He had a pretty bad experience at his last triathlon. During the swim he got kicked in the face and his goggles flew back over his head. As he was pulling them on someone swam over the top of him and he went under and swallowed some water. He has five triathlon's under his belt, and tons of practice swimming, so it wasn't the first time he had been kicked or swam over, but something about this time felt much worse. Maybe the succession of one event right after the other in a short period of time or just the fact that he was in the middle of the lake at that point. He felt himself start to panic a little and it took a few laps to regain himself. At one point he considered quitting, something he has never done, but he was finally able to pull it together and continue. He was, after all, already out there and the effort to swim back would have probably been almost the same as just going through with it anyway. He told me the whole story and I was surprised to find out that the fear of the water can overtake you unexpectedly, even when you have had some pretty solid success with swimming in the past.
I can relate to that feeling just a little. Keeping my fingers crossed that he has a great swim.
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