So, I've signed up for a couple of open-water swims this summer (the total will be 3, once signups open for the 3rd one), and I'm very excited and very nervous, as I haven't done a "race" with other humans in ... like 20-odd years.
I've been diligently working at my endurance and speed for several years after that long hiatus, but the kicker is that my freestyle/front crawl is still quite pear-shaped (I can do 100yds at a steady, not fast pace, and 200yds in a pull-set), and breaststroke is my pick for any kind of distance. Last year I spent a lot of time in the local lake tooling around the periphery of the "adult only" area (About 6 rounds equals 1 mile) making reasonable time, and my warm-up in the pool is a nice 500yd BS. I'm not breaking the lifeguard test requirement of 500yd in 'm not taking 20 minutes like I did when I first got back to swimming either.
Long story short, while I've signed up for 1/2 miles in all of these races (and might even be middle-of-the-pack, judging by other folks' times in past years), I just don't think my freestyle will be up to it. Is it ok to swim breaststroke, as long as I keep knees and feet out of other people's way? I have seen nothing on the race websites forbidding it or requiring a specific stroke, but I wasn't sure if there was a sort of gentlemen's/women's agreement that you just don't do that.
(also, any other advice for my first time in 20ish years "competing" with a bunch of folks would be appreciated. One is a lake swim in early June, two are ocean swims in relatively calm coves later in the summer. They're all in Massachusetts.)
I'm not sure who they're sanctioned by - the websites, even the registration sites, are pretty bare bones. But it doesn't look like there's anything expressly forbidding any stroke, just no fins, paddles, adjuncts, etc. I think a couple of the swims have cutoffs for the longer races (the 5K in Salem does, I believe), but not for any of the short/"fun" swims. (theoretically, I suppose that means the 5K cutoff is the cutoff for the 1/2 mile, but I'm definitely not going to take that long! It looks like the longest 500m time in the last swim last year was 22 minutes, and in the lake last year I could do it in about 10-12, breaststroke, so I should be nicely middle of the pack.)
Hahaha, "wide and powerful" :D But yes, I can certainly switch to freestyle where it'd be safer to do so. It's just not 1/2 mile, or even 500m, worthy yet. (it's a slow, arduous process but perhaps it'll be worthy by the end of the summer). Thank you for the advice! I'm looking forward to enjoying the swims and hopefully not finishing last.
I'm not sure who they're sanctioned by - the websites, even the registration sites, are pretty bare bones. But it doesn't look like there's anything expressly forbidding any stroke, just no fins, paddles, adjuncts, etc. I think a couple of the swims have cutoffs for the longer races (the 5K in Salem does, I believe), but not for any of the short/"fun" swims. (theoretically, I suppose that means the 5K cutoff is the cutoff for the 1/2 mile, but I'm definitely not going to take that long! It looks like the longest 500m time in the last swim last year was 22 minutes, and in the lake last year I could do it in about 10-12, breaststroke, so I should be nicely middle of the pack.)
Hahaha, "wide and powerful" :D But yes, I can certainly switch to freestyle where it'd be safer to do so. It's just not 1/2 mile, or even 500m, worthy yet. (it's a slow, arduous process but perhaps it'll be worthy by the end of the summer). Thank you for the advice! I'm looking forward to enjoying the swims and hopefully not finishing last.
