I’ve been operating under the assumption that I WILL DIE if I exert myself too hard in the pool. I can feel my heart beating through my chest, and then the blood rushes to my arms, and I start to panic. Suddenly, I’m positive that I don’t have enough breath to finish my length, and . . . life was good while it lasted. . .

But today, I dealt with that faulty thinking. I started swimming at 6:30, later than I usually like. I’d rather start no later than 6, because then I could get home before the kids wake up. At least in theory.

But that wasn’t why I pushed myself to swim faster. It as another case of timing myself. As I did last time I swam, I swam four 100 IMs, and timed each one. I swam the first one at 2:47.76. I was happy about this, being almost 5 seconds faster than my fastest time last session. The second IM came in at 2:56.94. Hmmm. Couldn’t blame the wall; I was next to the rope this time. The third IM came in at 2:56.94. Even slower! That’s when I decided that I would sprint the fourth IM. Even if it killed me, because I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t. I also wasn’t sure that trying to swim faster would actually translate into a quicker time. I finished the fourth IM at 2:46.29. How about that? 10+ seconds faster than the 3rd IM, and 1+ second quicker than the first IM!

That sprint, albeit slow, did something for the rest of my set. I was able to face swimming freestyle, the stroke I’d like to increase my yards in, but that usually scares me the most that I’m going to die, because of all the exertion. I realized that no you won’t die, and that if I’d been out of water, I would have just started sweating or something. Ok, sweat I can deal with.

I was able to finally swim a 100 free without panicking, and finish out my set at 1600 total yards. I’m 200 away from a mile. Next time I plan to start my warmup with back stroke, followed by breast stroke, and then tackle 100 free. I’ll let you know how that turns out.