I have done several open water swims (Chesapeake Bay Swim, a 10K in Atlantic City, a local 2-mile lake swim, and a bunch of my own made up events off the short in Ocean City, New Jersey), but I have never swum a cable swim before.
I am wondering if any of you have experience with these and if there are any tricks or strategies that might be helpful to know about.
Since I naturally breathe on my left side, I did sign up for the counterclockwise heat, which should make it easier to watch the cable.
How easy is it to see the cable, btw? How far are the buoys from one another?
Are you allowed to draft? If so, what is the optimum distance to be behind somebody? Are the likely to get pissed off? Is there any etiquette involved here?
If you need to pass somebody, do you go to the outside to do it?
Any suggestions for the "turns"--or I suppose a more accurate term would be "turn arounds" when you get to the end of the cable?
I have heard that a 2-mile open water swim takes longer to swim than a 2-mile cable swim, at least for most people, because there tends to be more wandering around and need for sighting in the former.
About how much difference, time-wise, would an average swimmer see between the two? For instance, I just did a 47 minute 16 second 2-mile OW lake swim. What would that translate to in a 2-mile cable swim, all things being equal?
Thanks for any tips and pointers you can provide.
Anybody else heading to Charlottesville a week from Saturday?
