Strategy: Pacing

If you haven’t been training outside of a 25 yard pool, open water pacing will be completely different for you from various sets you may have been doing. Your body is programmed for that break at the wall, and it will let you know that it needs it. When first adapting, drop your pace a little so that this fatigue doesn’t set in so much. After 100-200 yards, build back up one bit at a time until you have your pace by feel.

Exercise: count pacing by strokes- do open water sets in groups of 50-100 strokes or more. Counting methods can vary- to do less counting, stick to a breathing pattern and count each new cycle. Counting 100 cycles of bilateral breathing (3s) would give you 300 strokes

            Example: 100 strokes @ pace, 100 strokes 5% faster,

Practicing longer amounts of pacing in open water is the only way to assure yourself that your goal pace in the pool can apply in race conditions

Strategy: Technique

While your pacing may quickly feel different in open water, your technique can fall apart much faster than you realize. I love showing swimmers how fast they curve in open water or in blind swims when they think that they’re right on in a 25 yard pool.  In your first few training swims, add drills for variety to your swim. Like pacing, do drills in stroke numbers. Many swimmers start to flatten out their strokes, kick too much, keep their heads too high, and lay their hands on the water instead of slicing. In addition to doing drills, do sets of 25-50 strokes focusing on these problems one at a time

Most swimmers don’t realize how addicted to the pool they are for technique. In the pool, part of your stroke may draw you off course, but you see this and your body reacts with a counteraction to straighten you out. This may keep you following that black line, but it expends extra energy for no speed gain.

Strategy: Sighting

There are two basic ways to do sighting, and you’ll hear advocates of each method. One method is to sight following a breath, rolling the head forward and then down into position after a sight. This method leads more often into a drop of the leading arm out of front quadrant position, and the swimmer gets back into their stroke rhythm later as a result

Sight immediately before your breath and roll smoothly to breathe on the side. Make sure that you roll your head to the side so that it returns to proper position with the next stroke. Any independent head actions in the water take a lot of extra work and can lead to neck or back soreness and injury.

Common problems:      A sight that leads into the breath has potential to pull the swimmer off course.

Strategy: race place and turns

Newer and slower swimmers may want to swim on the outside of the pack in order to get a little more "clean" water. If your stroke takes a lot of focus, swimming in the middle of the thrashing mass is not a good idea. For many, this is the best way to pass, also. Stay a little wider on the turns and avoid earlier waves, congestion, and swimmers who can’t find their way around the buoy.

Drafting

Drafting takes practice, and it shouldn’t be done unless you can do it without overshooting your pace and frustrating the swimmer in front of you.

Where to draft:

Immediately behind a swimmer, so that your longest stroke is just shy of her/his toes.

Slightly to the left or right of the above position, and perhaps 6" or a foot back

Swimmers also get almost as much draft power about 5 feet back of a swimmer.

Drafting takes care- if they sight and slow for a second, you’d better be ready to slow up. Some swimmers purposefully stick a leg in the face of the person behind them in order to get rid of them. Make sure to practice polite drafting with training groups.

Strategy: Entry

When running into the water, have your course planned. Try ahead of time to see where dolphining is a good idea. Be ready for dropoffs and clear any rocks or other debris out of your way. Run with legs recovering to the side until you’re ready to dolphin.

Dolphining

Like some other advanced skills in triathlons, dolphining can drop significant time in the right conditions but is also more often than not done correctly. A proper dolphin starts with a dive to the bottom in long, streamlined form. The arms can be a little loose, but not wider than the shoulders. Glide along the bottom, and use your arms for a single pull back into a position at your sides. Sneak one leg up at this time, and push off with a track start into an upward arc. When breaking the water recover the arms in a butterfly or inward sweep motion, take your breath, and arc back down into the next glide in one motion.

Common problems:         Many swimmers don’t put their head down into the glide, so they flatten out in the dolphin

                                    Glide as long as you have good speed- no shorter, and no longer

                        Don’t think that you get to stop and wait for each breath.

What to Sight and Sun Swims

Every one of you will face races where the course is set up to go into the sun for a few hundred yards. If you haven’t trained to this before, this can pull you even more off course

First, have sets of goggles for both cloudy and sunny conditions- your model should come in multiple colors. Judge ahead of time what you’ll be needing. In practice, sun swims force you to depend on things other than course lines or buoys to sight. Some examples include:

Caps- follow the line of caps toward the buoy. This won’t be as high to the skyline as any landmarks. If you’re in a later wave, this could be a significant sighting line.

Boats- if you notice ahead of time that some boats are not moving on the course, see if any of these line up slightly in line with your destination

Sunlines- under the water, notice the rays that the sun creates. These angles won’t change unless you change your direction. You can accurately sight with practice using these.