The first swim competition: Bergen Open Water 2015

Sometimes things go better than expected...

Os Triathlon is just a week away! As part of my training towards it, I participated in the Bergen Open Water swimming competition yesterday. The suggestion about this came from Fredrik, one of my closest colleagues and oldest friends, as a comment to my blog post about open water swimming during the summer holidays. At that time I did not really consider it that seriously, but as the time for Os started to approach, I figured I needed the experience. The options at yesterday's race were 50, 400, 1500, or 5000 meters. Since the swim distance at Os is 750 meters, I signed up for 1500 m.

I came home late Friday night after a week abroad with long hours of work, late nights and little sleep, and I was still feeling pretty exhausted yesterday morning, even after 11 hours of sleep. It was hard to imagine how I would manage to race just in a few hours, but as I was considering Bergen Open Water only as a practice for Os Triathlon, my shoulders were down and my expectations super low. I was sure that I would be slower than everybody else and come in last in my heat. I had even thought of a funny title for today's blog post: Making a fool of yourself.

Frank, my biggest supporter and fan, volunteered to come along to cheer, take pictures and assist, although it coincided with the weekly Melkesyre uphill interval session. It was great comfort to have him with me. To have some warm up, we parked at Spelhaugen, which is 1.5 km away from the start of the race at Tennebekktjørna. Although the weather report was looking good, we quickly got caught up in a heavy rain shower. Oh well, I thought, I am going to get wet anyway. But poor Frank, who would just stand there and watch, would have a harder time in wet clothes.

It took us 15 minutes to walk the path through the forest, and I could feel my heart rate increase as we got closer to the lake. At the first sight of the lake, I felt a sudden rush of nerves, and I said to Frank "I hope at least that I will be able to finish". I participated in a trial run of Os Triathlon a couple of weeks ago, and there I had a hard time at the start of the swimming session. I ran fast into the water together with the others, and tried to get ahead of the breast swimmers, and in the struggle I lost my breathing rhythm. In fact I had to completely stop and regain breath, and reset my brain before continuing, which cost me several minutes. I wanted the experience at Bergen Open Water exactly to be able to cope with such situations, but I was a bit anxious that the same thing would happen again.

Very happy to find Fredrik among the starters, and a bit intimidated to learn that he would also swim 1500 m, and not 5000 as first planned, I registered, got my swim cap, used the bathroom, and finally put on my wet suit. I had decided beforehand that I would go out into the water before the competition started to get a small warm up, to adjust the goggles and to defog them. I did this, and I think it was very useful. When I afterwards stood at the start line, I felt much calmer and ready. Fredrik and I discussed finish times, and I really had no idea what to expect. In the summer, I could swim about 2000 meters in a little more than one hour. Now, with the fast effect of the wet suit, and since there are no waves in a lake, I was hoping that I could perhaps manage 1500 meters in 40 minutes in the best case. Fredrik assured me that 40 minutes would be a piece of cake for me, but I had hard time believing him.

Then the start shot went, and instead of rushing into the water like I did at the trial of Os Triathlon, I took it easy, to make sure that I would not lose breath. I calmly went into the water and started swimming pretty slowly, to make sure that I would not miss any of the markers and gates I had to swim through. After a while I felt that I found a good rhythm and I could start going a bit faster. I had the impression that I was behind everybody else, but I started to catch up and I passed several people. My goggles were fog-free and completely tight, and everything felt good. I had no idea of time and distance while swimming. I had configured my watch to give me a buzz every 500 meters, but either it did not do it or I did not feel it. It is very difficult to see the display during swimming and I did not even bother. I was all the time preparing myself that there was probably a loooooooong way to finish yet. It is pretty funny to race in a lake you have never swum in before, especially since you cannot see things clearly. "Oh my goodness, what is that big black wall out there? Oh, it's a dam", "Oops, I was a bit too close to land here and touched a big rock", "Eeeeww, grass and seeweed"...

Suddenly, I could see the beach where we had started from and I could not believe it. Finish so soon already? I increased my speed, reached land, and got up and ran to finish, as I had read that one should do. Then I looked at my watch... 33 minutes!!! My first thought was that I must have missed one of the markers and swum too short. When I looked up the first thing I saw was Frank's face with a big smile. I pointed to my watch and looked at him with the big question in my eyes - is the time correct? He was laughing and giving me a thumb up, at the same time as nodding. I was so surprised and happy at that moment that I could not do anything but laugh.

Several minutes later,  while I was changing, people (even men) were still finishing 1500 meters, so I was definitely not the last one in my heat! And I did get a medal, so I had not missed any markers, and was clearly not disqualified. I had so low expectations for this race, both when it comes to how I would perform and also when it comes to how much I would enjoy it. It exceeded my expectations in both terms; it was in fact a lot more fun that I had thought beforehand, and I am still astonished about the finish time, especially with so little swim practice after the summer holidays.

Although it was simply half an hour's effort, and it did not feel like hard work while it was going on, I felt really tired the rest of the afternoon and evening yesterday. Today I can feel that my shoulders, chest, upper back, and arms have been through tough work; even legs are telling me that they were working hard. And I, who was planning beforehand to do a Stoltzenkleiven session right after the swim competition... well, today is a new day with new opportunities. Stoltzekleiven Opp is still my number one race this year, the only one left on my A list, and I am not sure whether training for Os Triathlon is a good priority in the period where I should rather be training for Stoltzekleiven. But in the end the whole purpose of our training is to have fun, and in a period of injury and rehab where I could not run, it has been very motivating and energizing for me to try out and accomplish new things.

Wish me luck next Sunday at Os Triathlon!