I had an experience at CDA 70.3 this past weekend that I am curious to get some insight about.
The story: During the swim portion of the race, I began to feel really short of breath and had some chest and diaphragm cramping. My HR was elevated in comparison to swims of similar intensity I had done in the pool and my pace was slower than what my workouts showed I could swim. (for reference HR average was 166 for half ironman swim, when at that pace in the pool it is usually in the 140s)
I exited the water and had a terrible diaphragm cramping and side ache throughout the bike. My HR was high even though my power was about 20 watts lower than what it should have been. On to the run, things got worse and my chest started seizing up so I had to run hunched over and hyperventilated a few times on the course. Finished the race and the day after (today) still have chest tightness and cramping issues.
This has happened once before - during a triathlon (wearing a wetsuit in cold water). But has never happened in training and I have routinely done race pace intensity rides with hard intervals/mile repeats off the bike.
Curious enough, my mom was at the same race and had to be pulled from the water with a case of SIPE. So it got me thinking if there is something about swimming in cold water in a wetsuit that might be causing my issues? Has anyone experienced anything similar?
For background - I am pretty fit and was hoping to break 5 hours at CDA. I am going to see a pulmonologist soon but wanted to see if any triathletes have experienced something similar!
Thanks for the reply! I am a 25 year old female. Have consulted a doctor but sadly they have no idea, and jokingly told me to take up knitting. Not exactly helpful.
Yep thats right. It has happened in my Roka wetsuit once, and a zoot wetsuit once. I fell smack dab in the middle of the size range for both , and it doesn’t feel too tight.
Have you ever swam open water without a wetsuit? For me there is a significant difference in my ability to breath when I’m not in a wetsuit, and my wetsuit doesn’t feel tight either. I typically race these days without a wetsuit for that reason, plus my swim skills allow me to not take much of a performance hit over anything 1500 m or less. My wife, on the other hand, needs her wetsuit as a crutch. She would do fine in the pool and then in a race have breathing issues. We eventually narrowed it down to the wetsuit’s flexibility and solved it with a Hurricane 7. That is a high end wetsuit, BTW, that is very soft and flexible.
I guess that is just what I am calling it and what my doctor thinks it was. It started as feeling like an intense side stitch right below my ribs. Then it began to radiate up into my chest and down into my stomach and was no longer just in my side, but the entire area across my chest. It forced me to take really short, shallow breaths and caused me to hyperventilate a few times on the run because of it. Now two days later, I still have some feelings of tightness and a side stitch that gets worse when I walk. No fun that is for sure
Were you ever able to solve your diaphragm spasm? I have the same issue and the tightness of clothing certainly doesn’t help, but I get the same pain even in the pool. I can almost make it happen on command while running or swimming, although I cannot seem to prevent it from happening.
