On Anxiety and Panic

It never happened in high school or college. Eight years of swim meets and four years of track meets and not a single panic attack. Oh sure, the nerves kicked in just before I got up on the blocks or walked onto the track. If it were a "big" meet, I might feel some nerves the "day of," but never the night before. And I would not have described it as "panic."

The real panic attacks started in 1991 before my first marathon. By 3 a.m. that morning, all my near-nod-offs had been thwarted by extreme anxiety and the feeling that my heart was pounding in my head. I was so desperate, I tried drinking shots of vodka. At THREE A.M! And THAT didn't work either. So I arrived at the starting line of the 1991 Cleveland marathon on no sleep with remnants of alcohol in my blood and extreme anxiety. But, in retrospect, over the years, I learned that sleeping the night before a marathon probably does more damage to your mind than your body. It's the sleep you get TWO nights before that matters.

Fast forward to the 1998 Chicago Marathon. I was close to a qualifying time for the Olympic Marathon Trials and put enormous pressure on myself. The result? You guessed it -- the anxiety set in TWO nights before the race. In a hotel in Gary, Indiana. We were not even in Chicago yet and I was sleepless for 24 hours. (And to this day, I still feel anxiety anywhere NEAR Gary, Indiana). I could barely eat the next day because of nausea, so I went into the race not only sleepless for two nights but also depleted. By mile 13, I was hitting the split button in every Porta-john on the marathon course. Over the years, I would learn that lack of sleep almost always manifested itself as stomach distress. NOT something I wanted to deal with in my future Ironman endeavors.

I finally explained it all to my doctor. His antidote? Anxiety drugs. The drawback? By the third day, I was so relaxed I couldn't get out of bed. Yeah, it was great, but I couldn't run in this condition. Dosage adjustment did the trick, and by the time I ran my next marathon, a Trials qualifying time was back in my sights and I was able to sleep.

Then came the night before the Trials and a whole new level of anxiety. You guessed it, drugs or no drugs, this was a fight I would not win. At one point during the night, I swore I heard a fire alarm go off in the hotel. No one else heard it, not even my husband. People must have thought I was a raving lunatic when I asked. The Trials marathon was a disaster (for more reasons than just anxiety). The year was 2000.

That year I decided things NEEDED to change. My doctor asked me to see a sports psychologist. It was probably the singular best thing I ever did to get control of my anxiety. He taught me how to relax using breathing techniques and relaxation tapes. I learned how to let go of things that I had no control over. I learned to have confidence in myself and run my own race. It was amazing. In September 2000, I arrived at the starting line of the Quad Cities Marathon with a full night of sleep. I even forgot to bring my gel for the race, but it mattered not. To my surprise, I didn't even feel nerves at the starting line. I ran the smartest marathon of my life, negative split, and won the women's race.

So what happened? I started racing triathlons in 2001 and didn't lose a single pre-race night of sleep until Ironman Hawaii in 2002. I dodged anxiety right up until the moment it really mattered and then had the worst panic attack of my life. I spent two nights of no sleep in Hawaii which resulted in a vomit-fest during the marathon. You'd think the first thing I would do is go back and re-learn relaxation techniques, but I never got a chance. In 2003, I was hit by a car and took a four-year hiatus. And now that I'm back, my relaxation techniques are so far gone that it feels like I have to start all over from scratch. And training for Ironman, I feel like I don't have the time. But, I need to make the time. It might be the most important time I make. Maybe writing this blog will point me in the right direction. Otherwise, I may never get a chance to go back to Hawaii and have that perfect Ironman race I missed out on.