down.  I knew at that moment there was absolutely no way I was going go finish the swim.  I had worked so hard for nothing.
I cried.  In front of everyone, wearing my athlete band and a fancy swim skin -I lost it.
It was these moments in training that I would tell myself that by working through them I would find that mental strength that gives a person the capacity to finish an Ironman.  So, I ripped off my swim skin and swim cap and trudged back into the water.
I made it to the first buoy and back again minus the panic attack but still lacking the glimmer of hope I had been anticipating.

Having a knot in your stomach is nothing compared to the moping and fear that consumed me Friday.
I thought of the army of people supporting me, the family that flew in to cheer me on, my bike sitting in transition ready to go, the months I spent training and none of it gave me the confidence to finish.  I went to sleep that night knowing in the next 12 hours I had to find the tenacity to finish this swim or else...

... the only thing I would leave Texas with was a really cool bag.