Panic Attacks (in a triathlon swim)

A friend of mine raced in an Olympic distance triathlon on Saturday and had a panic attack the second he hit the water at the start. He's not your typical triathlete though, he has been doing tris for the last two decades, has done numerous Ironmans and qualified for the Ironman worlds in Kona last year and the 70.3 Worlds in Clearwater the year before. Strangely this is the second panic attack he has had in two races.

I gave him my "take on it" in the hope that it will help somehow but then I thought I'd adapt my thoughts for anyone else that has experienced this sickening feeling. For the record I had my own panic attack/near death experience at the Alpe d'Huez triathlon a couple of years ago, so I'm not immune and I know what they're like.

So here's my take on it for what it's worth: -

My buddy freely admits he was under prepared and hadn't swam for 3 weeks. He's strong though and very fit. In my opinion the lack of swimming shouldn't have done more than taken a minute or two off his time at worst. I think his biggest mistake was not warming up by doing 500 metres swim/drills (or a full ten minutes of swimming). The fact that the water was undoubtedly colder than the pool and he didn't use a wetsuit probably magnified the problem.

A proper swim warm up in ANY distance tri is the difference between me being in the top half and the bottom half of the swim, so panic attacks aside, I reckon anyone that doesn't do a full and intensive warm up are giving away heaps of time and potentially spoiling their day because of a panic attack.

Don't forget we are not meant to be swimmers, we are land animals and probably one of the least adapted land animals to water. So suddenly going from a near resting heart rate to potentially anaerobic at the start of a triathlon is going to give the body, heart and mind a bit of a shock to say the least. Throw into the mix cold water and I'm sure many would experience some degree of shock.

(Cold water is something we don't have to worry about in Malaysia but when we travel elsewhere it can be an even bigger shock for us softie warm weather types).

So why did I have a panic attack at Alpe d'Huez? That's easy: -

1) I was under prepared
2) The reservoir we were swimming in didn't allow us into the water until 2 minutes before the start there was no warm up (it was a hydroelectric dam & French bureaucrats running it)
3) The water was pretty darn cold
4) I hadn't swam in a wetsuit for months if not a couple of years

The combination was a recipe for disaster. Having said that, I'm fairly sure that a 10 minute brisk warm up would have eliminated all my problems. (If I did this race again I'd go for a jog first in my wetsuit and be first in the water once we were allowed to go in).

I hope that those that have panic attacks don't consider this article too presumptive. I've addressed my take on panic attacks that occur at the beginning of a swim start as I have had personal experience of this.

However, another of my close Ironman friends has swim panic attacks mid swim. He says these are due simply to being out in the middle of nowhere in the ocean or a large lake. That's a different trigger I guess and I don't feel qualified to comment on that one. I'm sure he'll be interested if anyone has experienced that sort of panic attack and found ways to combat it. I'll forward any comments onto him, so please do share.

Additional Feedback: -
One of the comments left on this post by Ann, was that she used to have panic attacks. However, subsequently she realised they weren't actually panic attacks but rather she'd gone out to fast and I assume she'd gone anaerobic.

Pretty scary in a race let me tell you, YES I'VE BEEN DAFT ENOUGH TO DO THAT TOO. In fact that was the closest I ever came to dying. I shot out from the start, went anaerobic in a big way and then got swam over by the chasing field. I literally could not move my arms and could barely keep my head above the water. I got to the first turn buoy and hung on. Once I recovered I swam the course gingerly and finished the race, scared, embarrassed AND EDUCATED.