Open water vs regular workout routine - balancing the two?

Sorry, wasn't really clear in my question! So assuming I get access to a pool soon, the question (okay, group of them) is how much time do I spend doing open water versus regular workouts? Or should I just do normal workouts in the pool, and pull back to doing the 1-2 group open water swims per week?

Others may have an opinion, but I'm not certain that it matters. I only train in pools and only enter open water events. The value to training in open water is in practicing sighting and the line you take. So often in open water events, I've beaten pool swimmers who are faster than I by taking better lines from buoy to buoy. That wasn't the case in my first few open water events because training in pools doesn't create a realistic open water feel. In training in the pool, my open water swimming got much better by working in sprint sets on occasion rather than just swimming long distances in the pool. I don't really have the opportunity to train in open water, but if I did, I'd still probably train maybe one workout a week in open water and the rest in a pool.

Like srcoyote, my workouts have been almost all pool work and my events are all open water.I'd do three workouts a week (which seemed to be optimal, once I got past 50 y.o.). One would be a distance workout, as long as 3 miles or so, one workout would be "pacing, like a timed mile or occasionally a timed 1.5 mi., and one workout would be 100 yard or 200 yard intervals.The chaos of my sprints would somehow prepare me a little for open water. At least in my imagination it would.

Hey King! Great to hear from you. It sounds like you have a well-rounded, cross-training program going on, taking advantage of what you can do during the pool shutdown. For the balance between the two swimming functions, I'd suggest using your pool time for managing pace and getting the feel for a solid pace. In open water, something you can do to work on speed is do some fartleks like you do with running by building in some sprints by x strokes. For instance, once you get warmed up, you can do 20 strokes at a sprint pace, and 20 at recovery. Then do 30 strokes fast, 30 recovery, etc. Or even 10 fast, 50 slow, 20 fast, 40 slow, 30 fast, 30 slow, etc. This can break up the monotony of a long distance. Or you could also do some speed work on your 500yd point to point swims.

Ah, yes. That's a different interpretation of the question, sorry. I agree with Coyote on this one. Once or twice a week is fine and definitely do it for the sighting and getting used to the chop of OW. I'd suggest making your long swim each week in the OW as you build up to the 10k. Will you need a paddler for the 10k? If so, make sure you get some training sessions with her/him so you two are in synch on your needs and plans.

Sorry, wasn't really clear in my question! So assuming I get access to a pool soon, the question (okay, group of them) is how much time do I spend doing open water versus regular workouts? Or should I just do normal workouts in the pool, and pull back to doing the 1-2 group open water swims per week?This is my first time ever training in open water; like many others said, before I just trained in a pool and would then race open water. Two thoughts on this: From my understanding, most of the elite/Olympic level 10K OW swimmers do the vast, vast majority of their training in the pool. Part of that might just be access to pools (historically) being easier and safer than OW venues, but I think the main reason is that pacing is so important to them. So, if your aim is to RACE open water, take a tip from the pros and primarily train in the pool. As for me moving forward, I moved to Canada about 18 months ago and discovered, last summer, three interesting things about the masters scene at least here in Ontario: Pretty much no pool meets from June through August, but gobs of open water events all around this province and neighboring Quebec My small (~15 person) masters team actually shuts down (even in pre-COVID times) from late June through mid-September as everyone spends time outside. We don't have any outdoor pools in our community, but are blessed with lots of lakes ... and many of the swimmers on my team are primarily triathletes when it comes to competition. So, this year and in the future, I plan to divert to primarily lake swimming in the summer time, going to pools only when ligthning/timing or other reasons prohibit me getting in a lake. ...Side note....there is a 100M pool I will be able to swim in occasionally. So, if I'm tracking my workouts, is that a "pool" swim, or an "open water" swim :) Really only half kidding...I've swum in Kitsilano Pool in Vancouver which is 137 meters long. They have a couple of "lanes" but no ropes and lots of different speeds of swimmers. While the water is clear like a pool, my swim stroke there and sigthing is like being in open water. I call it open water from a workout style standpoint.

If I had 24/7 access to open water, I'd swim entirely in OW. But I don't. Theoretically, pre-COVID, yes, I guess I do, but a) I'm not yet acclimated to very cold (sub-50F for me) water and b) access on work days is troublesome. I have been in situations where I'd had no access at all. Two years in Kyrgyzstan the only time I swam in open water was when I attempted (2015) and succeeded (2016) in my crossing. Not only that, the pool I had was about 20 feet long, so it was two years of swimming on tethers. But if I could swim OW all the time, I'd do it. Most of my OW sessions are divvied up like this: warm up of 5-10 minutes; series of "intervals" like Kari mentioned above. I really like doing 100 fast, 100 pace, 90 fast, 90 pace...10/10, then back up. Nice cool down of 5-10 minutes. Intermingled in these swims I'll throw in lots of sighting. And if there's lots of waves, I'll change directions a lot to practice breathing into and out of waves. Now, all this is to say: I've never been one who needed to worry about being in the running for top finishes. If I were that fast, I would for sure do a lot of pool training, too. Pre-COVID and for reasons I stated above, I did lots of pool training, and most of that was pace training and intervals. But seriously, I'd swim OW 100% of the time if I could.

Prior to this year, most of my training was in pools (depending how you define Barton Springs I guess :) ), and most of my events were open water. Yea I'd usually end up doing a meet every now and then (last year I did 2), but they are more the exception than the rule. But this year, after pools shut down, I took a ~2 week break to figure out what I was going to do, then jumped into open water. Once the pool near me reopened, I've been back. But I still end up doing open water about once a week. For me there's much more value in open water than just sighting (but that is a good point). You usually can't just stand up and stop whenever you want, or at 25 yards (or 25m/50m). There could be other people/animals in the water with you (some good, some not). Water temperature varies wildly in open water (I just swam in 62F this morning, but had I gone downstream a few miles it would be 80-85F). There are currents, there is chop. I don't think anything prepares me for open water quite like training in open water.

If I had 24/7 access to open water, I'd swim entirely in OW. But I don't. Theoretically, pre-COVID, yes, I guess I do, but a) I'm not yet acclimated to very cold (sub-50F for me) water and b) access on work days is troublesome. I have been in situations where I'd had no access at all. Two years in Kyrgyzstan the only time I swam in open water was when I attempted (2015) and succeeded (2016) in my crossing. Not only that, the pool I had was about 20 feet long, so it was two years of swimming on tethers. But if I could swim OW all the time, I'd do it. Most of my OW sessions are divvied up like this: warm up of 5-10 minutes; series of "intervals" like Kari mentioned above. I really like doing 100 fast, 100 pace, 90 fast, 90 pace...10/10, then back up. Nice cool down of 5-10 minutes. Intermingled in these swims I'll throw in lots of sighting. And if there's lots of waves, I'll change directions a lot to practice breathing into and out of waves. Now, all this is to say: I've never been one who needed to worry about being in the running for top finishes. If I were that fast, I would for sure do a lot of pool training, too. Pre-COVID and for reasons I stated above, I did lots of pool training, and most of that was pace training and intervals. But seriously, I'd swim OW 100% of the time if I could. Sorry, but I get slower by only doing OW even if I keep my training amount. Therefore I'm very concerned when the pools are closed again. My aim is to race 10 - 25 km OW. I need a fixed block and pace clock for me to do USRPT and it's the only set which has brought speed improvement to me week by week.