How I nearly drowned in our latest triathlon

We finished the Jordanelle triathlon this morning.  Overall, it was great fun and I would totally do it again.  However, contrary to all of my other races, I had a TERRIBLE swim.  Seriously.  I am not a super fast biker, and though I can run for a long time, I'm not that fast either.  But I love the swim.  I'm relatively fast, and I beat almost everyone out of the water (though I'm pretty sure it's because I may be the only triathlete who actually likes the swim).   Except, that is, for today.  Today was an open water swim, no lanes, no 4 or 5 people to a lane that I could easily pass if I wanted to, no order at all.  I was wearing a wetsuit I had barely tried on a few days ago, and I don't think I put it on right.    It's been 5 years since I've done an open water swim triathlon and I still don't really know what happened.  But all these things combined evidently spelled disaster. 

I got out to the starting line, the gun fired, and I was off.. and immediately panicky.  The water was boiling with how many feet and legs and arms and elbows were jockeying for a space in the water.  It was utter chaos.  I tried to swim a while with my head out of the water so I could get past the pack, but my mind (perhaps this was left over revenge for Gravitron incident) was totally blank except for the little voice huddled in the corner in fetal position saying "crap, crap, crap, crap" over and over again.  I was breathing too quickly and too shallow to try and freestyle, so I tried everything and anything I could, backstroke, breaststroke, I would have done the butterfly, but I still have no idea how to do it.   I had no idea what I was going to do.  

It took me all the way to the first buoy to snap out of it.  I kept thinking (and perhaps yelling at the girl in the corner of my mind all freaked out and curled up), "you've done this before!  What's wrong with you?".  A volunteer in a kayak even paddled over to where I was and asked me if I was ok.  I sighed, said yes, and that was it.  I was pretty much fine the rest of the swim, but it took me the first leg of the swim to get there.  Weird.  Needless to say, I was nowhere near the first out of the water.  Better luck next time.

Well, the entire event wasn't a wash.  I learned a lot, the biking portion rocked, and we both (Jeff competed too) really enjoyed it.  All in all it was a good experience, but as I have learned from other experiences, an Amy unprepared is a SERIOUSLY UNSTABLE person.  Sigh.