Splish Splash

I am training for the World’s Largest Open Water event, which is the Midmar Dam Mile in South Africa (February). Since last week, I have been doing a kilometre in the gym pool 3x a week. A mile is 1.6 kilometres long, so I have some training to do. Open water is also totally different from the gym pool. Our gym uses a salt water chlorinator, so one float more than in fresh water, which makes swimming easier. Reduced visibility and 10000000000000000000000 people thrashing and kicking next to you, in front of you, behind you, below you and on top of you complicates things further. I learned something new about myself with the previous attempt. The overcrowded conditions, poor visibility etc made me panic so much on my previous attempt, I had to get one of the life-boats to pick me up and take me out shortly after starting. I know I will be ready physically by February, but I will really have to concentrate on being ready mentally.