Falling asleep while swimming

I've had similar happening at the gym, while on a recumbment bike. Where my mind and eyes are tired and want to sleep, and the muscles are still going.

Kinda. While it has never happened during a workout with other people in the lane or when the set is particularly hard (In both those cases, I am either to concerned with keeping proper pacing and staying out of everybody's way or dealing with the discomfort of swimming hard). But when I have been doing long and relatively easy set's swimming alone (10 X 500 @ 8:00, hold 7:30 or 5 X 1,000 @ 16:00, hold 15:00) - EN1- pace for me, I have gotten into such a relaxed and rhythmic state, that I have felt like I have gone to sleep. I have actually closed my eyes for an entire length at a time! If not for a wrist watch and snapping back to reality to check the time, I would lose track of where I was in the rep or the set. Its a very cool feeling for me because it is not out of exhaustion, but more like a meditative state. And it usually happens toward the middle of the set. By the last rep or two of the set, my breathing may become labored enough to snap me out of it.

I've never fallen asleep while swimming though I've bonked in several practices, which isn't much fun. i swam with a fellow who passed out in practice and sunk to the bottom, after we passed him a second time we realized it wasn't a prank, he lived. Ande

My experience is completely the opposite, many times I see the lines on the bottom of the pool and tried to pull harder to keep the rythm of my team mates, and then my wife wakes me up and tells me to stop stroking at her side of the bed.:D

I've never done that while swimming. It's a common occurence in my classes however.:p

Lindsay- you were probably falling asleep because you've been training when you should have been still hibernating in New Brunswick's winter/spring. Not so on the left coast, though...

....only when the set is boring...(Zzzzzzzzz) ;)

I've only bonked twice in practice, and tonight was one of them. I hate it. Truly, it's one of the very few things I can't stand. One of my teammates, who posts on here occasionally, has the notion that I have some paranormal fear of swimming anything longer than a 100 during practice, and he is currently trying to "rehabilitate me" to rid me of this infliction. This bothers me. I suppose it would bother me less if I was not one of a very few numbers of females at our practices, and if I was not the only competing female and "A" lane girl. It's hard work trying to keep up with the four fast boys (well, men) in my lane. Sidetrack aside, I was in the water 15 minutes before practice started, doing some very easy laps, loosening up and trying to get out of my mental funk that I already knew I was going to have problems with, and maybe 15 minutes into practice (1x400 on 6:00, then 8x200's on 2:30) I was just like ".................." My brain completely flatlined. It was absolute shutdown. I got out of the pool, went down to the steam room, took my inhaler (for prevention purposes) and meditated until I couldn't take the heat anymore. Mental funk is definitely not gone (if you couldn't tell by the waywardness of this post), but hopefully I can ward off future bonking in practice by hitting the steam room a couple more times this week. Grr.

Wow. that's a major mental funk. I've never had it quite that bad; I only bonk when I don't eat right before I swim. Hope you feel better!

Originally posted by thisgirl13 I've only bonked twice in practice, and tonight was one of them. I hate it. Truly, it's one of the very few things I can't stand. I got out of the pool, went down to the steam room, took my inhaler (for prevention purposes) and meditated until I couldn't take the heat anymore. Grr. Seems to me that you would do better to get some carbohydrates in you to alleviate the liver glycogen depletion rathenr than sitting in the steam room. I don't see what the steam will accomplish. As tot he original question, I do get sleepy during swims sometimes, most often associated with low blood sugar. I also caught myself sleeping during the run of an ironman race. That was a first, I associate it also to glycogen depletion but also general mental fatigue at that point.