Even though the swim is the shortest part of a triathlon, plenty can go wrong as you make your way through the water. Coach Joanna Nami brings her coaching and racing experience to the podcast to help us troubleshoot the seven most common issues athletes may face during the swim portion of the race. From goggle and wetsuit issues to anxiety and the effects of water temperature, we cover it all! This episode will help ease those race-day swim fears and help you have a confident swim split!

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Hey everyone.

Welcome to the Tri Dot podcast.

Today on this show, we are talking about how to troubleshoot the seven most common race day swim problems.

We're not going to hit every possible thing that could go wrong when you're out there in the water, but we think we have a list with the most common things an athlete might face when they're swimming on race day.

And here to help us do that troubleshooting is coach Joanna Nami.

I love talking about swimming with Coach Joe.

She's been coaching triathletes for over a decade and is the head coach of Team JoJo.

She has over 20 Ironman finishes herself, including multiple trips to the Ironman World Championships and as recently as last weekend, just finished Ironman Texas.

Joe, how did that race go for you?

It went pretty well, I would say.

I did get Covid the week before racing, of course.

Of course moms and dad know what kids bring home and so I was like par for the course, very, very warm day in Texas, but was pretty pleased to come back, you know, with that effort and it's a good start for, for what's to come.

Yeah.

Great to see you and so many other tri dotters cross the finish line on that day and well, I'm Andrew, the average triathlete.

I did not race Ironman Texas last weekend, but I'm excited to get our show going today.

We're going to start like we always do with our warmup questions.

Settle in to our main set conversation where Coach Joe will help us troubleshoot some common swim race course problems and then we'll close things down with the Cooldown.

We're going to change our cooldown.

We're doing a new thing on the Cooldown.

Moving forward.

We're going to ask one audience member question every single show on the Cooldown.

Moving forward.

So excited to see what you have to ask Coach Joe when we get to that portion of the show.

Lots of good stuff.

Let's get to it.

Time to warm up.

Let's get moving.

All right, Coach Joe, into our warm up question here.

And for our warm up, while we're talking about things that can go wrong on the swim course, I want to Know Coach Joe, what is the biggest race day problem you personally have encountered during the swim portion of a race?

This was a tough one for me because I, everything that we're going to talk about today I've experienced.

I think when you've done this long enough.

Good.

Yeah.

I'm going on like 20 years of endurance racing.

I think once you've done, you know, enough Ironman half Ironman endurance racing, you're going to experience a number of these things.

And I was trying to figure out probably what was the, the worst thing that happened.

And I've had, I mean when I talk about these things, people think you're crazy.

I mean I've had as of Texas on, on Saturday, most recently I had the earring ripped out of my ear.

That was during the swim.

Fun, fun, fun times.

They weren't expensive.

I think they were from Target, so that's okay.

But did you like feel that in the moment, like you felt that happening or you just noticed later it was gone?

No, afterwards, like race photos, I was like, whoa, where's my earring?

Some bleeding there, some earring.

You know, I will say, I think shocking wise it's probably like jellyfish stings like Cozumel, Maryland.

Those are ones that, I think the last time I did Cozumel, the moment I hit the water I got stung on the lip.

My injection.

Yeah, I mean like, come on, this is going to be a great day.

Just right at you, get you on the face.

So that was, that was pretty shocking.

But it's so funny because you get through the whole day and then you're like, then you remember you got stung on the face.

Like, you know, in the moment you just, you just muddle through and you.

Yeah, but I, I will say fish things are, are tricky.

You know, getting cold cocked in the face, that, that happens routinely.

But we'll talk more about that as we go through and how we deal with those things.

Yeah, we absolutely will.

And, and this answer for me, Joe, is there's a few times I've had my, my goggles leak a little bit or fog a little bit and I had to just, you know, clear them real quick and then keep swimming.

I really haven't had, aside from just not being fit.

And I say that to say my answer here is Clash Daytona.

A few years ago I had not really actively been training.

I was running but I wasn't triathlon training and we went to Clash Daytona and I did the run portion of a relay and I did the sprint and I'm thinking, okay, I haven't really been in a pool, but it's just a sprint swim, no big deal.

This will be easy peasy.

I put my wetsuit on, I got out there and.

And the sprint at Clash Daytona, it's not like some of the Texas, like indoor pool events where it's like 300 meters and you're done.

It was a proper thousand meter swim.

Right.

Which, which is no joke.

That's no, you know, you should train for that.

Well, I didn't.

And so I get out there and even though I've done, you know, 20, 30, 40 triathlons in my time, all the way up to Ironman, yeah, I didn't have a great swim.

And I got out there and I started feeling a little anxious.

I started feeling a little claustrophobic in my wetsuit.

I started really not panicking, but getting kind of out of breath because I was so anxious and I never had those kind of problems on the swim before.

And so just goes to show you, and we'll talk about this a little later in the show.

You know, you can be a veteran, you can have gone through the motions several times and have something like swim anxiety, swim mild panic attack of sorts.

And I had to actually sit up and kind of doggy style a couple times during that swimming to get my breath under control, to get my nerves under control.

And just because I kind of went in a little overconfident.

Oh, I know how to do this.

It'll be fine that I haven't swam at all in training.

It was not fine that I hadn't swam at all in training.

I barely got through it.

And that is the biggest race day problem I've had, was just really being a little out of sorts out in the water at Clash Daytona.

Yeah.

And that was race number 30 or 40 for me in my triathlon journey.

So it can happen to anybody.

We're going to throw this question out to our audience like we always do.

I will post it to the I Am Trident Facebook group.

We'll post this to the Trident Community hub.

And this will go out on Instagram as a fun question just to kind of see.

What are your stories from swim courses?

What's the biggest race day problem you've ever had while in the water?

Can't wait to see what you, our listeners, have to say.

On to the main set.

Going in 3, 2, 1.

On to our main set.

We'll going to fly through our seven most common race day swim problems and coach Joe is going to help us troubleshoot what to do.

If we're in the water and we encounter one of these seven problems, and Joe, common swim problem number one is something going wrong with your goggles.

This is usually your goggles fogging up.

This can be your goggles getting knocked off.

And Joe, we can also kind of group swim cap problems into this one as well.

Sometimes a swim cap will actually tear when you're putting it on a race morning.

That's never good.

You know, sometimes your swim cap and your goggles can get knocked around while you're swimming.

So, Coach show, if we have problems with our goggles or with our swim cap, you know, just our head covering setup, what should we do when we're out in the water and this happens?

Well, one thing I want to preface before we get into all of these, what we talk about these go wrongs, there's, there's a way I approach this with my athletes when it comes to swim, bag, run, all triathlon.

As far as we're not going to frame it as what's going to go wrong, we're going to talk about the what ifs.

I love that.

And yeah, and so the way I prep an athlete for a half or a full ironman is to have them come up with their scariest thoughts about, like top 10 what ifs during the race, when we talk those out and have a plan of action and a practice plan of action as to what we're going to do if we have a flat, if we have mechanical on the bike, if we have a panic attack in the water, you know, if we cramp on the run, all of these things are ifs.

What ifs may not happen, could happen, but they become a lot less scary when we talk about and practice what we're going to do in each of those situations.

So for this podcast, we're going to frame these as what ifs.

What ifs this happens in the water.

What if my goggles fog up?

And I think when you frame it, that and you prepare for it and talk it out, it makes handling erased.

Because the truth is these days are very, very long.

Whether it's a half or a full, nothing goes perfectly.

And so when you've talked a lot about these things that you're worried about, they become a lot less scary and you know what to do and you learn to handle them when they occur and they don't derail you for the rest of the day.

This is kind of episode one in a series and we're going to have the same conversation.

For the bike, what are the most common Things that go wrong on the bike.

We're going to have the same conversation about the run, same conversation about race day nutrition.

And so Joe, I love you establishing this as the mindset heading into all these conversations.

So just wanted to stop and just, and just thanks for that.

A little trick that I've used for myself and it helps me mentally during these races and all of these that I've done these years.

But I even speak out loud when something happens.

I tend to giggle because I've still said it for like 20 years.

Say I, you know, I like on Saturday got hit in the face during the swim.

You get discombobulated.

I'll say to myself, reset, reset.

And I, and I, and it's, I laugh because I still do it or like I almost get clipped on the bike and my, my nerves get rattled and I say reset, breathe, reset, breathe.

And when I do it kind of triggers my mind to say get back to it girl.

You know, don't, you know, don't let this derail you.

So like kind of talk, it's a, kind of a self talk the whole time.

But resetting, you're going to reset 100 times during the day from little things that are happening.

So that's just a little tool to use to mentally kind of say it to yourself, reset, breathe.

And then let's get back to it.

But we were talking about goggles themselves.

Oh, there's so many issues with goggles.

Some of the big ones are about fogging.

This is something that's so controllable.

That's what's easy.

Everybody has a preference as to what you apply to your inside of your goggles.

There are a lot of anti fog products.

Some people like baby shampoo, some people like to spit in their goggles if you're going to go real cheap.

But you know, I'm a fan of foggies.

They're wipes that you wipe out the, the inside of your goggles.

They're multi purpose so they're amazing on aero helmet shield as well as sunglasses.

So if you give a quick wipe to all of those things before putting them in your bags or setting up your transition, you will have no problem with fogging of the goggles.

So Andrew, I don't know if you've tried those things but it really is helpful to prevent that because there's nothing like getting out and not being able to sight or see anything with fogging.

And in warmer climates we used to that here in Texas everything fogs up real quick with 100% humidity.

Yeah, so that is an issue with goggles.

Another one is, you know, them breaking them, getting lost.

I mean, that sounds like a nightmare, right?

And this, this goes back to a story one of longtime athlete that I've coached, Jeanette Anderson.

She's done quite a few Ironmans under my coaching, but she is hilarious.

One of my best friends, but she's out at the lake and, you know, I'm trying to get her.

We're gonna, you know, we're gonna swim this consistently as a confidence booster and prep for Ironman.

She gets back to the dock, she's pooped, tired.

And I said, no goggles.

Going to do one lap without those goggles.

And I mean, and she did it.

And it, when she came out, she, she was very appreciative, but she, she was mad.

But, you know, she said, I said, you never know what's going to happen.

And that would probably.

One of the worst things that happen at a swim is that, you know, you do lose your goggles.

I mean, you're losing, you're losing your sight at that point.

But is it, is it a, is it a.

Is it going to kill your race?

Absolutely not.

You practiced this.

You did it.

And you can, you can.

If you've got a breaststroke, if you've got a backstroke, you're going through that swim.

And so it's a good idea.

It's really hard, but set them on the pool deck.

Set them on the pool deck.

Do, do a hundred, do 200.

Just a little bit of practice to know that you can do it if something happens to those goggles.

Yeah, no, I absolutely love that, Joe and I kind of.

My, my cheat code here, Joe, is I've actually never used the Foggies myself and I usually don't have issues on race day.

And largely that's because I just, I just go in the race day with new.

A new set of goggles, right?

And particularly for my A races, right?

If I'm doing a half Ironman or an Ironman.

Joe, you and I actually swim in the same pair of race goggles.

We know what they are.

We love them.

They fit our face well.

And so I'm not trying something new on race day.

It's a new pair of my favorite goggle.

And when they are new, they have the manufacturer anti fog stuff on there, it's untouched, no one's done anything with it.

And I've never had a race day problem with new goggles.

If I have my goggles fog up, it's because I'm doing a local sprint or Olympic and I don't spring for a new set of goggles.

I use the ones I've been training in where I could prevent it ahead of time by using foggies that I've just never used.

So I should try that next time I go.

Short course for sure.

Yeah.

And the other two things I think about, as far as goggles go, you have to do what makes you most comfortable in a swim.

If the security of having a second pair of tucked into your wetsuit or swim skin.

If that helps you, then that's fine.

You know, a lot of my athletes ask me, you know, do I bring it on a half?

I'm usually like, you know, it's up to you.

I've never done that.

And if a full, if it makes you more comfortable, then so be it.

You know, tuck an extra pair in.

I think the most common thing that happens with goggles is due to the, the contact we experience in these, these massive swims is to get knocked in the face.

And to have that happened to me Saturday, late into the swim and it can, it can be rattling, but again, it's one of those resettlements where you just, you've got to sit up, you've got to make sure you clear that goggle of water because now you've got water in the eye, all of it, shake it out, put it back on and try to get back to flat body position as fast as you can.

If you've sustained an injury, if you've, if, if you've really been cold cocked, which has happened to me before, there is no shame and there's no penalty for getting to a kayak.

Yeah, good point.

That's happened to a number of my athletes.

And it's perfectly fine to grab hold of a buoy rope or the kayak and get yourself secure so that you can reset the goggles and then, and then proceed with the swim.

Yeah, I think every race forward I've ever done, it obviously depends on the race producer what the rules are, but I don't think I've ever done a race where this was not the case.

The rule is generally you can grab onto, support, kayak support, watercraft support, you know, of course, buoys, you cannot advance yourself on those items, but you can grab on, sit there, reset do what you need to do.

And Joe, you already kind of are getting into common swim problem number two.

So I'll go ahead and identify what that is.

And that is experiencing big time contact with another swimmer.

And sometimes, like you just said, that can affect your goggle setup because it's direct.

A direct strike to the face.

But this can be getting kicked, getting punched, getting slapped, getting dunked, swam over, sideswiped, T boned.

It's all on the table out there.

People get swam over, people just get walloped in the side and lose their breath.

If we take some big time contact, what do we do?

How do we handle it?

I think the first thing is always self check.

You have to evaluate.

You've got to keep your bearings and say, am I injured?

Am I pain or am I just stunned?

Most of the time we're just stunned, we're not injured.

And in those situations, that's a reset moment.

But I tend to focus on.

I need to find space.

I need to find space for myself.

So that's okay to sit up for a moment.

If you are in the mix like thousands of swimmers, there's just no room to swim.

Maybe that means scooting to the left or right, get to the side, find some space for yourself.

You don't want to battle.

You know, I tend to start the swim up front.

You know, there is a lot, lot of big guys that, you know, think they're going to win the iron man that day.

I mean, they are.

They're all set to, you know, beat Christian Blumenfeld on, you know, the moment moment the gun blows.

They're, they're out to, to dominate that swim.

And it's, you know, I, I tend, it tends to fuel me when I get Cole cock.

And I tend to have choice words for some.

Give a retaliate Joe, just kind of give him an elbow or let him know, hey, someone's over here.

Yeah, I've said things underwater thinking, can they hear me?

Can they hear my words?

But it's.

I have to, I have to tend to reign myself in and think, okay, what am I doing in this moment?

I'm not injured.

I'm going to scoot to the side of this big guy because I don't want to battle him anymore.

He's, you know, he's kicked me.

He's, you know, all of the things.

But if in the instance that you do feel like you've suffered an injury.

I had an instance, I think it was in Cozumel one year where I contemplated whether I had a Broken nose, you know, I mean, there, there, there are situations where, and sometimes it takes a few minutes where slow your stroke down, focus on swim form.

Breathe every stroke to your natural side.

Make sure you're securing good inhale and exhale, because sometimes that will alleviate pain and kind of bring you back to a center where you're like, I'm okay, I'm okay.

It's kind of settling yourself down.

You know, in those moments your adrenaline spikes, your heart rate spikes.

You don't want to just gun it because that's, that's not good for you as far as the full swim or the full day.

So kind of reining yourself back and kind of checking on yourself, seeing if you're, you're okay to continue.

If you are not okay to continue, you're going to know pretty quickly.

And that's when you need to be smart about safety and your own health and flagging down help or getting to a kayak, you know, contact is just, that's the name of the game.

It is a lot better than it used to be when we had mass starts.

So, you know, I, I, I encourage guys out there, girls out there, to be respectful of other swimmers around them.

Um, we're not going to win it in that first 500 yards of the Ironman.

So, you know, having some courtesy and care for those around you is important.

I have to remind myself like, like it's not personal.

They just didn't see me.

They have no idea I'm right there in the water.

And so sometimes I'll just give like a slight little shove, right, Just to, just to create a little space for myself, to let them, kind of let them know, hey, somebody is right here.

And I've been on the other side that, right?

You're swimming along, you think you're all alone, and all of a sudden you feel your arm hit somebody.

Oh.

Oh, shoot.

So sorry.

I didn't know you were there.

You know, look kind of look over.

And so it's just, we're all trying to figure it out in the dark, right?

We're all looking down in the water, not always aware of where each other are.

So just don't, don't take it personally unless it is personal.

Sometimes it is personal.

That's a different story.

Just making faces comment.

But before we encourage fighting in the water, common swim problem number three is having your muscles cramped or seize up or tingle a little bit while you're swimming.

Cramps are obviously never fun on race day in any of the disciplines, but they can be extra Bothersome when we're in the water.

Coach Joe, what should we do if we start feeling a muscle cramp up a little bit?

This is really, this is a very tricky subject because a lot of triathletes have asked me and said, I don't cramp any other time or barely swam 200 yards.

And, you know, I can give all the, the token answers as to say, make sure you take a salt tab before you get in the water.

Make sure, you know, you've had bananas and your potassium and sodium are high.

It seems not to come back to what they've taken in.

I.

I've tried to analyze it a bunch in my head.

A lot of times.

I think we are, you know, so full of adrenaline and nerves.

There's a lot of muscle contraction when we start the swim due to ankle flexibility.

A lot of people have far more flexed foot when they're kicking, and I think a lot of these factors lean into them.

Experiencing muscle cramps in the foot and in the calf, that's the most common that I see it.

What I've tried to practice with my athletes is to have them, again, we're practicing to prevent cramping during race situation, but even practicing to prevent it during workouts is to have them practice with a kickboard.

This relaxed kicking, meaning I want you to sit in a chair and I want you to.

Or stand and practice like you're kicking a soccer ball.

Like, the flexion of the ankle would be just like kind of floppy feet.

And they think it's kind of silly when I have them practice it, but I'm like, okay, now we've done it on dry land.

Let's take it to a kickboard.

Hands at 10 and 2, head out of the water.

I want you to just focus on a really relaxed flexion of the foot like you're kicking a soccer ball.

And then they try to mirror that when they're doing their stroke.

You know, again, this sounds silly, but the more and more they practice that, that's a muscle memory thing.

It's the same thing with the, you know, when I talk about a beat of a kick and how your beat of a kick, you know, relates to your pull.

You can't master a beat of a kick unless you've practiced that a tremendous amount in the pool.

And to master that just becomes muscle memory of how we're going to kick to a beat.

So it's the same thing with relaxing the feet, that flexion of the ankle.

And the more and more you practice it, that becomes your kick when you're racing in open water, you know what, this kind of relates back to what we talked about.

When you get cold cocked or hit during the swim, you know, if you do experience cramping in the, in a race, you're at one of those what if moments.

What am I going to do again?

Reset.

But this is where the breathe comes really into play.

This is where you have to think, I need to focus on getting as flat as possible, push my chest down, take some of the weight off my hips and legs, let them kind of float behind me, make this more of an upper body stroke at this moment, let me get really flat, focus on a strong pull and I'm going to give my legs a little bit of a break for a minute.

They're going to kind of just flail behind me for a little bit.

And when you breathe natural side, every stroke fully oxygenated, we can often let those calf foot calm down a little bit and that reset will be enough to get away with cramping and finish them.

When this happens to me on race day, it's exactly what you're talking about.

You start feeling, it's not like a Charlie horse Caesar, right?

It's just, it's usually those muscles kind of just letting you know, like, I'm not used to doing this for this long in this weird position.

And the more you swim, the more you get in the pool, the more you go longer distances, the more your body gets used to it.

Love all your suggestions, Joe, for how to even try to prevent that before you get in a race situation.

And if you're in a race situation, as you're going through the body cues of just, okay, put more onto your arms, relax your body, relax your legs.

I found myself just trying to rehearse that sitting here at my desk because just keep moving forward.

And I've never had, Joe, I've never gotten onto the bike or the run and had those cramps.

Follow me.

It's very unique to being horizontal in the water.

And once you're out of that situation, like your legs kind of return, the blood flow returns to normal and your body, your legs are turned to normal.

So common swim problem number four.

This is what kind of my story from the warm up question.

Suffering a panic attack or other form of fight or flight anxiety during a swim.

This can happen to beginners as well as experienced triathletes like myself.

It can be somewhat expected.

Like you went into the swim already nervous and so you thought you might freak out.

Or it can be unexpected, like it was for me, when I got into the water, having never had any issues before.

But, Joe, if we're in the water and we start to panic, feel nervous, feel claustrophobic, I know a lot of people in their first wetsuit swimming, they feel claustrophobic.

You've got a wetsuit, neoprene, hugging your body, you've got a swim cap on, you've got goggles on.

People, people can.

Can lose their.

Their heads a little bit.

What do we do if this happens to us in the water?

And this is another one.

This is probably the one I get most questions about.

And a lot of athletes experience this.

And the thing that's amazing about this, you can be the most advanced swimmer.

You can be a collegiate swimmer who is Athlon, and they'll experience it for the first time, you know, and they're like, I don't know what happened to me.

I'm a very gifted sw.

So, you know, anxiety, panic attack can sneak up on anybody in life and in the pool.

And so, you know, you know, this is, this is one thing that I do always kind of all of these issues we're talking about, I relate back to before we race, what is going on?

And that's where.

When I, when I coach athletes as to open water swimming and as to the what if.

Of what happens when we have a panic attack or anxiety, I relate it back to.

There's going to be anxiety all day, but usually that anxiousness or those extreme nerves are starting way before we start the race.

If we can somehow calm our nervous system, lower our heart rate, distract ourselves a little bit from the race environment around us, calm ourselves, we're much more likely, if we're in a calmer state, to start the race, to be less anxious.

That's building.

If we are all nerves, about to throw up all of these things as we, as we start the race, we're setting ourselves up to be very anxious to experience a panic attack, to be set off at any moment when.

If someone touches us or if someone grabs us or we can't catch our breath, all of those things, you know, and you, you're so sick of hearing me talk about it.

But when I do talk about box breathing, yoga technique of, you know, of controlling our breath, calming our nervous system, anyone can Google box breathing or check it out on YouTube.

There's lots of people that talk about a lot of yogis out there.

It's a technique I use when I'm flying because I'm not a good flyer.

You know, those are things that you can Use in all aspects of life that help you in situations that are just very rattling.

And so I encourage, I mean I had a guy that just did Texas and I mean to have him have to.

The house I just moved to is on a lake.

So I had a lot of my swimmers out practicing with me at my own house and but to have this big guy, I'm like, okay, we're going to stand here together and practice box breathing.

And he was like, oh, I mean like it was such an eye opening experience for him.

I said use this in all aspects of life.

But I will guarantee you if you practice it for the 10 minutes that you are walking in that line to enter the water, you're going to be in a much better place.

When you enter that water, you're going to, you're going to feel calm.

You know, I tell them two things.

We're going to box, breathe for 10 minutes and then we're going to smile when we hit that water because we've made it.

We, we've survived the training and we've made it in that, in that state.

It still happens that we, these things happen in the water.

Our goggles get knocked off, we inhale, we get hit.

Panic attack is very, very, very, very common.

I don't want people to feel like they can't enter triathlon or they, they a swim because they've experienced panic attacks or anxiety in the water.

It has happened to everyone.

What do we do in those situations?

This is a very, very important thing is that we have a go to plan and I, I make them repeat it to me.

What is your go to plan?

And you're going to panic.

What are you going to do?

Some people that's, I got to flip on my back, I got to take some deep breaths.

Other people, I've got a breaststroke.

I had an athlete, she'll know who she is.

Tiffany Goada, who said came out of Ironman, Texas and said I sidestroked the whole thing.

I mean sometimes you gotta do what you have to do.

Yeah, got it done.

If you're experienced, yes.

You know, and so go to plan is important, but it's not effective unless it is practiced.

So you know, jokingly, during swim sessions with, you know, my athletes, if we're working on stroke at the pool, I yell go to.

They know exactly what that means.

Some are flipping on their back, some are breaststroking, you know, some are getting us to the lane rope as fast as they can.

Nothing wrong with looking for a kayak or a buoy and resetting saying I need three minutes right here to be able to breathe without being underwater and I need to calm myself down and my heart rate down and then I can get back to swimming.

So if I can emphasize anything the most, it's that that go to plan has to be practiced and I still practice mine.

So, you know, I really want athletes out there to formulate that go to plan for themselves or send me questions about how do I figure out what's best for me and then talk about practicing that so that you can implement it when it comes to race day.

Yeah, absolutely.

Love that, Joe.

And I think for me, when I was experiencing that in Daytona, and this is easy for me to say because that was, it was a race I was doing for fun, to be a part of the trout community there in Daytona, I wasn't gunning for a certain time or a PR or something, but, but these can be moments where if, if you're so caught up on swimming a certain time or hitting a certain time on the day and, and you know, you've had 1, 2, 3 mini panic attacks and you're out of breath and you're struggling in the water and, and if you're still holding on to that goal, is that like at a certain point, like you'll have to switch mindsets to, to let me just finish this swim and, and just let your.

Because that will relax.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let me get to the next buoy.

That's a great point, Joe.

Really chunk it.

Let me get to the next buoy and, and try to stay relaxed, keep your head in the water, breathe to your favorite side, all the things we're talking about and then once you're out of the water.

Okay, well, let's, let's return to, let's evaluate where we're at with our time and maybe, maybe, maybe you can keep the A goal, maybe you move on to the B goal.

But at a certain point, like if you're trying to hold on to something that is continuing to trigger more getting out of breath, more feeling anxious, more panic attacks, let that go and let the next buoy and that swim finish line and that swim out be the next goal.

There's one more thing I want to mention here because sometimes we don't find ourselves in a full blown panic attack or crawling out of our skin situation, but we can feel it sneaking up.

We can feel nerves there is there.

This applies to a lot of things that we experience in these what if moments, but a lot of it is distraction.

This is really psychology behind swimming.

It is distraction.

If we can trick the mind into focusing on something else.

The mind doesn't have time to be focusing on.

Oh, my God, I'm getting nervous now.

I feel like I can't breathe.

I feel like I'm out of breath.

All of these sneaky thoughts that creep into us.

And the two things that have been most effective when it comes to coaching athletes for me has been counting stroke.

Counting stroke.

If you can say, I'm going to count 50 strokes.

There is something about refocusing that shifts your mind away from nerves and feeling like, I can't, my day is over.

It's all coming down on me right now in this moment.

For other people, a mantra or repeating something that's comforting words or humming and singing a song.

Something about humming reverses those feelings of anxiousness.

You know, people will hum because it's a calming.

It's a calming mechanism that, you know, kids do.

You see them hum if they're nervous.

So those are a couple of things that I encourage.

But again, all of them have to be practiced.

So getting out in open water, getting in some, you know, some current, getting in some choppy water, those are great experiences for being like, okay, I'm starting to feel a little bit of nerves here.

I'm going to go ahead and sing, you know, the next song from Jelly Roll.

I don't know, you're going to, you know, whatever it is for you.

But sometimes picking a favorite song, it's hard to sing that song and focus on the nerves that are building.

I, I've, I've done quite a bit of people watching as I swim.

I'm sure you have as well.

I mean, just start, start focusing on people around you and, you know, count, count how many people you, you see with the same wetsuit as you like.

Oh, oh, there's a sailfish.

There's a sailfish.

There's a roka.

There's a roka.

You know, you might notice somebody and be like, oh, man, that guy's got a ridiculous, like, stroke.

Like, just start, I mean, start, like, start.

Start watching how people swim and start noticing the people and the things around you.

Coach Joe Common swim problem number five is dealing with the effects of cold water.

We could talk about extra warm water a little bit as well, but I think cold water is more what people struggle with a little bit more frequently.

In Texas, we do with warm water quite a bit.

But, Joe, this can be numbness in the arms and legs that people experience.

This can be getting body shivers as you're swimming.

This can be even the early signs of hypothermia.

But if we're out in the water and we find ourselves being impacted by the cold water, what should we do?

This is one.

In all my years of racing, I think that the toughest race and in the effects of cold water on me when I probably Arizona, I think that was two years ago.

I think the water was about 57 degrees.

It's very tricky in dealing with that.

Some of us hate cold.

I hate cold.

I'd rather not swim in a wetsuit, 100%.

But get on a given day, you're given a very cold swim and I know you've experienced those too.

Andrew.

There is a, a number of things we can do physically to prep ourselves for a cold swim.

Secondly, there are those mental tricks that, that we, some of them we've already talked about.

You know, swimming in cold water pre race is great.

The shock value of entering that water, how it feels kind of takes your breath away.

The burning on the face, all of these things.

The burning on the hands.

And we feel.

Racing St.

George, for instance, it was a great idea to get in the water two times before the race there because it wasn't as shocking.

You know, it didn't.

My nerves were much more settled.

I knew what I was going to experience.

So that's a number one.

Number two is what can we do to the body itself to keep it as warm as possible before we enter that water.

We want to start out as warm as possible before we hit that water because we're going to lose body heat real quick.

One great thing, my friend and co coach John Mayfield has always talked about a thermos of warm water.

Sounds silly, but I was the first one at Arizona to pour that down my wetsuit to get that warm water in my body.

Your body continues to warm that water.

When you enter the water, you then have this barrier.

You do, of course, cold water is going to enter the wetsuit, but it's super tight and you have that layer of warm water already keeping your body warmer.

Secondly, what are we going to do to protect our face, exposed areas.

And that's going to be, go ahead and lube up.

You're going to need to take aquifer, Vaseline, something that's a barrier or a skin protectant.

And I, it's, it's, it's gross.

I mean, I vaselined my face, my hands, I didn't do the palms because you're not going to be able to grip anything for the next four days if you do Too much Vaseline.

But the back of your hands, your feet, your ankles, neck, anything that's going to be exposed, it creates a barrier and it keeps you warmer.

Lastly, well, two more things you can.

You see, sometimes swimmers swim in booties or skull caps.

Skull cap is very, it's not uncomfortable.

That's in, in Coeur d' Alene, I did wear a skull cap due to the water temperature.

Booties are a little bit, they fill with water and they cause a lot of drag.

So that's very tricky unless you get some super good fitting booties to protect your feet.

And then lastly is a double cap.

Double cap is a great idea.

Even if you take a latex under a silicone, they don't have to.

That kind of, that combination latex and silicone has worked well for me.

They don't slip, but it definitely keeps the head warmer and we lose a lot of body warmth through our scalp, through our, through the head.

So that is, that, that works well.

So now you've completely covered yourself with Vaseline, warm water wetsuit double cap.

You're as warm as possible.

But also layering.

Don't be standing out there in your, in your, in your kit with your, with your wetsuit down.

You know, when it's 40 degrees outside, stay warm, keep your feet, keep sauce on, keep your feet covered until the last possible moment when you take those things off.

Now, mentally, when we get in the water, we're going to have that shock moment no matter what we do.

And that's.

It goes back to everything we've talked about.

Focusing on body position.

I'm going to stay as flat as possible.

I'm going to breathe to my natural side every stroke.

I'm going to keep as much oxygen in this body as I can because that's going to calm my nervous system.

That's going to keep my breath under control and keep my heart rate down.

Cold will, will cause, you know, nerves, heart rate.

All of that's going to kind of go into what you said, you know, that, that scary mode of what am I going to do at this point?

But you know, focusing on breathing every stroke is going to keep you calmer.

And lastly, I have so much.

I could talk about this.

I could go on for 17 days.

So I'm trying to concise this is.

Why I only booked you for this episode.

I don't need anybody else for this joke.

And cover it up.

She's a talker, man.

She can talk.

I mean, I'm just like, shut up.

But you know, when I talk about the, the distraction mechanism when it comes to cold.

It's, it's a, it's a game changer because that's something you should practice in that.

I'm going to count my strokes or check out, you know, the wetsuits around me or landmarks.

You've got to have something.

Singing for me was a big one during Arizona because I was like, I think I sang I am so cold.

Like, I mean, I think it became a song that I created.

But anything to kind of make me laugh and like, you know, to lessen the severity of the moment.

It's going to help you.

Yeah, love all that, Joe.

And, and just, it's almost like marginal gains on the bike, right?

Like, we look for ways to, to marginally be a little bit faster on the bike.

You're talking about pairing 5, 6, 7 different ways to be marginally warmer on your swim and letting all of that kind of help see you through to the finish.

If you go in with a plan and like Joe said, have a plan for what am I going to do when I start shivering a little bit on the swim?

I'm going to distract myself.

I'm going to double down on my warming measures.

I might pee in my wetsuit.

Whatever it takes.

Lots of good stuff there.

So two more common swim problems to talk about.

This next one, Joe, is common swim problem number six.

This is experiencing chafing or rubbing from your wetsuit.

I personally, Joe, have only had this problem on salt water races and I don't race in saltwater often enough to remember that.

And so I almost always end up getting chafed from saltwater events.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.

Because there's salt water.

I should have done more.

But talk to us about.

It's one thing, I think, to notice it after the swim, like the next day or something, but if we're out there and we can feel the rubbing begin to happen and it starts to become bothersome, what should we do?

Definitely it's always that aha moment when you get in the shower after the race and you're like, like blood curdling because you're like, oh, I didn't know I had that.

That's.

That's new.

You know, chafing in, in open water, it's definitely.

You tend to, tend to have that occur a lot more often in those saltwater swims.

I mean, I felt like Kona was probably some of the worst chafing in a swim skin of all things, because I just don't think you're expecting that that's going to happen just due to, you know, how, how different the water is than we're swimming, lake or river.

Your most common areas you're going to see on people is the back of their neck.

In saltwater, you'll often see the side of the neck, you know, and then for my athletes, often under the arm as far as wearing a sleeveless wetsuit or a swim skin.

So a couple of things.

Any anti chafe product you can, specific anti chafe products or Aquifer, Vaseline, anything that's cheap, more is better.

So make sure that you've applied it to all those areas that you've experienced it.

Yeah.

The chafing in the back of the neck is often due to how much we're sighting, how much of, you know, how much tilt we have in our stroke.

You know, now we've, we're sitting up, our chest, upper torso is now rising, head is up.

When we do, when we lift that neck, you know, we're exposing the back of the neck to just that rough Velcro, that latch on the wetsuit.

So most of the time you'll, you'll realize that you cited a whole bunch when you have chafing back there.

So, you know, ways to prevent that is getting better at sighting, you know, and we talk about this.

You just mentioned you can see wetsuits to your left and right.

If you can see swimmers to their left and right, you're in the right spot.

You're you.

You know, it becomes habit to pick our head up every three strokes because we, we have fear.

We, we are blind and we can't see.

But noticing where you are swimming with other swimmers around you, you know, having a group and saying we're going to swim from here to that point in the lake or that buoy, you know, when you do that and you could see swimmers to your left and right, it, you don't need to pick your head up.

You know, try counting to 50 before you pick your head up.

So, you know, kind of eliminating that unnecessary sighting will help prevent the chafing on the back of the neck.

I had a couple more things.

Let me think on this for a second.

Oh, yeah.

Specifically, what I've used, and it's been very helpful, is sports tape, rock tape.

You know, when people just inevitably are going to chafe and it's going to derail the rest of their race.

I had an athlete who had some severe chafing, you know, on the upper part of underneath the arm that, you know, then running became very, very, very painful for the rest of the Ironman.

So when you know that's going to happen, rock tape will not come off during, during an Ironman event.

So, you know, putting a small section on the back of your neck or on the side of your neck, if you're going to be in salt water swim skin or underneath those arm, it's going to save you tremendous amount of pain.

And so if, you know, you always do use the rock tape and it will be very helpful in preventing that chafing.

Yeah, I know.

Another thing to look out for, Joe, is when you are putting your swim skin on, you're putting your wetsuit on, make sure there's no Velcro exposed to your body if you're putting it on properly, right?

Having somebody help you and make sure the leash is squared away properly and the Velcro isn't touching you.

I think the first time I ever had, it's called a wetsuit hickey, right?

When your wetsuit, like, burns, burns you somewhere on your neck, then they call it a wetsuit hickey.

My very first open water event and Lake Rockwall in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.

I had a wetsuit hickey rolling in the work on Monday after that race, Olympic distance triathlon.

And I just didn't, I didn't secure the wetsuit properly.

It was the exact spot where there's Velcro, the Velcro attached.

And I was just too novice at the time to know to look for that.

And now I know.

Okay, make sure someone gets eyes on my wetsuit to make sure the leash on Jazz isn't going to be rubbing my neck throughout that event.

And two, I think the other time I've really had it happen is again, in saltwater or if I'm wearing like a sleeveless tri suit or even a sleeve tri suit.

Know where your zippers are.

Know where the, the stitching is.

Because if you've got your triathlon suit on under that wetsuit and maybe you put your lubrication in the right spots where your wetsuit comes into contact, but you didn't lube where the edge of your tri suit is.

That can also rub during a swim event.

Then all of a sudden you've got all these marks where your tri kit comes into contact with your skin, but not your wetsuit.

So just be aware of all those contact points, right?

And Joe, like you said, lube them judiciously or generously.

You're exactly right.

I will say the zipper, the belly button and the heart rate monitor for Women under.

I mean men too, but for women it can be excruciating.

So more is better when it comes to anti chafe products.

Yeah, don't be shy with those products.

Lather up.

Joe.

Common swim problem number seven is having problems getting your wetsuit on or off.

So this isn't really a problem in the water itself, but this is a problem right before you start the race when you're getting the wetsuit on or in T1 when you're trying to get to the bike portion of the race.

Some people get stuck, right?

They get stuck, their foot gets stuck.

They have problems just getting that neoprene off and peeling it off quickly and efficiently.

I've seen people in transition start to panic and then their heart rate spikes and it takes them even longer to get that wetsuit off.

So talk to us about this.

How can we.

Even if you're practicing this, I think it's going to happen.

So if you find yourself having wetsuit issues, getting it off, what do we do on race day?

You know, this is a really important question and it's really twofold.

So we're talking about getting it on properly, we're talking about getting it off properly, getting it on.

One thing that I relay to my athletes now with how Ironman events are run, half or full, they are lining up athletes way early.

Athletes are getting in line behind their designated sign for swim time very early.

We're looking at an hour before swim start.

So what happens is, you know, you're very nervous, you're not paying very close to time and then there's a mad rush to get that wetsuit on.

So when I talk to them about when that transition is set up and you are at swim site, you are getting that wetsuit on, you're going to get it up to hip because each if it is a good fitting wetsuit, it's going to take 20 minutes to get it feeling perfect.

And that means you have to start way down at the ankle.

We need to get this wetsuit as high as possible to ensure very good shoulder mobility.

Nothing sucks more than having it pulling on your shoulders because we didn't get that wetsuit high enough often.

This takes an assistant.

We need help.

We need somebody once we've got it up the hip to give us a really, as Jeanette Anderson or Shannon Cranston will say, who are both tried out athletes, I need someone to give me a good wedgie on this.

I want a neoprene wedgie on race, neoprene wedgie.

Get this sucker as high as we can.

So it's very important to allow yourself enough time to get that wetsuit on properly.

Part of that comfort level of attaching the back of that wetsuit, so, you know, make sure you're not choking yourself out by attaching it.

You know, I like to leave it a little bit looser.

It gives you a little bit more feeling that you can breathe.

So that's important as far as getting it on.

Second is baggies on the feet, gloves on the hand.

That's helpful for making sure we don't tear that super expensive wetsuit we've just invested in.

And also another technique John Mayfield uses is to pull from the inside of the fabric.

So when you have it on your legs and you've got it your ankles into the.

Into the, the leg holes, use the interior to pull and you will not be able to tear the wetsuit as you're pulling it up.

So that's.

Those are just some techniques, you know, some people will glide their ankles, lube their ankles and hands, and if it's a very tight wetsuit, to get it on more easily.

The question then becomes, we've swam, we're kind of discombobulated, we're coming out of the water.

And this is something I have my athletes practice religiously is pull your goggles up, but don't take them off, because then you've got goggles or swim cap in hand and you're trying to take a wetsuit off, it just becomes hot.

Yeah, you're a hot mess at that point.

So the point is, lift them up.

Now I can see, not blind, but let's just leave what we have up here going on.

Let's just leave two hands, and then.

You have two hands to work with.

And, you know, in Azure finishing swim, that last 100 yards, mentally, you know the imagery of what I'm doing step by step.

So for me, when I'm swimming in, I'm like, goggles up, unlatch the top, pull the stream down.

Like, sometimes you got to say these things to yourself, and you're going to have a much faster transition onto the bike, an easier time getting that wetsuit off.

Take advantage of help when you can get it during a race.

So do not be shy.

You're going to have to throw yourself down on your back.

Once that wetsuit is down to the hip, it is amazing how they can pull a wetsuit off in 2.5 seconds.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, they throw it at you.

You're up and you're on.

You're on your way.

There are instances, as I relate back to like Arizona and that we, we still weren't having the peelers, you know, assistant in that, in that point.

Volunteers can help you in transition.

They are allowed to touch you.

It's like, you know, if you say, can you help me?

You know, they can definitely help you.

If you have, for some reason couldn't get it unlatched or couldn't find the string or your hands are too cold to handle anything, a volunteer can, can help you.

If you ask them that.

That's within the rules.

If you're just, if, if you are on your own getting it down to your hip, it becomes that, that leg game of which leg can I step on first to pull, you know, and to get it off.

But also, if you're really struggling, don't hesitate to sit down, let your heart rate come down, take some deep breaths.

You're probably not going to win this race.

On the 15 seconds you, you choose to sit down to get that wetsuit off.

So if it's going to make for a smoother transition and a smoother start to getting onto that bike, just a, just settle down for a minute, sit down and take your time and remove the wetsuit.

Yeah.

The only time, Joe, I've ever had a problem getting my wetsuit off is if it gets caught on my timing chip around my ankle, right?

Because we can practice this like when we're doing our open water swim training around town.

We can practice this in our hotel rooms or our homes.

Taking the wetsuit on, putting the wetsuit on, taking it off.

But you can't really simulate that, that timing chip being on the ankle unless you happen to have one at home or maybe get creative with something different at home.

But that, that I never think about it until all of a sudden, like, oh, man, I've got all this neoprene bundled up around my ankle.

It's clearly caught in a timing chip.

And just like I said, all I can do is sit down right, not rush myself, not spike the heart rate, just, just finagle it off with my hands, take as long as it takes and I'll get that time back.

Not letting my heart rate spike bike, right.

Once I'm on the bike, Joe, I'm gonna ask this.

This is not in the official marks, but I'm gonna call this the unofficial bonus.

Swim problem number eight.

What do you tell an athlete to do if they're in their wetsuit and they gotta pee, they gotta go to the bathroom.

You can be like you said, like, sometimes you're queued up an hour before the race in your wetsuit.

Sometimes, you know, if it's gonna take you an hour and 20 minutes, hour and 40 minutes to do the swim, leg up the race.

You're out there in the water and all of a sudden, man, I gotta pee.

What do you do?

How do you relieve yourself once you're in that wetsuit?

I'm gonna tell you something, Andrew.

I must be in.

Been in this sport way too long or I've lost too much femininity in this sport.

Or I've raised three sons and I just have, you know, again, it's like when you wanted, when you wanted someone to talk about the ones and twos of triathlon.

I didn't even understand why anybody would hesitate.

I'm like, this is a major part of our race day, guys.

If you are standing in line at an Ironman and there is a full line of puddle underneath your feet and no one has gotten in the water, there's your sign.

Everyone has peed.

Everyone has peed.

You know, maybe it's because I've carried three big boy babies that it's not even an option for me.

It becomes, oh, I guess I'm peeing.

I mean, you don't even know.

At some points, nerves are playing into that anxiety.

We hydrated like crazy people for three days.

Just let it go, let it go.

Just be free, you know, I think it's much easier to pee when you're about to enter the water than you.

Than when you're all nervous and in the middle of a swim stroke as far as.

Yeah, it becomes, that becomes.

The bigger problem is how do I pee in the water?

And for that I, I've instructed a lot of my athletes.

Most of the time you've got to do breaststroke.

You've got to relax enough.

Yeah.

Because doing full stroke freestyle becomes very difficult to pee in the water.

But you know, it is a great opportunity if you can do a few strokes of breaststroke to, to go ahead and pee so you don't have that urgency when you get into transition or onto the bike.

Sorry if that's gross, but you know, I am who I am.

It's a growth sport.

It's a gross sport.

Great set, everyone.

Let's cool down onto the cool down portion of the show.

And I'm excited for this switch.

We've had podcast co host Vanessa Roxley for over a year now, has been doing a Coach Cooldown tip on the cool down portion of our show where she has a different Coach, come on and just give us a quick training tip.

And that's been a really fun way to feature some coaches that don't come on the podcast regularly.

But we are switching gears a little bit here to have our cooldowns now feature a question from the audience.

We get questions all the time, sometimes through Facebook, sometimes through the community hub, sometimes I'll get direct messages from people.

We do have a podcast voicemail system on the website and every now and then someone will leave a voicemail.

And so, yeah, every 25 episodes we'll do an audience Q and A episode, but that's roughly twice a year for our show.

And so, yeah, we just want to get more direct questions from you, our audience.

If you ever have one, ping me, reach out, find the voicemail on the website, hit us up, tag me or Sarah Burney or one of our coaches on the I'm trying to Facebook group.

Let us know what your questions are.

And every show I'm going to ask the coaches on that show one audience member question and coach Joe for today's question.

This comes from Michelle.

She said, I get lots of swim sets that include 25s and she says, I swim in a 50 meter pool.

So what is the best way in those training sessions to adjust?

I'm in a 50 meter pool, trot's giving me a 25 meter interval.

How can we adjust to kind of make that work with the pool that we have?

I really love this question because it's an opportunity to explain one concept that I use a lot with my athletes as far as it's very tricky in pool swimming to master pace in, in, in, you know, GPS isn't always super accurate when we're talking about, you know, what are, how many laps we've done.

I get a lot of questions about that or you know, it's, it's missing yardage for me.

I'm not, you know, I'm not getting full credit for, you know, my workout or it says I did 75 versus 50.

You know, all of these questions and one thing I related them and it works well for open water as well as pool swimming is the concept of RPE or rate of perceived exertion.

So when I'm talking to them about this, I'm talking about you need to start feeling what zone one, zone two would feel like.

When I talk about zone one and two, I talk about very comfortable, easy swimming, focusing on stroke, drilling.

That's what I define for there.

Zone three, I talk about, okay, we're going to push a little Bit we're going to talk about maybe 50% effort, 50% of all out.

Zone four, we've moved on to 75% effort.

We're talking about almost all out, but we're not killing ourselves yet.

Then zone five, zone six, we're going all out.

We're putting pedal to the metal.

We are, we're, we're full force ahead.

I think her question, Michelle's question is great because you can use that sense of RPE.

Say for instance, she has a 25 meter interval at zone 5.

It's, it's a fast interval.

She needs, she needs to really push it.

And usually the short intervals are short and hard, right?

Yeah.

So there's two ways she can do it.

She can use, you know, she can kind of in her mind estimate what half the pool is.

You know, sometimes that's marked, sometimes it's not.

Different pools, you know, so she can give full force effort.

Zone five, pushing hard, half the pool.

Then ease out, relax into it and recover on that second 25.

Another thing she can do is to have a gauge of what half the pool is.

She can beforehand or a session beforehand.

She can push a 50, push the whole 50 and count her stroke rate.

Then divide that by two.

And you've come up with, come up math.

You know, I'm no mathematician, you know, come up with we, you know, If I swim 25 strokes at, you know, full force, that's equivalent to a 25 if I was in a 25 pool or close to it.

It's not going to be an exact science, but the purpose of the interval will be satisfied is that it was to push her for 25.

You don't get the recovery where you're sitting, but you can make that a very easy, you know, switch to breaststroke, turn on your back, you know, drill, you know, for the, for the, for the remainder of the lap.

So that would be my advice.

It's tricky when you are assigned intervals or workouts that don't really work with, you know, a 50 meter pool.

But we have to do the best we can.

And that satisfies the purpose of that interval.

Yeah, we get questions like this, Joe, that take different forms.

Right.

Some people swim in 33 meter long pools.

So none of the intervals really, you know, there's so many edge cases with what, what is the size of your body of water?

So people tether themselves in the backyard.

How do I do the training?

If, if.

I don't know if Michelle does or not.

But if you're an athlete listening to this and you encounter something like this and you have the smart goggles.

You know, whether they're form smart goggles or otherwise.

Really, when trynout is giving you that distance, it's not the distance.

Try not really cares about.

Try not cares about the time.

Try not cares about how long you've been swimming at a certain intensity.

And so if you know, oh my 25 at zone 5 to go off Joanna's example is going to take me 20 seconds to get across the 25 yard pool, swim in zone five for 20 seconds and then brushstroke the rest of the way.

And you know, your train x4 might end up being a little skewed because your pool just isn't the right fit for the way the workout was prescribed.

But you're going to be spending the right amount of time in the appropriate zone.

Now, if you're swimming off your watch or the pace clock, actually the pace clock might work well for this, for everybody.

Joe, if there's a pace clock at the pool where you're swimming, you know, you just keep an eye on it when you're taking a breath and once you've hit 20 seconds at your zone, ease off and get yourself to the wall.

So yeah, lots of good ideas here for how to execute that.

Your training score probably isn't going to clock in being perfect, but you'll walk away knowing I did the best I could with kind of the training environment that I have.

Thanks for joining us.

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