On the Tuesday evening before Durban, I had an hour-long low heart rate run on my programme and Nicola joined. Within 100m I was gasping for breath, and I was grateful for the robots stopping us, so I could try compose myself. We continued slowly, but I couldn’ t get air into my lungs, and was worrying what on earth was wrong. I messaged Coach Dave Sullivan that something was up. I couldn’ t breath and was lacking energy, but I didn’ t feel sick. Could it be chlorine poisoning from all the swimming in training? Jokingly I briefly mentioned maybe I’ ve a blood clot? I had read an article about Helen Ellison who had suffered from a deep vein thrombosis( DVT) and one of her symptoms was being unable to breathe. I told Dave I’ d do some research and also asked him to make sure I was alive in the morning.( Looking back, I now realise that this was not a joke!) I tried swimming the next morning, but gave up after 2km. I went out for a spin on my bike in the afternoon, to check everything was in order before I boxed it for Durban, and I felt ok … but it was just an easy spin and my heart rate seemed normal. I ditched my swim on Thursday morning – I thought I needed to get the chlorine out of my system! I had another hour easy run planned for the evening with Dave. It was flat. It wasn’ t easy. I was gasping for air at 6:30min / km pace, but I told Dave I would be fine by Sunday and I would
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just listen to my body and go at whatever pace I was able to.
Panic Attack
I flew up to Durban on Friday and tried to do very little except registering, walking round the expo and walking back to my hotel. Early Saturday morning I went for a 45-minute spin on my bike. Everything seemed ok … Then I went for a 20min run. I still couldn’ t breathe, but I could walk 21km the next day if need be … Then at 10am we met on the beach for a Wingman group photo and a quick swim. Time to see how my lungs and body would cope with swimming … A small group of us swam out a few hundred metres. Thankfully the waves were tiny so I managed to have enough breath to duck under as they broke.
All of a sudden I started to panic that I wouldn’ t be able to duck under the breakers. And what would happen if I got hit by a breaker unaware and didn’ t have enough breath. Sam and Marinda were to my left, and I could feel myself drifting towards them. The backline was getting nearer, and fear engulfed me. And the more I panicked, the less I could breath. What was Sam going to think if I shouted for help, but her name came out my mouth before I could question myself any more. She could see the anxiety in my face and told me to keep calm. Fortunately, she realised I wasn’ t 100 %, but tears filled my
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goggles, and the more upset I was getting the more I was gasping for air!
Suddenly Dave popped up next to us and held on to me, asking if I was ok. Poor Dave was now thinking,“ One of my best athletes, who has done several halfs and fulls, including World Champs, is having a panic attack in possibly the calmest sea conditions ever!” Sam then made me swim back out with her to make sure I was confident that I could duck under the waves, before we slowly swam back to shore. I told Dave I would be fine tomorrow, that if I wasn’ t ok, I would stop. Racking was done and an early night was on the cards, but first a bath in bicarbonate of soda – apparently good if one has chlorine poisoning. Yes, at this point I still thought my problem was from chlorine poisoning!
Struggling Along
Thankfully the sea was as flat as a pancake on race day! I took the swim very easy and told myself I could rest at each sighting buoy if I needed to. I tried to keep away from the washing machine effect at the turn around buoys.
However, memories from the 2015 Durban 70.3 came flooding back as I headed towards the shore, but fortunately, no massive waves to somersault me this time. It was a fairly long run
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Images: Brett Nattrass & courtesy Jenny Close |