Breathing in colder water
Swimming is new to me since January of this year but I am fully hooked. I have been swimming 5 days per week at the local gym pool with the goal of a few challenging open water swims in the future. In the pool, I feel like I have progressed fairly quickly. At the start, I barely managed 1200m but now I can easily swim 2500m without rest and stay in zone 2 heart rate. I’ve swam up to 7000m in one workout and everything in between. I finally lost enough weight to be in the weight range for the wetsuit I wanted and purchased an Orca HiVis Zeal. I’ve only worn it a couple times before the water warmed up but my first open water swim was in March and the cold water shock took it out of me! The water temp was 61 degrees F. I wasn’t physically cold but 200m off shore I was laboring to breathe and had to rest. Opted to turn back and do shorter intervals close to shore but still had a hard time controlling my breathing The two older swimmers said I just need to acclimate to the cold. Any tips for adjusting to colder water to be able to maintain control of my breathing to complete a longer swims in without rest once the water temp gets colder again. Right now, the temp is around 75 which is no promote. Swam 4200 in the lake on Saturday.