The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves

I was not an enthusiastic person this morning.  I got up to a grey, dull and uninspiring morning.  More than that though, faced with my first open water outing of the year I could have quite cheerfully backed out and decided to stay snuggled up in the house with my book.  Admittedly the look of the weather didn't help to persuade me to go, but I think it was mainly about being nervous about doing something that I haven't done since last August.  I felt rather sick and not at all keen to get out there.  However, in the end I am very glad that I didn't give in to those negative voices.

I was at Pugneys lake in Wakefield in plenty of time for the 9:15 start of the Wakefield Triathlon Club's open water swimming session.  I paid my swimming dues at the counter and spent a while in the changing room fighting myself into my wetsuit - I appear to have lost the knack over the intervening months!  Morgan was doing a beginners' introductory coached session, so I decided that would be a good place to start after so long in the pool.  It came as quite a shock trying to swim in the suit, I found it really tiring.  I am so out of practice, I think I may need to wear it in the pool again a bit just to get back into the idea of swimming in the thing.  I found myself getting out of breath very quickly, but no panicky feelings, so that's good.  I'm definitely coping a bit better each year as I've got more experience and more idea that I'll be fine.  Morgan went through what to do if you do have a problem and talked us through sighting methods and how to turn quickly around a buoy.  The turning techniques were very useful as I've never really known how to do that properly.  I'll definintely need to practice that and see if I can get good at it before I tackle any open water races this year.

Basically I found the swim fine and didn't notice the three quarters of an hour passing at all.  It wasn't too cold either, apart from my feet which were complaining rather when I climbed back out.  All in all I'm pretty pleased with how things went, not bad for the first one.  Quite a few more needed though!