I am 29 and started to swimm few months ago.
I learned breaststroke only and I swim 50m between 1:00 and 1:10m (from pool edge, no jump).
In 5 weeks there is an amateur open water 1km contest. I swimm 1km in 22 minutes.
I've been told thats absolutely fine for the contest, but there are faster swimmers of course, since most people will swimm freestyle.
So i started with freestyle few days ago, but i am slower and have less endurance at the moment, then with breaststroke.
Does it make sense to work on my freestyle in the time that is left or should i continue to work on my breaststroke? (just discovered the 'The Breaststroke Lane' thread here :) )
Right now I swimm 3 days per week, each 2km breaststroke, but I am willing to train 4-5 times per week.
I know people who swim breaststroke in open water swims.A friend of mine swam the Catalina Channel (22 mi I think) breaststroke.If I ever did an open water swim(not very likely) I'd swim it breaststroke.Swim what you are comfortable with.
I understand that in open water anything goes, in terms of which swim stroke you wish to utilize. With that being said if you participate in a swim meet and the event is freestyle then you can still swim breaststroke if you choose. I have participated in swimming events where it clearly states frontcrawl, instead of freestyle. Look at the verbiage the meet organizer is using. Personally I think doing a 22 minute 1km breaststroke is pretty dam good.
Thanks for your replies.
I practised freestyle yesterday, but i was still bad and slow.. must been swallow about half a litre.
Then i went over to breaststroke. I worked on my technique, based on the "The Breaststroke Lane" thread here and i was few times faster then usual (58-59s on 100m), altough i was very tired due daily training this week.
I also have a overweight (86kg, 1.73m), but i am loosing about 1kg every week, i guess that will make me faster as well?
I signed to a freestyle course, but it starts in 4 weeks, so i will focus on breaststroke for now :)
If you do choose to swim this breaststroke, please be aware of other people near you and don't kick them in the head.
I have no opinion on if you would like to do breastroke in an OWS event. That's totally up to you.
