swimming

From Buoy to Buoy

The sun was barely visible on the horizon…just a glimmer of pink and orange surrounded by an inky black sky. We walked out on the cool sand to watch the waves crash gently onto the shore. There was an anticipation in the air…nervous energy tempered with excitement and expectation.

Race day was here.

As start time came closer, one of the organizers called us, as a group, to come near so he could explain the details of the swim portion. There were two distances for the swim: one longer and one shorter. Since swimming is my weakest area of the triathlon, I listened intently to the instructions that were being given. He addressed how the course worked. There were five buoys in the water. They were huge triangle shaped buoys that were visible from the surface of the water, but were securely anchored to the ocean floor. The buoys were three different colors: two yellow, two orange, and one green. I looked out into the surf while he spoke and got a good visual of where the buoys were anchored at. I could see that the waves had picked up a bit, but the buoys were in place. Because our distance was shorter than the other race, we only had to swim out to the first orange buoy, turn right, swim past the green buoy (that marked the halfway), swim to the second orange buoy, turn towards shore, and then make it to shore. Got it, I thought to myself!

We lined up two by two and every three seconds a man simply said “go”. That was our signal to start: run from the starting flag to the water and then swim. No problem. I had just done a 2,000 meter ocean swim the week before with relative ease so I wasn’t worried about this measly 400 meter swim. I waited for my turn with an uncharacteristic excitement to start the race. It had been a long time since I had felt elation at the start of a race.

I lined up next to my stranger-partner and waited for our cue. When we heard the “go”, we both took off running on the sand. This was the fastest I had run into the ocean since I was child. The water was cooler than I had expected and I cursed myself a bit for not doing a warm up swim. My plan was to run until I couldn’t touch and then start swimming…just like I’d been practicing for the last several months. I felt a bit of pride that I was going to do so well on my first race.

Instead…I ran until I was blasted in the face with a huge wave. “What the…” I thought. These waves didn’t look that big from the safety of the shore. Maybe I just needed to get out from these first waves and then it would ease up. I ducked under the next wave and came back up ready to go. Only when I surfaced back, I was met in the face again with another large wave. And then another. And now I couldn’t touch the bottom. I could only see the waves and feel the current. And that’s when I felt it.

Pure panic.

Only this panic was different from the lake panic (see previous post about the open swim). The lake panic was a more controlled panic. In the lake, I knew I could stop. I knew I was in control. In the lake, my husband was right next to me on the paddle board, patiently waiting for me to get out of my head and calm down enough to swim. That water was calm and I was in control of the circumstances there.

THIS panic was not THAT panic at all.

I was on my own in these waters…and they were far from calm. I couldn’t stop the waves. Whether I liked it or not, they were coming… and they were not small. My first beach swim had soft, rolling waves that gently rocked us back and forth. They were easy to swim through and felt almost peaceful. These waves wanted to be sure we knew that they were there and that they meant business. I genuinely thought I may drown. And that’s not just hyperbole for this story. I started to fight the waves, but that just made me panic more. I tried to put my face in the water and swim, but I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart and lungs felt like they were competing against each other to see which could go faster. I pulled my head up to catch my breath and swallowed sea water…. again and again. I didn’t know how much sea water you could swallow before you drowned, but it seemed that I was going to find out.

After a few minutes of struggling and flailing in the water (which felt like hours), I decided to start some introspection. I had only a few options of how to proceed. I could swim to the finish. I could float to shore and quit. Or I could drown. With these as my options, I had some decisions to make. Since I’m no quitter and I wasn’t ready to die yet, my only real option was to pull myself together and SWIM.

Only….I couldn’t.

I could not put my face in the water because my breathing was so out of control. I lovingly kept saying to myself (both silently and out loud when I wasn’t taking in mouths full of water) “What the HELL is wrong with you?” “Get it together! Stop acting like you’ve never swam before!” “Stop panicking! You’re screwing it all up!” Over and over, I berated myself for not being more in control of my actions in this tumultuous water. But when I stopped the internal monologue of negativity, I remembered what the race organizer said…swim from buoy to buoy.

That was it. That was all I had to do. Just go buoy to buoy until I reached the end. I didn’t have to look like an Olympic swimmer…or even one of the multiple amateur swimmers next to me. All I had to do was get to the first buoy.

So I took my eyes off the waves, and set them on the first orange buoy. Despite the strong current and the choppy waves, it stood firm against the chaos. I doggy paddled towards it. I thought, if I could just get to that one, then I could turn and swim parallel to the shore and then I wouldn’t be swimming against the waves anymore. That would make it easier to finish.

I made it to the first buoy, turned right, and prepared to have a smoother swim. Only I didn’t. The waves were easier to swim parallel to (as opposed to against), but they were still strong and now I was tired from having fought with them. So I flipped over and back stroked for a bit. I kept thinking, “just get to the green buoy because that’s halfway and then you can talk yourself into finishing because you’ll already be halfway.” I switched between the back stroke and doggy paddling heading towards the green buoy…still panicked and still swallowing sea water…but still moving forward.

When I finally reached the green buoy, I wanted to cry…not tears of relief. Tears of frustration and fear and exhaustion. This wasn’t supposed to go like this. I trained. I prepared. I researched. I read multiple articles on triathlon training. I talked to everyone I knew that had done one before and asked for their advice. I swam and swam for months in preparation for this event…but here I was drowning in the conditions that I couldn’t have planned for and certainly couldn’t control.

And to top it off, I looked like a fool. All around me people with swim caps and goggles were swimming gracefully and strong. Stroke-stroke-breathe. Stroke-stroke-breathe. Meanwhile, I looked like someone who had never swam before and was taken from a nice warm bed then dropped in the cold ocean and forced to swim in shark infested waters. A feral cat swimming in the ocean would have looked more graceful than I did at that moment.

But, I kept going. Doggy paddle, back stroke, float… again and again… and before I knew it I was between the green buoy and the last orange buoy. All I had to do was get to the last buoy and turn towards the shore. Then I could use these rough waves to push me in until I could reach the bottom. Once I could feel the bottom, I could run through the water and onto the shore…and I KNEW how to do that. I just had to endure this unfamiliar territory until I could make my way back to the familiar.

That’s exactly what I did.

I let go of all the expectations I had set for myself for how I thought the swim portion should look like. I released the self imposed goals of how fast I thought I should have finished…or how strong I thought my strokes would be…or how peaceful I anticipated this part of the journey. Then I embraced the actuality of the rough waters, the unrelenting current, the panic that gripped my mind and body. I accepted that this swim was miserable…and hard…and unexpected. I relented to that fact that I wasn’t enjoying this at all. In the midst of what felt like defeat…while still swallowing ungodly amounts of sea water…I KEPT GOING. I reached that last buoy and I turned to shore. I NEVER once put my face fully in the water…except when a wave pounded into it. I didn’t take ANY strong, calculated strokes. I didn’t swim freestyle AT ALL. I did NOTHING in that water that I prepared for….except moving forward and I only managed to do that by keeping my eyes on the next buoy.

Here’s the thing….without hearing the instructions from the race coordinator and without those buoys for guidance…I would have been lost in the swim portion. Those buoys set the course and they provided a guide for me in waters that seemed like it would do me in. The buoys were in the same waters that I was in…the same current pulling at them. The same waves relentlessly crashing on them. But they were anchored to the solid ground below the rough surface. A strong, unseen source of strength kept them in place so they could do their job. They were anchored because their job was to be fixed in the circumstances. The same circumstances that I needed to move through…they needed to be still in…because that’s what they do. They provide guidance…they give the swimmers a solid, fixed point on which to focus…a certainty in the uncertain waters.

I don’t need to tell you that we are living in uncertain times. There is no shortage of chaos in everyone’s lives right now. Fear and confusion are rampant in all waters of our lives. You may be in the middle of your ocean swim now. Maybe you’re flailing in a situation that is out of your control. You did everything in your power to prepare for your race and you even listened to instructions and advice along the way. You did everything “right”, but the waves of life have come and crashed into your face and knocked you off balance. Every time you lift you head for air, you are greeted with another swallow of salt water…and you feel like you’re drowning. A divorce that you didn’t see coming. An adult child addicted to drugs or alcohol. The loss of a job. An eviction from a house. The constant calls from creditors. Another miscarriage. An unexpected diagnosis. An estranged relationship of a person you care deeply for. The death of a spouse. The death of a child. I am not here to offer nice words of encouragement or platitudes for circumstances in your life that are huge and scary and unfair and out of your control. What I AM here to tell you is…find your buoys.

In the race, there were two different distances for the swim because there were two different races taking place at the same time. My race was the shorter distance and marked with the orange and green buoys. The longer route not only had different colored buoys, but also a completely different set of instructions. We all had to find the correct color coded buoys or else we would have been doing the wrong route. I would have been in a (bigger) world of hurt if I had swam past the first orange buoy and out to the yellow one. If a swimmer from the longer race had followed the orange buoys, they would have been disqualified from their race. The specifics for each race mattered as much as the colored buoys themselves.

Your race is different from mine. Your circumstances are not my circumstances. Your buoys for life may also be different from mine. What brings you strength, peace, and guidance in your rough waters may not be the same as your friend’s…and that’s OK. It’s not my job to judge what grounds you…nor your job to critique what anchors me. What matters is that if I see you struggling in your waters then I help you find your buoys: those things in your life that you KNOW are true and grounded. Personally, I believe in prayer and am rooted in a Christian lifestyle (the best I can do). I know that when my waters are rough and unexpectedly hard, I can call on Jesus and he anchors me in the storm. I open my Bible or find a podcast to listen to. I pray or text a friend and ask them to pray for me. These are things that I lean on when I feel like I’m drowning in the waters around me. But that may not bring you peace. Family can be a buoy. Solid friendships can be a buoy. Your faith, whatever it is, may be a buoy. Look for the solid and unchanging things in your life and keep your eyes on them.

Then take it buoy to buoy until you are out of the rough, uncertain waters of life.

At the race, I finally got out of the water. I was beat up and scared and exhausted. I felt pickled inside from the all the salt water I had unintentionally consumed. But I didn’t drown and I didn’t quit. Once I finished swimming, I left it there. I ran from the ocean and towards my bike and running shoes. I leaned into the events that I knew I was better at and left the swimming results behind me. Lesson learned…and I would work harder on it another day, but for the rest of this day I would look forward to the road ahead of me and enjoy the rest of the race… and I was still able to place third in my age group despite starting with an event that I was sure was going to bring my demise.

You will get out of your waters and you will “place” in life too. You will get through your circumstances and get to the shore…back to your familiar. You will keep moving forward and not back: no matter what that looks like or how long it takes. You may feel foolish at times. You may be frustrated that things did not (or are not) going the way they were supposed to go. It may not seem fair that other people around you seem to be gliding along while you can barely keep your head above the water. And you may be right.

But…

If you keep your eyes on your buoys and not the waves you will come out of the waters and you will accomplish your goals. Just keep going. And when you’re out of the waters, leave it there. Don’t dwell on the “what could have” beens or “what should have” beens. Embrace the “what is” and look for the “what will be”. Then lean into the rest of your race and don’t forget to enjoy the ride.

“That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him a long, just as he was, in the boat. There were other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to the disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?'” Mark 4:35-40

****I don’t usually add a post script on my blogs, but I feel strongly that I needed to say one thing here. I didn’t want to put it on the main blog because I didn’t want to take away from the general message of the story. But I think someone needs to hear this. I don’t know what your buoys are, but I know what is NOT a buoy for anyone: ANY political figure. Do not get caught up in this election season on either side. No matter what happens in America in November 2024 do not let yourself think a person in politics is your stronghold. Buoys are bigger than that.****

The Open Swim

A few months ago I decided to step out of my comfort zone and sign up for a triathlon. I was excited to try something that was unfamiliar and challenging. Since I had no idea how to start my training, I researched training plans (on Google) and found one to suit my schedule and skill level (novice).

The most daunting part of the training program was the swim portion. I had never been a swimmer and so assumed that I was not a good swimmer. When I went to the lap pool for the first time, I found out that I was correct to assume that: I was not a good swimmer. Turns out, I was actually quite awful. I could not do a 25 meter lap without having to stop and catch and my breath. At first, it was disheartening, but I kept at it. Twice a week I would go to the pool and slowly push myself to go farther each time. Twenty five meters turned to fifty then a hundred and eventually to 1200 meters without stopping. However, this was in a pool: a controlled environment. The race would take place at a beach and I needed to train for that environment.

Looking ahead at the training plan, I saw several “open water swim” workouts scheduled closer to race day. At first I could ignore those words as they were several months out, but as race day drew closer, those work outs loomed greater and greater in my mind. I grew more nervous about the challenge, not just for the workouts, but for the race itself. Open water swim is when you try to create the same conditions you will have on race day. For me, that meant swimming in the ocean or a lake. These were both daunting options since I had only swam in a pool and honestly had no interest in swimming with alligators or sharks. If I wanted to do this race, though, I was going to have to figure this challenge out.

So, back to Google I went. I found a local group that did swims at the beach on Sunday mornings and decided I would join them for a swim in the ocean. However, before I joined a group of people I didn’t know, I wanted to test the waters alone (see what I did there?) There’s a small local lake that we go paddleboarding in and that seemed the perfect place to try the open water swim for the first time. My husband agreed to help by paddling next to me while I swam, watching for any dangers that I wouldn’t be able to see.

The day came and I felt confident in this plan: both in my swimming abilities and in my choice of water. We drug our paddleboards to the edge of the lake-just like we planned. Paddled to the far end of the lake-just like we planned. I got in the water-just like we planned. I started to swim and then panicked-not at all like we planned. After only a few strokes, I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. The water was deep and murky, nothing at all like the clear pool water I was used to. I couldn’t calm down and felt irrationally afraid of the water. My mind was racing with possibilities of what was below me and around me. I tried several times to put my face back in the water and force myself to keep going, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t slow my mind down or get my thoughts under control. Despite several attempts to move forward, I finally had to abort my plans, get back on the board, and paddle to the shore that I was supposed to be swimming to. I felt defeated and sad, but I could not get out of my own head.

The lake was still and calm, but also isolated. It should have been the perfect place, but there was something unsettling in the isolation. The solitude that in some conditions brings peace, was suffocating and anxiety inducing in this circumstance. Now, with the race less than two weeks away, I felt defeated and began to question my plans to race at all. However, I had invested too much time and money to quit now.

With plan A scrapped, I had to execute plan B: the beach swim with a bunch of strangers. On the last possible day, I showed up to the beach access they posted on the Facebook group and mustered up my resolve to get this done. I dreaded the impending small talk conversations as much as I dreaded the open water swim with the sharks. I didn’t know anyone in the group. I didn’t know how fast they swam. I didn’t know how far they went. I didn’t know that I was supposed to bring an inflatable buoy to wear around my waist for visibility. I felt vulnerable and out of place. Everything in me wanted to go home. Let this one goal go, I thought. My mind was gearing up to scream at me and I felt the anxiety creeping in. But then something happened.

Here in this group of strangers-with their chattering and pleasantries-with the waves crashing on the shore-with the seagulls cawing overhead-with people walking around and cars driving down the beach something shifted in me. In the midst of all this activity, I got out of my head. My nerves calmed and my fear ebbed away. Listening to the stories of others, emboldened a bravery in me that I didn’t know was there. A quiet confidence began to push the loud anxiety to the side. I began to remember how strong I felt swimming in the pool. I remembered how unfamiliar that was in the beginning, but how I kept at it and developed my strength and skill in that area. When I explained to the group that I had never swam in the ocean before they explained the process. They gave me advice and pointers. They informed me of safety measures they take and told me that no one is left behind. They told me their success stories and their failures. They helped get me out of my head and into the water. Together we swam 2100 meters that morning-the longest distance I had ever swam in my life-and I walked away from that experience feeling more confident and excited about the upcoming race than I had ever felt.

It is tempting to try and go it alone when we are facing difficult situations in our lives-things we are unsure of-things that are new or hard or awkward-things that take us out of our comfort zones. Out of fear or insecurity, we want to do it alone in case we do it wrong or embarrass ourselves. We don’t want to seem vulnerable or to ask for help because that seems weak. But in this self imposed isolation (that you may misinterpret as strength) something happens. Your fears escalate. Your rational thoughts are drowned out by your irrational assumptions. As these distractions in your mind increase, your actions are hamstrung into complacency and you release your desires to attain new goals. The lake in your mind is too still-too quiet-too murky-and you can’t motivate yourself to move forward. You can’t get out of your head-and you can’t get out of your own way.

We were not designed for isolation. We were created to be in relationship with others. We thrive when we engage in our community-when we allow others to see our vulnerable sides. We flourish when we ask for help or seek advice or admit our fears. We grow when we help others-when we get out of our heads and into people’s lives. It’s ok to need alone time-everyone needs that-but we cannot thrive alone because that’s not how we were designed to live.

It’s becoming harder to connect on deeper levels today-despite all the ways we have to stay in touch. People feel more lonely, depressed, and disconnected now than decades ago and that’s because despite the proximity we have to people (text messages, social media, etc.), we lack the depth of relationship we need to make an imprint on those around us.

On the days you’re panicking or feeling like your drowning in the murky lake of your mind-I challenge you to get out of your comfort zone and go find an “open water swim” group to connect with. Learn to reach out-learn to be vulnerable-learn to be approachable-and learn to approach others. You just may find that it’s not as scary as you think-and that you’re a good “swimmer” too!

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25