There's how many people in my wave?!

Here's the Good and Bad in my world:

Good:
I'm signed up to do my second tri this Sunday.

Good:
I had my first wetsuit swim last Saturday.

Good:

Wetsuits ROCK! Your backend stays up, up, up. I had to keep reminding myself to kick.

Bad:
I just read on the race website that each swim wave will consist of TWO HUNDRED AND FIFY (250) people!

Bad:
I am TERRIFIED of the water. It took me well over a year to get enough self control to not completely FREAK OUT when I swallowed water while swimming . . . in the pool . . . that is four and one half feet (yes, 4 1/2) deep. If I had a dollar for every person who said "Freaking A, calm down! You know that you can stand up!" I would be able to buy and sell Bill Gates several times over.

Intellectually, I know that I can stand up in 4 1/2 feet of water; I'm not a moron and I am of average height for an American female. But when I'm swimming, especially when I first started, there was no room for logic in the pool. The entire time I was in the pool I was engaged in an epic struggle between life and death. All of my reactions were based purely on the age old fight or flight reflexes.

Now, in my defense, I have gotten much, much better. At least in the pool. However, the open water brings back all of those old fears, as well as some new and improved ones. At my first race two weeks ago, my first "solo" open water swim, I had a panic attack prior to the swim start. I just kept thinking "I can't do this; there is NO WAY that I can do this, I CAN NOT DO THIS." The truth is that I almost got out of the water right then and there and quit. Three things stopped me: 1) I knew that I would hate myself for just giving up; 2) it would have been too humiliating because I knew too many people there (competitors and spectators); and 3) there were too many rocks between where I was standing and the shore. Hey, I'm a big wuss and it had actually been physically painful to walk over all those dumb rocks to get to where I was standing so there was no attraction to having to walk back over them again.

Happily, I went for it. Following advice, I counted to 10 to let the group, consisting of maybe 75 women, go. And then I started swimming. At first, I focused on counting my strokes, one, two . . . twelve and sight, in order to give me something to think about other than drowning. Then a funny thing happened. I started passing people. Well, to be accurate, first I started running into them. But, props to me, I didn't panic. I just kept swimming wide to the left, and kept counting my strokes and kept focusing on not out swimming my breath. And, come on people, let's be honest. Once you start passing people, IT. IS. ON!

Anyway, I was and am still pretty proud of that effort. But now, 250 people in my wave?!! I mean, how far back and left can I go?

* Any similarities between the format of this post and the "The Good, the Bad, & The Ugly" format made ridiculously popular by the celebrity blogger known as Bolder is the sincerest form of flattery.