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?
I've done cable swims in VA and Lake Placid and never had any trouble seeing the cable (underwater) or the buoys.
The most unexpected thing I encountered when doing cables was how crowded the swim could feel. The start--typically heats of 10 swimmers sent off at 30-second intervals--feels more civilized than mass open-water starts. But it's essentialy the equivalent of doing 3-second sendoffs in one very long lane. Everyone wants to swim right beside the cable, so the field very quickly transforms itself into a more-or-less single line of swimmers swimming up and back. And at your speed, you'll probably start passing other swimmers from later heats by the 3rd lap and be navigating around a steady stream of them by the last lap. Passing to the outside is probably your best bet, although I don't think it's mandated in the rules.
Drafting is absolutely allowed. Everyone in your heat will probably be trying to get on the feet of someone a bit faster and hang on. One of the overlooked benefits of drafting later in the race is that your lead swimmer can do the navigating around others for you, so you don't have to look up as often. Just don't hit the feet of the person you're drafting off of repeatedly.
I like doing a water-polo change-of-direction turn at the turn-arounds--I use my last stroke to turn over on my back, then 2 choppy freestyle strokes to get back onto my stomach and change direction(it's essentially 2 90-degree turns rather than a continuous 180). That little maneuver also lets you see who is behind you, plus who might be a bit ahead of you and worth catching up to to draft off of for the next length.
Have a great time, and save a little bit for that fun little sprint to the finish!
I've done cable swims in VA and Lake Placid and never had any trouble seeing the cable (underwater) or the buoys.
The most unexpected thing I encountered when doing cables was how crowded the swim could feel. The start--typically heats of 10 swimmers sent off at 30-second intervals--feels more civilized than mass open-water starts. But it's essentialy the equivalent of doing 3-second sendoffs in one very long lane. Everyone wants to swim right beside the cable, so the field very quickly transforms itself into a more-or-less single line of swimmers swimming up and back. And at your speed, you'll probably start passing other swimmers from later heats by the 3rd lap and be navigating around a steady stream of them by the last lap. Passing to the outside is probably your best bet, although I don't think it's mandated in the rules.
Drafting is absolutely allowed. Everyone in your heat will probably be trying to get on the feet of someone a bit faster and hang on. One of the overlooked benefits of drafting later in the race is that your lead swimmer can do the navigating around others for you, so you don't have to look up as often. Just don't hit the feet of the person you're drafting off of repeatedly.
I like doing a water-polo change-of-direction turn at the turn-arounds--I use my last stroke to turn over on my back, then 2 choppy freestyle strokes to get back onto my stomach and change direction(it's essentially 2 90-degree turns rather than a continuous 180). That little maneuver also lets you see who is behind you, plus who might be a bit ahead of you and worth catching up to to draft off of for the next length.
Have a great time, and save a little bit for that fun little sprint to the finish!
