Open Water Swimming help

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:28:51 GMT

Don't worry Paul sounds like you'll finish the race as you can swim well enough. My last experience had been that at the starting line I placed myself at the outer edge AND SO WAS EVERYONE ELSE! It was too late to go somewhere else so i just had to rough it out. I like your spirit Aquageek that you've just got to deal with it - I don't see any other way. By the way, being able to look out to your left by breathing part of the time on the left helps if you are not a bilateral breather already just to not run into other swimmers so you might want to work on that too. Over here (Italy), the tris are pretty fast (and they have to be part of an affiliated master swimmers club to participate in the OW races in the first place) so I DON'T have the pleasure YET of blowing past them.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

AnnG — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:18:42 GMT

If you have no open water venue in which to train try swimming a 1k or 1500 without doing turns on the wall, just practice a roll turn about three feet from the wall and continue swimming without a pushoff. There is a huge difference in your fatigue level when you don't have the little break a push off the wall affords! Also figure out how you want to do your sightings, I have a certain rhythm to my stroke, three breaths to the left and one to the right, when I swim long ow, I sight on the second left side breath about once every four or five cycles. I like to pick a tree or other landmark to watch until I get closer to the buoy. I find a swim straighter that way. If you are looking for an open water opportunity, you may want to consider traveling north next month to Oregon for our Elk Lake series July 27-29. his is a beautiful natural alpine lake above Mt. Bachelor near Bend. There are five races over three days, 3K on Friday evening, 500m and 1500m Saturday, and 5K and 1K on Sunday. The 500 is a time trial format, one swimmer at a time down a 250m lane line. the 1K race is done with "heats" of swimmers starting 3 minutes apart and follows a course along the shoreline, lots of tactical maneuvering with a group of swimmers about your speed, my favorite. You can find out more about this event at our website, www.swimoregon.org. This is the only open water series I do on the Oregon calendar because its the most fun and a very beautiful site. The weather is usually quite warm but cools off a night and you can camp right on the lake in a group campsite with other swimmers.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:42:10 GMT

Thanks for the Great input. I have always had a lot of admiration for the swimmers who do these long open water swims, so thanks again. Paul

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:40:59 GMT

Oh to be an open water swimmer or not? I have done some that were fun, some were not. Some were in warm water, some were in cold water. I had some scary momments and some not scary. I travelled the world because of these OW swims. Now give me a pool 50m long and let me swim a 50 or a 100 free (crawl) or fly as fast as I can. I will leave th Open Water to everyone else.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:31:41 GMT

Paul, I've started OW races just this month and I'm hooked! As a beginner, besides working on longer training sessions and the suggestions of the other in this thread, I found it really important to get into the lake or ocean environment and get comfortable with waves, fish, salty water in your mouth, and all the rest, AND at the same time to feel the great pleasure and freedom I find to swim without the confines of a pool around you. I think if you swim seriously already, a 1 - 2 M race should be no problem for you if you do just a little acclimatization to the OW race environment and longer training sessions you'll do alright. So sign up for a race and go for it! - Thomas

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:16:00 GMT

I swim about a 27min. mile ( 1800 yds ) I don't consider that fast at all, but the tris that I have seen swim are quite a bit slower at my pool. I dont know how that time would be in rough water but my goal at first would be just to finish!

RE: Open Water Swimming help

rtodd — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:49:42 GMT

I consider that a relatively fast mile.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

aquageek — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:02:29 GMT

Another thought from someone new to the game... staying to the side during the start, rather than in the middle will minimize the churning and chaos of the start. Another mistake I've made is getting caught up in the excitement of the start and sprinting out too fast too soon. Sure people will get ahead of you, but don't get alarmed. They too might be starting in too big of a rush. I don't agree with these assertions. I have heard of this tactic to stay to the side. While good in principal, if you are there might as well mix it up. I don't think staying to the side allows for much crowd avoidance and you'll be running over everyone who also thinks staying to the side is the good plan. If you are a good swimmer, you will already be better than 80% of the people out there, especially if it's a mostly tri crowd. You will probably have more swimming endurance. I tried the ole hang back and bust it out at the end and all I ended up with was more kicks in the head. So, I say take it out fairly fast to get past the riff-raff. Even assuming you will fall off a bit, you will still be well ahead of the others and have more smooth water.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:22:47 GMT

rtood..Why didnt I think of that.. thats simple good advice, In OW seeing is not the same as in a pool, nowhere close, plus waves, things you can touch time time that you dont know what it is. You can easily swim in a big circle if you dont sight (look out where your going). Im going to practice that in my pool tommorrow, Thanks. Proberts. I would start by going to a place with OW where you can swim and getting comfortable with it. See my page for beginning open water ocean swimming. www.geocities.com/.../oceanswimming101.html

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:07:17 GMT

I'd suggest talking to some others who know the different ocean events in a region first & see if there is an easier one that you can do first to enable you to get used to the different environment.......(the washing machine effect at the start if you are not able to out sprint the rest, feeling of a wetsuit, water temperatures, waves blocking your vision...) I'm not sure whether you guys wear wetsuits in that part of the country, but if they do, you'd definately benefit from practising in one. I get my swimmers to practice a small amount of 'face up' swimming or Polo swim some refer to it as. If you can get into the OW to practice the navigation that would also be helpful. Make sure you can breathe on either side because some OW events will call for breathing one particular side to avoid the waves! I have introduced about 20 people to OW events in the past 5 years & they are all hooked! :wiggle: It certainly gave my swimming 'career' a whole new realm that has kept me in the water for a lot longer......like you stated it gives me reason to travel, & of course there is all those 'debriefings' that have to happen over a coffee or pub meal! :bouncing:

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Muppet — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:55:24 GMT

Paul, I got started by picking an event, showing up and hoping for the best. In the meantime, I just kept up my training, focusing a bit more on distance than shorter stuff. Raceday came, I swam and loved it! I chose a 1miler to get me started, and I'd recommend something 1-2 mi for you. With something of that distance, training is easy - my view is that as long as you're in the water on a regular basis, you should be able to do a 1mi w/o many issues. Plus, its an easy, short way to get acquainted with the OW concept. Training-wise, it helps to do LCM work. Just made my 3rd 4.4mi Chesaeake Bay crossing - its addictive just to warn you!

RE: Open Water Swimming help

FindingMyInnerFish — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:26:08 GMT

I'm a relative newcomer to open water swims but have done several. I like the suggestions here and will try them myself. Another thought from someone new to the game... staying to the side during the start, rather than in the middle will minimize the churning and chaos of the start. Another mistake I've made is getting caught up in the excitement of the start and sprinting out too fast too soon. Sure people will get ahead of you, but don't get alarmed. They too might be starting in too big of a rush. Also, check around for local race results. They will vary a lot for even a single distance, b/c a lot could depend on conditions along the course, so if you see one race with noticably slower times than another, check other years to see if tough conditions are routine or if just a particular year had some difficult weather/chop, etc. For my first o.w. swim, I checked out a race I was interested in, found out what the last place time was, and worked on trying to get my pool mile under that time (I still had a little work to do). I was such a newbie at the time that I didn't know I'd have to swim out to the start, but even so at least I knew what I needed to do not so much to avoid finishing last... I wasn't too worried about that... just to finish before they took down the clock and everyone went home. ;) Other than that, I wasn't really too worried about my time, just wanted to try something new. I've enjoyed these swims a lot, despite still being slow, b/c as a runner, I love being outdoors, and swimming in open water gives me the feeling of "getting away from it all" that I associate with running. I'm doing my first longer one this year. So I guess I'm hooked...Or maybe I'm just crazy! :D

RE: Open Water Swimming help

Former Member — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:41:47 GMT

Just get into a safe place to swim OW and do some 1 and 2 hour swims OW. Continue with your workouts in a pool.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

rtodd — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:04:58 GMT

swim with your eyes closed at the pool. Start by taking a peek, but try to get to being able to cross 25 yds without looking. Do this only with the lane to yourself.

RE: Open Water Swimming help

aquageek — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:22:31 GMT

OW is great, especially if laden with tris who can't swim. A seasoned OW specialist on my team suggested doing some long swims to get used to the distances. I would do one hour timed swims in a LC pool as preparation. You probably should work on sighting as well but doing that in a pool is difficult given you have many visual cues within a foot or two of you. Also, get your teammates to kick and hit you for a few laps to simulate the start of a race.