Thinking about starting open water swimming?

Some other things to consider from someone who is quite aberrant. I prefer pool swimming. I hate freestyle, and have trouble swimming it for more than a few hundred yards. I have even more trouble swimming it when I don't have walls to push off of and give my arms a good stretch. For this reason, in my pool workouts I mix up the strokes quite a bit more than the die hard distance swimming, triathlete types, who only like to do distance long course. Today for instance practice was long course and of course almost exclusively freestyle. The main set was 4X400 and I ended up doing the middle two 400s all backstroke (my favorite). I've done five open water swims and one open water workout, and ended up swimming about half backstroke and half freestyle on each. This brought along the problem of sighting. While doing backstroke, I found it really easy to get off course. Even doing freestyle, I found it difficult to stay on course. If you are like me, make sure you are in condition to do at least 50% more than the stated distance (because I'm sure I must've swam 3 miles for the 2 mile course :eek: ). I also noticed that I really missed the walls during these swims. I guess my muscles are trained that they get to stretch out and relax after every 14 or so strokes.

Some other things to consider from someone who is quite aberrant. I prefer pool swimming. I hate freestyle, and have trouble swimming it for more than a few hundred yards. I have even more trouble swimming it when I don't have walls to push off of and give my arms a good stretch. For this reason, in my pool workouts I mix up the strokes quite a bit more than the die hard distance swimming, triathlete types, who only like to do distance long course. Today for instance practice was long course and of course almost exclusively freestyle. The main set was 4X400 and I ended up doing the middle two 400s all backstroke (my favorite). I've done five open water swims and one open water workout, and ended up swimming about half backstroke and half freestyle on each. This brought along the problem of sighting. While doing backstroke, I found it really easy to get off course. Even doing freestyle, I found it difficult to stay on course. If you are like me, make sure you are in condition to do at least 50% more than the stated distance (because I'm sure I must've swam 3 miles for the 2 mile course :eek: ). I also noticed that I really missed the walls during these swims. I guess my muscles are trained that they get to stretch out and relax after every 14 or so strokes.