Trying Something Scary

In last week’s blog, I talked about the opportunity I had from my injury-enforced running break: getting back into swimming. With the weather improving and the sea temperature increasing, it’s really been the perfect time to rediscover the sport. Even as my physio has allowed a gradual return to running this week, I’ve found myself swimming in the harbour three times this week and really enjoying myself. I’ll admit to being mildly terrified for most of the first of these harbour swims, but fortunately a very supportive colleague had taken me out and acted as my buddy.

Look how happy I am to be allowed to run on those trails again!

This is all very well-timed because this week is the first Splash and Dash race of the summer. As the name suggests, this is a running and swimming event that happens after work on Wednesday nights in Wellington CBD. I was aware of it when we first moved here, but have never quite had the push to enter one. With recent happenings, and some more encouragement from the supportive colleague, I’ve decided to take the plunge this week.

This week’s event will involve a 730-metre swim in the harbour and a 3km run. I have never done a multi-sport race before, and my last swimming race was the Blackpool & District Boy Scouts’ 25-metre breaststroke in 2003 - I came last and generally didn’t have a great time.

I’ve become more accustomed to the sensations at the start line of a trail or ultra race, and rarely get the same level of nervous anticipation. This is mostly a good thing, and something I often try to help athletes to control and harness to their advantage. Of course, we never want the feeling of anticipation for a goal to disappear altogether.

I will be very nervous on the start line on Wednesday. I’ve already had a series of incredibly intrusive thoughts as I think about the event. How do we get in the water? Will people swim over me? How do I transition? Am I going to get insane chafing during the run? I will happily admit to being quite scared of this event.

I encourage athletes to set themselves goals for events that will help them to: 1) challenge themself; 2) learn something new; and 3) have fun. If the goal you are setting doesn’t scare you at least a little bit, will you get that challenge that leads to growing and learning?

There lies the beauty of this event for me. On the face of it, this is less daunting than other races I’ve done in the past year, but there is so much more unknown involved for me. This is scary, but the scariness means I am challenging myself, which gives me a chance to learn something new - though you’ll have to come back another time to find out what that is. Hopefully I’ll have some fun as well!