Open Water Workouts for the Pool...

Originally posted by Leonard Jansen The problem with trying to predict beforehand who you will "pack up" with during a race is that everyone people are spread all over the starting area and everyone has a different approach to fast/slow start - It's not like pool races where people end to focus on hitting split times. I was planning to let the physical reality of who-is-where after a couple of hundred yards dictate that for me. Reading elsewhere on this open water board, someone suggested selecting a starting location at the outer fringe of the mass of swimmers standing on the shore. Not in the front in the middle. Makes sense to me! The course is a single out-and-back to a buoy 1.2 miles out. I figure that if I start on the outside, it means that I swim the hypotenuse, but given that I might be only 10 or even 20 yards to the outside, my hypotenuse is for all practical purposes the same as the inside track over 1.2 miles. The shore of the lake is one boundary, and a string of boats spaced along the course will dictate the other boundary of the swim. I figure that until the swimmers thin into their relative positionings base on capability, I will have to fend for myself for sighting. But it sure would be nice to find others in my pace eventually. Optical googles are nice to have. I have really lousy eyesight and they work well. (I use Water Gear optical goggles - love 'em). I use stock optical goggles from Keifer. 9.0 diopters. (Their max strength.) 9.0 is about right for me as the diopter measurement goes, but it does nothing for my astigmatism. I would say that this setup gets me roughly half of my corrected eyesight, which is a far better thing than nothing at all. "You get in that race, you go like Hell." -Francesco Alongi That's my plan. I'm pretty sure I'll do well if I go like hell in the right direction. :)

Originally posted by Leonard Jansen The problem with trying to predict beforehand who you will "pack up" with during a race is that everyone people are spread all over the starting area and everyone has a different approach to fast/slow start - It's not like pool races where people end to focus on hitting split times. I was planning to let the physical reality of who-is-where after a couple of hundred yards dictate that for me. Reading elsewhere on this open water board, someone suggested selecting a starting location at the outer fringe of the mass of swimmers standing on the shore. Not in the front in the middle. Makes sense to me! The course is a single out-and-back to a buoy 1.2 miles out. I figure that if I start on the outside, it means that I swim the hypotenuse, but given that I might be only 10 or even 20 yards to the outside, my hypotenuse is for all practical purposes the same as the inside track over 1.2 miles. The shore of the lake is one boundary, and a string of boats spaced along the course will dictate the other boundary of the swim. I figure that until the swimmers thin into their relative positionings base on capability, I will have to fend for myself for sighting. But it sure would be nice to find others in my pace eventually. Optical googles are nice to have. I have really lousy eyesight and they work well. (I use Water Gear optical goggles - love 'em). I use stock optical goggles from Keifer. 9.0 diopters. (Their max strength.) 9.0 is about right for me as the diopter measurement goes, but it does nothing for my astigmatism. I would say that this setup gets me roughly half of my corrected eyesight, which is a far better thing than nothing at all. "You get in that race, you go like Hell." -Francesco Alongi That's my plan. I'm pretty sure I'll do well if I go like hell in the right direction. :)