Short Pineview swim with anxiety

I took a trip up to Pineview Reservoir for a swim today. I was planning on doing three buoy laps to start training for Bear Lake, which is probably going to be my next big swim. It's a crossing of the width of the lake, which is a bit over seven miles. The weather was beautiful and when I got there, the water appeared calm.

Snapped a quick photo when I got out of the water since I couldn't get the damn camera out of the safe swimmer when I was in the water.

The water felt great and I was moving along nicely for the first part of the swim. I hit the first buoy, realizing I accidentally went to the second one, rather than the first, so I doubled back to the original buoy before crossing the length of the "bay." The water was starting to get a little choppy by the time I hit the fourth buoy, which is the turnaround point, so I stopped and attempted to pull the camera out of the safe swimmer, which is where I discovered my first complaint about it. If you have more than a few small items in it, it is too difficult to grab anything from inside it while it is still inflated, thus making it nearly impossible to tread water and keep it from getting submerged while you take stuff out/in. I spent a solid two minutes doing eggbeater kicks just trying to re-inflate it and then readjust the waist strap. It was exhausting and I never could get the camera out.

Before I got in. The ripples in the water may look small, but they aren't so little when you are trying to swim through them.

On my way back, the waves really started to pick up, just like they were at the GSL race last Saturday. Although this time, rather than hitting me from the side, they were coming straight at me. There wasn't a boat in sight, but all the sudden a great deal of anxiety and panic came over me. Sighting the buoys became very hard and the waves really shook my psyche. I swam as hard as I could to the final buoy and then back to the beach. I'm not sure what came over me, because my stroke felt strong and I wasn't getting tired, but I just had a feeling like I was truly alone and it freaked me out. Being by myself and with no support kayak, it just didn't feel right to go back out for another two laps, even with my safe swimmer. All-in-all, it wasn't a great start to my Bear Lake training. I only did about 1/3 the distance I wanted to. Next time I'll just have to go out with Jen on the kayak and then I'll probably feel better about going for longer.

Total distance: About 1 mile