I ran into someone on Twitter who is about to sign up for her first sprint triathlon. She is a bit apprehensive about the swim portion, as it will not be in a pool. She’s doesn’t have experience with open water swimming.

I’m not a professional by any means, but if I could, I would tell her this…

1. The first rule about swimming in open water is that you should always swim with a partner when going into a lake or ocean – it should never be done alone!
2. Practice in the type of water you’ll be swimming in for the swim leg of the triathlon. Lake? Ocean? River? It’s a very different experience than being in a pool.
3. It’s fairly easy to swim in a straight line in a pool because the lanes are marked, but in an open water swim it’s more difficult. Choose a fixed point to set your sights on so you don’t veer off course. Practice lifting your head forward to sight your fixed point every five strokes or so.
4. Warm up before your swim!

When I did my first triathlon, I was at best a slightly-better-than-average swimmer with very few miles under my belt and absolutely no coaching whatsoever.

My only experience with swimming in open water was essentially bobbing in the ocean or in a lake while on vacations. I asked a friend, who was an experienced triathlete, for her advice, and she suggested I start at the back of my wave. This would put me well away from the frenzy. It sounded like a good plan, as realistically I wasn’t planning to win any portion of the day.

The event was a several-hour drive from my home, so I headed down the night before. I checked out the lake and did a short swim – my only experience swimming in open water prior to the race. (If you’re an experienced open water swimmer, are you rolling your eyes yet?) I got to the course early the next morning and proceeded to swim in the warm up area. It helped to alleviate my pre-race nerves only a little bit.

By the time my wave was called to the start, I felt fairly confident and surprisingly competitive (who knew?!) and I didn’t want to be at the back! I naively tossed aside great advice from someone with much more experience and moved to the front of the pack. Oh my – that was a big mistake. Big Mistake.

The gun went off and my world was utter chaos. People were on top of me, kicking, punching, shoving. The water was black from being completely churned up, not just from my wave, but from the previous 4 waves as well. I was completely and utterly out of my element at that moment. It wasn’t until I rounded the first buoy that I found any sort of rhythm.  By the time I rounded the second buoy, sadly many of the people in my wave were out of the water. There was, however, a lot of elbow room so I really poured on the speed.  (I feel compelled to say I passed seemingly hundreds of folks on the bike, which only slightly eased the pain of my swim performance.)

It was this first open water swim experience that led me to become a US Masters Swimmer. I wanted to continue to compete in triathlons – and I knew I needed to be a better, more confident, more efficient, more experienced swimmer. The benefits of becoming a US Masters Swimmer are too numerous to list here, but let’s just say I’m no longer one of the last people out of the water in my wave. And for the record, I no longer plant myself smack dab in the front of my wave.

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Posted in Open Water Swims Swimming Miscellanea by tracyb 1 Comment